Great question...and so many answers...some good advice, and some DEFINETLY NOT good advice for a beginner.

Honda250X:
Being a beginner, DO NOT ATTEMPT really big hill climbs yet....I am serious.

Start with small hills of any steepness. I say this because you need to teach yourself what you can handle and what your particular quad can do in an emergency situation like this.

A utility (4x4) quad can recover very easily from a stalled hill-climb. A high-perf quad can also recover, but ONLY by an advanced rider.

But an "entry-level" quad like yours may not have enuff sack if you attempt to climb a steep hill and lose traction/momentum. Once you start rolling backwards, the front brakes WILL NOT DO MUCH to slow you down (depending on surface type/conditions).

So, it is at this moment you need to decide if you are going to attempt to ride the quad down the hill--and if you do, depending on the size of the hill, you WILL reach VERY FAST SPEEDS, and trying to control a quad in this kind of predicament is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. Sometimes the best thing you can do, to save yourself a trip to the hospital, is to jump FAR away from the quad and let it go....and pray for it (instead of praying for the both of you).

Blah blah blah.

My point: You need to stick to VERY small hills and practice/learn what to do in these kinds of emergencies. In other words, purposely lose momentum on the upside of small inclines, and see what you need to do to recover, and ultimately, the limits of your quad.

As an advanced rider, you will know when this is going to happen, and what to do to either make it, or bail.

Until then, take it easy, learn the ropes, and soon enough, you'll be launching up ANY HILL, roosting the whole way up....

Peace Brother.

 

One other thing:

If when you lose momentum, and start sliding backwards, and chose to try to ride it down, 2 VERY IMPORTANT things to remember:

1/ Locking up the rear brake could (very easily) result in flipping the quad over--right on top of you.

2/ Locking up the front brakes will not slow you down much, if at all, **AND** you do lose the ability to steer the quad if the front brakes are locked up.

practice makes somewhat perfect.
Like some other guy said, every hillclimb is different.

 

HAHAHAHA. All the peaple I ride with,including myself, when we get in a situation like thisa we just jump off. Whatever happens to the qaud happnes. I would rather get new bars and a grab bar than have broken bones. If you do jump off be sure to get the hell out of the way of the qaud!!!! Once when I used the "bail" method the quad was barely moving yet so I thought i could stop it. Nope. It rolled right over me but luckily I didnt get hurt.250rampage can vouch for me when I saw thses hills are very near straight up and rock and very long. So it would seem that none of these other methods would do nothing but put yourself in danger.

 

Well, I can't tell you what to do but I can tell you what not to do. I was in a group of 4 (I was on my 300ex). Two very experienced guys on 650 or 600 honda dirt bikes were in front, another guy behind me on a 300 Kawasaki bike. It was a little wet out but I had my Realtors on so I had plenty of traction. I was following them and they started going up this pretty big hill. I really couldn't see the top of it cause the sun was on the crest of the hill making it very hard to look up towards the top. The bottom of the hill was fine, plenty of speed (just about flat out in 2nd) and traction. Well this is a long hill, little farther up I noticed my front end getting light, so I leaned into it more. Hill was getting even more steep, I leaned more. Now my front end is getting really light and I'm leaning my a** off and I'm still not at the top!!! Next thing I know my front end comes up and my feet come off the footpegs and I am just hanging on the handle bars. I think they call it a superman. So now I'm screwed, my front brakes aren't doing sh*t cause my weight distribution is about 1/99 f/r. And I can't reach the rear brake cause my feet are dangling off the back. I've got the clutch pulled in and the motor is still running. If I let the clutch out it'll surely flip on me. Now my quad starts rolling backwards. The trail isn't that wide (fairly wooded area). I can't look back but I just now remembered that my friend on his Kawasaki is charging full bore right behind me. He throws his bike down and just barely dives between me and a tree. Just before my bike starts getting a lot of speed my left rear smacks into a tree. This is just barely enough to bring me to a stop. If I was just another foot to the left it would of pinched me between the rear bumper and the tree. The engine never stalled and I never got a scratch on the bike. I won't do that again. Morale of the story: Don't climb the D*MN hill if you don't know what you are getting into

 

As some people have stated before, There are alot of different variables in any given hill climb. I have flipped my bike on the smallest of hills, Yet managed to back my way down a near verticle with no complications. I have always felt the need to save my machine, Its part of the family you know.. However above all, My own, and my fellow riders, safety is a priority. I would rather watch my bike bounce down a hill than injure myself or a friend. If I can hold the bike, I will, If I cant, I let it go.. If there was any set "rules" to follow I think I would feel safe saying these..

1. Stop the bike if possible, Dig the tires in a bit if its a small hill. Use all your brakes, lean as far uphill as safe to do so, not to much as on steeper hills this will cause you to push the bike downhill..
2. If the bike starts to roll, Get off to the uphill side, If the nose is up, get off to the right side so you can still use your brakes.
3. If the bike still rolls, or you feel you cannot get it down the hill, yell "watch out" or something to warn anyone at the bottom, and then let it go.
4. If you feel confident that you can take the machine down, Best of luck to you. Remember it is safest to walk beside or drag yourself infront of the machine, This way if it does get out of control, you can just let it go.

This, unfortunatly, does not apply to all hill climbs, but seems to be a good guidline for the less steep hills. For those really steep ones, Its a good time to take up a religion, 'cause you better pray.
Hillclimbing is an aquired skill, It takes time and mistakes to be good at it, Anyone who is good at it undoubtably has a few scars. Truely the best advise to be given in respect to all riding is, Is if you dont think you can, you shouldn't try.

 

!THIS IS NOT MENT TO CRITICIZE OR SNAP OR PUT DOWN ANYONE!!
Just For A General Understanding so you guys know where i'm coming from, I am 17 yrs. old. I have been riding atv's since i was 8. My name "Honda205X" is the result of a typo...it was supposed to be "Honda250X" but i typed it too fast and hit enter too quickly. Anyway you guessed it, i'm riding a 91' 250X, my newest project. Anyway, i consider myself an experienced rider.
one time on a poker run while riding my dad's polaris x-polrer 300 4X4, a spokesman from polaris told me that he saw me make that x-plorer do things that he didn't thing their scrambler could do...so please, at least please give me a little credit.
Thanks to all who replied to this topic.. i received so many great answers. Just if anyone was wondering, the method of jumping off and bear hugging the tire...it does work, and quite well too, but i don't plan to make a habit of doing it.
I rode the x-plorer for 4 or so years, so i wasn't used to stalling on hills, all i had to do was balence my weight and keep the throtle pinned and the bike would crawl up anything...i mean anything, and it was only rolled 1 time..a stupid mistake on my part.
but anyway....i bought this 250X last fall and i'm just now getting to put a lot of time into it and riding, it's a blast,and i love it, but i had to use a new approach to hill climbs because just punching the gas wouldn't exactly work. So i had to experiment with some new methods, and wsa just wondering what all of you guys do.
I would like to give a !!THANKS!! to everyone who replied to this forum. You all were very informative!!

 

Just thought I would add my 2 pennies in on this subject.

I don't think you can have a right or wrong answer on what to do when you get on a hill and the quad stops. Its all depends on the situation. In most cases I have found that if the quad stops and doesn't start flipping over immediately, and you are on dry ground, that a combination of reverse, front brakes, and rear brakes are the most helpful. For some people on different types of quads grabbing the front break and jumping off to flip the quad aroung might work best, but I only see that working on a quad with a hand operated clutch, not an automatic clutch.

I've been on a quad before in the middle of winter, and tried climb this short but steep bank, and of course soon as the front tires crested the hill the quad spins out. What do you do in this situation? Brakes won't help, jumping off and grabbing it won't help. Its a decision to bale off and let it go or stick with it. In my case I stayed on and as the quad was spinning it was sliding sideways along the top edge of the bank and luckily the front fender was up far enough to get hooked on a small tree. When the quad stopped on the tree if gave my friend time to run up and pull me on up over the edge. Scary time.

Some hills are just to steep to stop on, and I've always found it better to damage a quad instead of myself.