Riding a motorcycle is one of the greatest thrill rides you can experience this side of strapping yourself to a rocket or flying a plane. What’s not so exciting is when you get into a situation where you have to back your bike up. If you’re lucky, you’re on flat ground and it’s no big deal. But if you have to back it up an incline, it’s super awkward at best — and at worst you may hurt yourself as a machine weighing hundreds of pounds falls on top of you. It’s high time all new motorcycles came with reverse.
Now, before I continue, I’ll be quick to note that this isn’t exactly a new idea. A number of motorcyclists have been saying the same thing over the years. My former colleagues at Jalopnik published their own take on this back in July.
However, I’ve been on the fence about this. I’ve been riding for over six years and have owned over 30 motorcycles. There has rarely been a time when I shook my fist at the clouds, damning motorcycle manufacturers for not including reversers of some kind. I’ve always sort of thought that you could easily avoid the problem of not having reverse by just planning ahead.
Then, last weekend came around. On Saturday, my parents asked me to move my 2012 Volkswagen Jetta SportWagen TDI and my 2005 Triumph Rocket III out of their garage so they could grab some stuff to take to a flea market. Alright, that sounds super easy, barely an inconvenience, right? Sure enough, the Triumph fired right up, all 140 horses and 147 torques throbbing, waiting to destroy some blacktop. I then took it for a short ride before returning back to base.
The Jetta also fired up with ease and I moved it into the driveway, clearing up a ton of space. While I was okay with leaving the Jetta outside, I wanted to put the Triumph back into the garage. Specifically, I wanted to park the bike with its right side against the wall. There’s some logic to this. My brother frequently brings his kids over to my parents’ house and they often climb over things they shouldn’t. I don’t want an 800-pound British muscle bike crushing a nephew, so parking it with its right side against a wall means it cannot accidentally be tipped over.
Now, I didn’t get a picture because of everything that was going on, but my Triumph and Jetta live on the left side of this garage while the smarts live on the right side. The Saturn now lives in my warehouse:
Unfortunately for me, the only open wall space left required me to back the heavy beast into the garage. But hey, I’ve done it before so I thought nothing of it.
Honestly, I’m not even sure what happened but about a minute into backing the bike up one of my feet slipped. I couldn’t recover my balance and the bike came down, throwing me directly onto my back. Now, I’m built like a 1982 Mercedes-Benz 300D, so I fished myself out from under the motorcycle, brushed myself off, and muscled the machine back onto its side stand. The bike gained a scratch on its brightwork, but that’s it. I finished wheeling it into the garage and went on with my day.
I came out worse for wear than the bike. On Sunday, I felt a bit of a weird tingle where I landed on my back. By Sunday night, this became full-blown excruciating pain. If a doctor showed me one of those pain charts with the faces, I would have shredded it in combined anger, fear, and sadness. I hadn’t felt pain like this before and it practically stopped me from functioning like an adult.
The only reason I was able to get any stories published on Monday was that I took the maximum dose of a generic pain reliever all in one go. Tuesday was another interesting day as I had a press event in Tennessee. The pills wore off and the pain came back with a vengeance. I had to apologize to folks for my visibly distressed demeanor. I wasn’t mad, just beaten! Sadly, this continued through Wednesday and finally, today is the day I can say that my pain is down to about a one or two on the scale. Tomorrow, I probably won’t feel any pain at all.
Still, I come back to remembering that I’ve been through a lot in the past couple of weeks. First I put gashes in my left hand after eating gravel while trying to take this picture of a train:
Then I slammed my left eye into something and I looked like I lost a fight. If that wasn’t enough, I started bleeding from a place that’s a bit too unsafe for work to write here.
Dropping the Triumph destroyed me for a whole four days. I cannot imagine what it would have done to someone who, unlike me, isn’t 200-plus pounds of pizza and sushi—my wife, for instance. Having a reverse gear would have prevented the misery.
But that’s an extreme case. Not everyone is dropping a 2.3-liter muscle bike on themselves. Still, if you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle before you know what it’s like to back your ride up a slope. It’s terrible regardless if you’re on a little 400, a Harley-Davidson Street Glide, or an Indian Challenger. Scooter riders and Honda Grom owners are probably a bit smug right now because those are just about the only two-wheelers that are easy to roll anywhere.
The Solution
Thankfully, the solution already exists and has for years.
In fact, Harley-Davidson first started offering a reverse gear back in 1931 on the VL. For a more recent motorcycle, Honda offered reverse in 1988 starting with the Gold Wing GL1500 (that’s the bike in the top graphic). The Honda Valkyrie was also offered with reverse in Japanese models. Over here at home, Harley’s big trikes also have reverse, as do Can-Am’s trikes.
What I’m getting at is that reverse isn’t all that rare, but it tends to be offered on the most porky of motorcycles. What’s pretty neat is that for gas-powered bikes, reversing systems often just consist of a starter-like motor running through a Rube Goldbergian sequence to eventually drive a gear to move the bike backward.
Electric motorcycles have given reversing to the masses. Once you use an electric motorcycle’s reverse function you’ll immediately realize how helpful a reverser would be with almost every motorcycle, not just chunky tourers. The 2023 Zero DSR/X that I’ve been testing for a year and two months has a reverse function and it has been a game-changer.
All I have to do is hit the kill switch, hit the bike’s menu, select Parking Mode, put the switch back into Run, and then I’m off to the (backward) races. It’s super simple, takes no effort, and the torquey electric motor pulls the bike out of any weird spot I put it into. Remember those GEICO commercials that said getting a quote is “so easy, a caveman could do it”? I’m pretty sure a poodle can handle this. The solution to my back pain is right there with a flick of a switch.
Yet, not even every electric motorcycle has a reverse function. Remember how Harley-Davidson built a $30,000 electric motorcycle and then later spun the bike off into its own brand? Yeah, so the LiveWire One may cost a slightly more palatable $22,799 today, but it still doesn’t have a reverse.
On one hand, I get it. Most people with something like a Yamaha R3 aren’t going to have that much trouble, so Yamaha doesn’t need to spend the money for the extra complexity. On the other hand, I would argue that the majority of motorcycles on the American market could be using horsepower or electricity for reversing rather than foot power.
So, motorcycle manufacturers. For my back and every exhausted biker out there, pretty much all new bikes should have reverse!
Back it up Terry.
From page 15 of the sales booklet High Mileage Vehicles: A New Technology concerning the legally-a-motorcycle HMV Freeway:
The fundamental problem with all of this, however, is that HMV never actually got around to designing a reverse drive for any of the Freeways. It was nonetheless listed as a $75 option for the base model and as standard for the deluxe model on the “Engine Powered” version of the order form. I don’t have a copy of the electric order form.
By the way, I’ve never heard anyone call the Freeway the “Freeway II” outside of the context of some of the factory documentation. Dave Edmonson built a single prototype of noticeably different design before settling on the production version. Other than that one example, which still exists, every other Freeway is apparently actually a Freeway II, or, if you prefer, Free-Way II. This isn’t specified consistently, either.
Pro tip for back recovery: Resting and sitting allows your leg muscles to tighten, which puts pressure on your injured back when you start moving again.(Spasms!) Consider some stretches which target your leg muscles, maybe in the morning and when you’ve been sitting for a while. Specifically stretch your hamstrings and calves. One muscle wraps around the outside of the femur (abductor longus?), which can also put pressure on your back muscles.
Good luck! Good habits after your first back injury can really help you for the rest of your life. After my first back injury, I was given bad medical advice by an aged doctor, so I know that good info isn’t always obvious.
I absolutely love this phrase.
I own a 1982 Mercedes-Benz 300td. The car and I are the same age, and I must say we are aging very similarly. I might have slightly less fluid leakage, but we both make a lot of noises.
I loved those cars! That five-cylinder diesel idle is so distinctive. The W123 and W124 models were peak Mercedes in my opinion.
Aged just over 60 put my back out for the first time, moving a bit of tractor hydraulics. Used to think people made up bad backs to get out of work…
Strongly recommend going to a chiropractor, or other bone setter as well as to the doctor for some powerful anti-inflammatories. Other wise it gets a bit better, plateaus, and then only improves very slowly. And look up Cow and Cat yoga stretches…
Doctor’s X rays showed a “slight flattening of the spine’s curve.” Hate to see a fuller flattening.
I get the point, and especially with electrics it should be a feature as most likely it’s already available in the motor controller the maker just has to add the button.
But, counterpoint, when taking the MSF course they emphasize that riding a motorcycle takes physical effort and being in decent enough shape to handle the bike is part of the safety. FortNine even had a video on this a few weeks back.
My bike is over 800lbs, but I do have crash bars so if it does go down it doesn’t go down far, but I’m also a big dude so got plenty of legs and am used to moving a couple hundred pounds around all the time so can handle the bike fairly well. Also it was my dad’s who was about half a foot shorter than me, and he had it lowered, but I can remember when I got my V-Star 650, and he sat on it and both feet firmly planted on the ground he kind of had this look like huh…, he just fit it so much better. I’ve replaced the shocks on my tourer so it’s back to stock height but again, I can handle the height ok.
Not saying everyone shouldn’t have a Honda Rune if they don’t want, but from a safety perspective people should ride what they can comfortably handle, not just from a power perspective but also from a size perspective. A sportster weighs 300lbs less than a tourer, and metrics under 600cc are around another 100lbs less than that, and a GSX-R 600 will still go plenty fast.
Absolutely. As I said earlier, I picked that Triumph back up, brushed myself off, and went on with my day. I also subscribe to the idea of buying what I can pick up, or can figure out how to get back on two wheels again. I couldn’t pick up my old Triumph Tiger 955i, but I did carry come-a-longs and other tools so that I could essentially winch it back up. Actually used the come-a-longs once when I came back to my bike after a swim and it was on the ground almost upside-down. Looked like the stand sank into gravel and over it went.
Anyway, I also think of the fact that so many motorcycles are gaining features that are unnecessary, but are nice to have. The last BMW I rode had adaptive cruise control! I think this could fall into the same category. Sure, I don’t absolutely need a reverse, but I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t pay a little extra for that peace of mind, you know?
Edit: Added context.
Yeah sorry to the main point of the article, reverse would definitely be a nice to have, heck more dct automatics would even be nice, especially for the tourers. To JDE’s point about hill start, not an issue with an automatic.
My wife tried taking the MSF and had an…experience, but said she’d be open to trying again if she didn’t have to figure out the left hand green right foot blue maneuvers, and she drove manual cars for years so it’s not a how to clutch thing, just a, my foot does what and which hand does what now? thing.
I would like to see starter bike have hill control, that is the most annoying thing to watch a newb on a bike do is try to take off on a hill.
Haven’t all bikes had that, since the foot brake was invented? 😉
breaks in general yes, but even cars with manual trans and DCT’s have had hill control options currently or in the past. Newbies seem to have all sort of trouble working the breaks while slipping the clutch to gain forward momentum it seems. I suppose it would be worse if you were like Mercedes and short and on a really heavy geezer glide.
Hill control on a manual gear car is the handle behind the gear stick 😉
Eh, using the E-Brake for a novice driver on a hill just results in stalling if it is holding the car on the hill. lots of them now seem to be electronically controlled to avoid that once the car actually starts going forward.
Not to sound like a grumpy old man, but those are skills that a newbie motorcyclist should really be learning and so their struggles, though hard to watch, will make them better riders and open up more rides as approachable.
which goes back to requiring motorcycle safety course to get a license is a good thing I feel like.
Been riding motorcycles for 21 years and never felt the need for it, not even with my sidecar bikes. But I guess something simple like a caravan mover could help some people.
I think I am probably in the same boat as you, however I am kind of anti-bagger, and I am tall enough that I can get some leverage even on the big cruisers.
It really depends on the weight of the bike. My current bikes are a Road Glide (840 lbs.) and a Monkey (230 lbs.). I would never use a reverse gear on the Monkey, but it would be nice on the Road Glide. Backing that bike out of the garage is annoying. Backing that bike up a slight incline feels dangerous, even for a large person like me.
I could see reverse being less necessary on a bike with a sidecar since effort isn’t required to keep it upright. I find it considerable easier to push my ’76 Beetle out of the garage than to walk my Road Glide out of the garage while balancing it.
I went straight to the comments to disagree, but halfway down I remembered the last time I had to turn around on a narrow forrest track with minor drops on both sides.
My bike is only 180kg packed and I nearly got myself stranded.
My E-bike has a permanent speed walk button. Something like that should not be to hard to implement, only in reverse and while in neutral.
Just googled my own suggestion, and a geared (planetary gears) hub motor, in either hub, would be just the thing.
I found myself in a similar situation on a Suzuki V-Strom 1000. It’s 236 kg/520 lbs, and backing it up uphill until the trail got wide enough to turn around was probably the most physically taxing activity I have ever engaged in. I also had a Honda Gold Wing 1800. Ironically, it had a reversing capability, but I never had to use it. A trail narrowing and coming to an end, hidden by foliage is one thing. Diagonal parking nose down on a crowned street is much easier to avoid.
I’ve struggled to back up my 220kg ZX7R having parked it facing down a slight slope. So now I always plan to park it facing up a slope.
Would a reverse gear be handy? Yes, somtimes. Does my big heavy race-rep need even more weight? Probably not.
However what I definitely don’t need is a mechanical reverse gear connected to an ICE. Having the ability to go faster than waddling pace is going to make me fall off at some point. Reverse gears should only be electric.
I’ve seen bike mechanics do a neat trick where they spin a bike around 180 degrees balanced on the side stand. It doesn’t help if you’re next to a wall, but it’d help in a parking space.
If not by adding weight and cost, OK, I would appreciate it…
Not sure why people are being weird about, a reverse gear on any larger bike would be a great thing. Not all of us are tall or beefy enough to be able to pull/push our bikes up a decent hill if things should not go to plan, and even if we can it’s not a nice thing to do in full gear on a 40 celcius day. My Triumph Bonnie isn’t super heavy and I can pull it around well enough but I’d still appreciate having a reverse on it for those edge case situations.
I know, right? The threshold to my ancient garage is like 1″ high bump and having to walk it backwards over it commonly requires a bit of rocking back and forth to build up a bit of momentum to carry me over. Do I need a reverse gear? No, certainly not. Does every bike need it? No. Would I pay much for one? Not a lot; but a little.
And I say this as a fit middle aged guy who rides a relatively light Street Triple.
Criminy, you had a tough few days! Is your back any better?
As of today I’m feeling great! Ok, well, I’m sad because someone stole a sweet custom nixie tube watch I bought online. But physically, I’m back! Apologies to Mr. Mike Levine for hobbling all over his press event on Tuesday.
Glad to hear your back is back! I’m surprised though, whenever I mess up my back it tends to linger a while so take it as easy as you can.
Curses to the thief, may the wrath of the nixies bring him/her/them only sorrow.
I’ve had around eight motorcycles (lost track) and have been riding for more than 30 years. If the bike NEEDS a reverse gear it’s not really a bike, but more a flying couch. If you NEED a reverse gear, at the very least that ain’t the bike for you. I’m biased, for sure, but this is what has worked for me.
Would your opinion be the same for a 70 year old dude who simply might not have the strength (or desire) to walk a bike backwards up a slight slope? Or should that guy just give up riding all together?
This gatekeeping is weird.
If it was me I’d just get a smaller bike.
He made his opinion clear: that if that 70 year old dude can’t back up his 800lb Gold Wing, that’s not the bike for him and he should get a lighter bike. Which is not an unreasonable thing to have to do.
If you’re so old and frail that you can’t back up a Grom, then yes, you absolutely should give up riding altogether.
Also, I agree with the sentiment that you shouldn’t NEED reverse gear. I am not opposed to reverse gear being available as a luxury option, but I 100% agree that you shouldn’t ride any bike that you lack the physical strength to maneuver.
Why is everyone assuming it’s an 800 lbs Goldwing? I don’t think people realize–especially non-riders–how hard it can be to physically back up a motorcycle that has a tall seat when you are fighting even the smallest of inclines.
Something like a T700 is very light (452 lbs wet), but can be very hard to back up given the circumstances.
But again, the whole idea that you should get a smaller bike just because you can’t back it up seems very odd. Skilled riders can go months and even years or regular riding without once having to back it up. The only time I back up my motorcycle is to tuck it away in my extremely packed and tightly organized garage. Other than that, I haven’t back it up in years. I can turn around in a parking space or two.
No they shouldn’t.
For BEV motorcycles it makes sense since it is not a separate gear. For ICE motorcycles if your motorcycle needs a reverse gear I’d argue it’s too damn heavy to be a motorcycle.
Nonsense. I don’t ride motorcycles the size of minivans, so I have zero need for a reverse gear. I don’t want to pay for a reverse gear, I don’t want the extra weight of a reverse gear, and I don’t want the extra size of a reverse gear.
Do not want.
I think reverse is only needed on large heavy motorcycles, which is why the first modern bike with reverse was the 800 lb Gold Wing. For that matter classic Harleys only had reverse on sidecars and trikes.
In over 30 years riding a BMW Airhead, I’ve never felt the need for reverse. I did know a K100RT rider whose “reverse gear” was his wife who would jump off and push
I like featherweight dual sports and any extraneous feature is a negative from me (weight + stuff to break) but I can’t say I’d be upset to be able to have a way to reverse after getting stuck on some awful golfball-sized-rock filled trail with no traction.
How does an electric bike not reversible? Can’t they just send the electricity backwards or something?
Just gotta have a switch for conventional theory/electron flow theory.
Bet it would work.
Just gotta swap the cables!
A useful feature that should have trickled down from the big ultra tourers some time ago. Bikes are just so tight in weight and packaging the manufacturers have ignored it, but I’m sure that similar experiences to Mercedes’ here have led to a lot of people giving up riding.
I believe the Goldwing’s mechanism actually is the bike’s starter motor (i.e. not a discrete system). That probably saves some weight.
Most of my bikes (including the 600) have low seat heights so maneuvering them is pretty easy, but even with the smaller ones I find it’s quicker to dismount and park.
In b4 take if for a test drive and you will agree!
I wished they had them for easier swaps into lightweight cars. I don’t know why any EV bike wouldn’t have it.
I don’t know what you hurt, but it might be worth getting it checked out, especially if it’s your back as I’ve had several family members who didn’t realize the damage they did to their back was worse than it seemed at the time (though they were more continually hurting their backs than a single event). I say that as someone older who learned this kind of thing the hard way and it saved me an operation for appendicitis (at least for now!) just this year.
So I had been riding for years, and I went to back my bike into my garage, when my buddy stopped me. He told me I was doing it wrong- you don’t back a bike up while *on* the bike, you get off and grab the bike’s handlebars with the front tire between your legs. He had learned that from the old timers while working at a Harley dealership.
Also, completely off topic, but your G500 smart reminded me- you planning on hitting the MO or Southern Indiana Gambler this year? The Eagle is getting a 4.0 transplant, and my goal is to be ready for MO.
An AMC Eagle?! With a 4 liter?! Hell yeah man!
That’s actually a step down in displacement from the stock 258/4.2.
Lots of people do the swap, because it’s a significant improvement in power and economy.
Yup! Since the 4.0 is the direct descendant of the 4.2, it’s a *fairly* easy swap. I complicated thing by apparently buying a donor Cherokee with a cracked exhaust… So that’ll be my Sunday repair before I stick it in.
As Rust Buckets mentioned, this should be a big step up in power. I’ll be going from 110 hp to 190+hp. Plus fuel injection! If I had a wagon instead of the SX/4, I’d have brought the AW4 trans over with the engine, which would give me OD. I already swapped in an NP231, so it already has 4 low.
Next upgrade after the engine swap? New gears. They mostly came factory with 2.35 gear ratio… But I know of a junkyard nearby with a set of 3.08 gears. Should take my overall ratio from a meager 15:1 to 20:1. That’s nothing on a true off-road monster, but it should mean I have the ability to go up a steep hill without sitting on the torque converter stall!
That’s awesome dude! It’s awesome to hear about an old Eagle being reborn, no matter what it is!
There’s a surprisingly active couple pages on FB, and they’re amazing- supportive of whatever build people are doing, be it restos, solid axle swaps, restomods, gamblers, or even a TDI diesel swap.
Yes it’s a PITA. Mostly because I’m trying to pull the bars backwards, leaning off-balance, whilst steering rather than more easily push them.
But No, I’m not prepared to pay for the cost (or privilege) to add reverse by a starter-motor-gear-reduction. Admittedly my porkiest ride is closer to 500lb than the 800lb British gorilla in your garage.
But on an EV? This sounds like it should be near-free.
I usually stand on the side. Left hand on bar for direction, right hand on seat pushing.