Don’t be intimidated by Basiji motorcycle attacks. If you can slow down the motorcycles with obstacles, caltrops or people and overwhelm them one by one, you can disable them quickly by cutting the drive chain. This is the chain that transfers the power of the engine to drive the rear wheel.
The Basij biker will be left helpless and isolated.
As the photo shows, most Basij motorcycles are lightweight, with the chains exposed and vulnerable. When the motorcycles are stopped, slowed for crowd control, or overwhelmed by the people, the chains are easy to cut with a simple pair of bolt cutters.
There is a trick to doing it without getting attacked, but the user should keep in mind that the heavy-duty bolt cutters make a handy defensive weapon when used as a shield to parry blows from a baton, or when used as a club.
Every group of 100 demonstrators should include at least one person with a pair of long-handled bolt cutters. The demonstrators can overwhelm the motorcycle while the person with the bolt cutters can disable it completely.
See the video below of a 2009 protest in Iran, in which the crowd downed a Basij biker with a tiny barricade of rubble. The Basiji ran away. In the last few seconds of the video, another downed Basiji can be seen recovering his motorcycle. This scene looks like a good instances of where bolt cutters could have taken out at least two motorcycles:
