So, you’ve got your off-road bike picked out — maybe you want to hit the trails with a Yamaha WR250F, or maybe we’ve convinced you that the Ténéré 700 is the perfect middleweight adventure bike.

Off-road riding looks like chaos from the outside—dust clouds, flying rocks, and bikes going sideways—but most crashes aren’t because the trail is out to kill you. They happen because riders, even ...