How to Safely Carry Extra Fuel on a Dirt Bike

While you are out there taking long rides on your dirt bike, you may need to carry extra fuel in case you run out and need to refill your tank. Storing extra gas can be hazardous if you don’t do it properly. So, make sure that you are transporting the potentially dangerous fuel in a safe manner to avoid any nasty accidental explosions. Make sure that the items you buy to store it in have been tested and approved by dirt bike riders, ensuring that accidents don’t happen. The three best and safest ways you have of carrying that extra fuel are as follows: a high capacity desert tank, fuel bottles carried within a holster strapped to your dirt bike, and inside a saddle bag carried on the plastic tail portion of your dirt bike.

High Capacity Desert Gas Tank

The factory installed gas tanks which dirt bikes come with tend to be quite small, with the majority of them having a capacity to carry 2 gallons or under, the aim of the small gas tanks being to keep down the weight and bulk of the dirt bike, making it conform to the way it is advertised. However, a considerable number of dirt bike riders switch these small gas tanks out for larger ones, ones with considerably higher capacities, capacities of up to and over 4 gallons of fuel. This allows them to store extra fuel in their dirt bikes in a very safe manner.

Fuel Bottles

Fuel bottles are another excellent choice when it comes to transporting extra gas safely. As usual, you can buy good quality bottles for this purpose from Amazon. I recommend their MSR fuel bottles. They are made out of metal, protecting the bottles from punctures. They are easy to open, requiring only a push and a twist. The bottles are also leak-proof, preventing any accidents from occurring, a cost effective and cheap solution to your fuel storing needs.

Store Your Fuel Bottles in a Saddle Bag for Safety

Saddle bags are a great way to safely store your fuel bottles. Many saddle bags come with separate compartments for holding fuel bottles. This saddle bag with a bottle holder from Amazon is especially designed to store fuel bottles on motorcycles. It goes on the left side of the bike on the swing arm. It is an excellent choice when it comes to storing your extra fuel, as it can easily be carried on your dirt bike without getting in the way.

Holsters to Store Fuel Bottles

If you’re not willing to spend that little bit extra on saddle bags to store gas for your dirt bikes in, you may consider buying a holster to do the job for you at a cheaper rate. You can store the same MSR bottles in the holster instead. There are lots of good quality holsters available on the market, some coming with plenty of attachments and straps, making them easy to affix to your dirt bike. Some people simply store their holsters underneath their handlebars, along their gas tanks, sideways, an ideal location, where they don’t get in the rider’s way.

How not to Carry Extra Fuel

There are a few ways that you should positively not store spare gas because of how unsafe they are.

First of all, never wear the extra gas on your person. If you’re storing your spare gas in your jacket, vest, hip pack, waist pack or back pack, you are definitely doing something wrong; the gas doesn’t belong there; there is a risk of it spilling on your person, sparking, and catching on fire. And trust me, you do not want to have to remove fuel that’s caught on fire from your person! Just avoid doing it.

Don’t store more fuel than you need. Store only as much as you need. Going overboard with how much you store is a bad idea. Storing spare fuel entails an element of risk.

Make sure that you store your extra fuel in containers that are fully sealed and are not going to leak. If the containers don’t seal the fuel properly, or if they can leak, the safety hazards are simply too great to tolerate.

In order to store your fuel use only those containers that have been designed for the purpose. Don’t use containers that have not been specifically designed for the purpose. You may run into some websites out there that recommend storing fuel in soda bottles, used bleach bottles, or Gatorade bottles. Recognize the folly of such advice for what it is by using common sense. Using these kinds of containers is extremely hazardous.

The extra fuel you store is likely to go bad if you leave it stored between rides in containers. Don’t do it.

It is shocking how unsafely some people store their fuel. There is a video on the internet of a man who stored spare gas in plastic vials, affixing these vials to his vest when he started to move around on his dirt bike, resembling a suicide bombing terrorist. Needless to say, this was an extremely reckless way of carrying around the fuel, one that could have resulted in an extremely painful death for the person concerned. All that was needed was for the fuel to spark; one tiny spark, and that could have been the end of him. Having that image in my mind makes me want to reiterate emphatically that one should never wear fuel on one’s person, whether it be on one’s vest or in one’s backpack. I strongly believe that the fuel must always be stored safely in a separate pouch and placed somewhere on a dirt bike and never on the rider him/herself.