Let's Ride Page 18

  BRAKING PRACTICE

  ONE OF THE MOST dangerous situations in which you can find yourself is one in which you’ve locked up your brakes. At that point your tires have zero traction and the slightest twitch or sneeze or even blink on your part will put you down on the ground. The best you can hope for is a low-side, which is a crash where you just lay the bike down without flipping it over, but you’re just as likely to go over the high side.

  To avoid locking up your brakes, you need to know the traction limits of your bike, and the only way to really find out where those limits are is to test them. This practice itself is somewhat dangerous, but there are ways to do it that make it less dangerous. First off you’ll need to find a safe place to practice, like a large, empty parking lot with clean, smooth pavement, somewhere where you can safely accelerate up to speeds of 20 to 30 miles per hour. Once you reach that speed, practice stopping as hard as you can. Remember that your front brake does most of the work.

  Keep stopping harder and harder, and eventually you’ll brake so hard that you lock up one of the tires. If your brakes are functioning properly, this will almost certainly be the rear tire. Immediately ease pressure on the brake pedal until the tire is once again turning freely. If you were only going 20 to 30 miles an hour when you started, you should have slowed down enough by the time the rear wheel locks to avoid crashing.

  Once you’re accustomed to using both brakes hard, practice the same drill using just the front brake. At the slightest hint of the front tire locking up, release the front brake. If you lock up your front brake, you will most likely fall down, even at low speeds. Once you’ve got a feel for this, go back to practicing with both brakes. You’ll notice that your stops are both shorter and more controlled, even after just a few practice stops.

  Do this several times, and by the time you’re finished, you’ll be able to feel what your motorcycle is doing just before you lock up your brakes. Your hands and feet will tell you when a tire is about to lock up. This will help give you an instinctive sense for just how much braking force you can apply in a real emergency situation.

  Braking is such an important skill that you need to keep practicing it, even after you’ve mastered the basics. When you’re out on the open road approaching stop signs, first make certain that no one is behind you. Once you’ve determined the road behind you is clear, practice stopping hard on different types of roads and road surfaces. Don’t brake to the point of locking up your tires, but do try to stop in as little distance as possible. That way when a deer jumps out in front of you or some fool doesn’t see you and pulls out on the highway just as you’re approaching an intersection, hard stops will be second nature for you. Instead of panicking and having a life-threatening crash, your instincts will take over and you’ll be much more likely to come to a safe stop.

  RIDING IN THE RAIN

  IF YOU RIDE A motorcycle, you will get caught in bad weather, even if you live in the desert. It’s part of the deal you make with the world when you decide to become a motorcyclist. If you prepare properly and know what you’re doing, it’s not as terrible as you might think. But riding in the rain does increase your danger level.

  Having a good rain suit helps to reduce some of the danger. If you’re warm and dry rather than wet, cold, and miserable, you’ll be much more focused on the matter at hand, which is, of course, safely riding your motorcycle. Rain suits are either one- or two-piece suits made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or nylon. The one-piece suits do a better job of keeping a rider dry because they don’t allow rain to seep in at a rider’s waist, the way a two-piece suit can. On the other hand, the two-piece suits are easier to put on quickly at the side of the road.

  Polyvinyl chloride provides better protection from the rain than does nylon, but it’s sticky to the touch, especially when wet, making it hard to put on over leather. Because of this a good PVC suit will have a cotton mesh lining that slides against leather riding gear. Ideally both the top and bottom of the suit should be mesh-lined. The better the rain gear, the more it will cost, but in this case you really do get what you pay for.

  Staying dry in the rain is just part of the battle. You also have to stay up on two wheels. You have a lot less traction available on wet roads than on dry roads, which equates to much less traction available for turning and stopping. That means you have to slow down when you’re riding in the rain, and you have to be even smoother when using the throttle and brakes than when you are on dry pavement. Jerky steering or throttle inputs that you wouldn’t even notice on dry pavement can put you down on the ground when the road is wet.

  Earlier I mentioned that you should avoid riding in the center of the lane because that’s where all the slippery fluids build up. When it rains, the water lifts these fluids up off the pavement and makes them even slipperier, so it’s especially important to avoid the center of the lane when it’s raining. What’s problematic about this is that pavement often sinks down in the wheel tracks where you ride, allowing water to build up in them. This can lead to hydroplaning, which is an extremely low-traction situation.

  This is the main reason you want to make sure that you have a lot of tread on your tires; the more your tires wear down, the shallower the rain grooves cut into their surface become. These grooves allow water to squeeze out from under your tires as you ride, keeping the tire rubber in contact with the pavement. As your tires start to become bald, the water begins to build up under them when you ride in the rain. This is what causes hydroplaning.

  The trend toward fatter tires seems to have made motorcycles more susceptible to hydroplaning. While riding across Texas on my way to Minnesota for a club rally in the summer of 2009 my bike hydroplaned in a rainstorm. Since the tires had good tread on them, I think the culprit might have been the size of the tires, which are exceptionally fat.

  WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

  After receiving initial rider training, the best thing you can do to ensure your survival as a motorcyclist is to get advanced training.

  Everyone else on the road has the potential to kill you at any time.

  Situational awareness at all times is the key to staying alive on a motorcycle.

  Photograph by Clay Garder © by Sonny Barger Productions

  Chapter Seven

  Living with a Motorcycle

  Now that you’ve learned enough about motorcycles to decide what type you want, you’ve learned how to ride, and you’ve bought a motorcycle, I’m going to give you some advice on what to do with it. This is the fun stuff. I’m going to talk a bit about traveling and about joining clubs. But first I’m going to discuss some basic motorcycle maintenance, which might not sound like much fun, but when you develop a bond with your motorcycle, you’ll learn to enjoy it (or at least not hate it).

  Figuring out what to do with your motorcycle isn’t that complicated. First and foremost, you’ll just want to get out there and ride the wheels off your new bike. After you first start to ride, your motorcycle will become your obsession. When you’re not riding it, you’re sneaking out to the garage to polish and maintain it. If you’re anything like me, you’ll continue to feel this way long after the new wears off your motorcycle. I’ve been riding for nearly sixty years, and I still can’t wait to get out on my bike. As soon as I finish writing this chapter, I plan to head straight for my garage to take my bike out for a ride.

  Before you ever hit the road on your motorcycle, you’ll want to make sure that it’s in top working order. I apologize for going back to the dark side of motorcycling for a moment here, but the consequences of just one bolt coming loose while you’re riding are so horrible that you don’t want to leave anything to chance.

  When I started riding, it seemed like we practically had to rebuild our motorcycles every time we took them out on the road. In fact, it was like this until not all that long ago. Motorcycle technology has come a long way in the past thirty years and today’s motorcycles are more like modern cars when it comes to maintenance requirements, but they still need
more maintenance than any car. You’ll still need to perform routine procedures to keep your bike in safe condition.

  BASIC MAINTENANCE

  PEOPLE HAVE STRONG FEELINGS about motorcycle maintenance—it seems like they either love it or hate it. I have to admit that I’m not particularly fond of it, but like it or not, I’ve spent a good chunk of my life wrenching on motorcycles. Today I can afford to have a good mechanic maintain my bike and I don’t miss doing it myself. Still, I’m glad I learned how to work on a motorcycle because even today’s reliable motorcycles break down now and then.

  Because of that, I recommend that you learn how to do basic maintenance and repair on your motorcycle. I’m not saying you need to go to some motorcycle mechanics program to learn how to overhaul your own machine; I’m talking about basic routine maintenance that anyone can do.

  Before you start working on your bike you should get a repair manual of some sort. Most new bikes will have instructions for basic maintenance in their owner’s manual, though sometimes they’ll say that the job should only be performed by technicians trained for that brand of bike. I think that’s chickenshit, but I guess manufacturers don’t much care what I think. They probably give more weight to what their lawyers think because they’re afraid of being held liable if some fool does something stupid. Protecting fools from themselves seems a futile activity to me, but I digress.

  Your owner’s manual will most likely be insufficient if you want to work on your own motorcycle. If you bought your bike used, you may not even have an owner’s manual. You’ll have to supplement your owner’s manual with some sort of repair manual. Clymer, Haynes, and Chilton all publish generic repair manuals for most motorcycles. These are usually adequate, though they’re not ideal because they tend to cover families of bikes rather than specific models, and they don’t always do a good job addressing small differences between different models.

  Your best option would be to buy an actual shop repair manual for your bike. These are the manuals that the manufacturers publish for their own mechanics to use. They cover every detail of your bike, from removing bodywork to tearing down an engine. These will give you all the tricks you need to know to work on your particular machine. Sometimes something that seems as simple as removing a series of bolts can go from an uncomplicated job to a complete nightmare if you remove the bolts in the wrong order. The repair manual will provide you with that sort of inside information. Repair manuals are expensive and can run up to $100 apiece, or even more, but if you plan to do any complicated work on your own bike, that is money well spent.

  The first things you’ll need to work on your bike are some basic tools. Most Japanese and European bikes come with tool kits. The Japanese tool kits generally aren’t very good and won’t be sufficient for even routine maintenance. BMWs come with high-quality tool kits. Triumph tool kits aren’t quite as good as BMW kits, but they’re much better than the ones that come with Japanese bikes. Harleys don’t come with tool kits at all.

  I suggest putting together your own small tool kit that fits in the saddlebags. At the very least you’ll need the following items in your tool kit:

  Wrench set. This will be your most important tool, so get the highest-quality wrenches you can. If you’re trying to save space, you can get open-ended wrenches that have different-sized wrenches on each end. If you have bigger saddlebags, you can get wrenches that have open ends on one side and boxed ends on the other. If your bike uses metric-sized bolts and nuts, get a metric set. If it uses SAE standard-sized nuts and bolts, get an SAE standard wrench set.

  Ratchet and socket set. As with your wrenches, make sure you get the correct type, either metric or SAE standard. I have a compact ratchet with a three-quarter-inch drive and an articulating elbow in my tool kit. This is handy for getting at bolts and nuts in hard-to-reach places. And it is sufficient for minor maintenance and repair, but the articulating joint would make it unsuitable for major repair jobs.

  In addition to the ratchet, I keep sockets in all the most common sizes. I also recommend getting at least one extension for the sockets. If you only get one, it’s better to get a longer one than a short one, but ideally you should have two or three extensions of different lengths. You might only keep the medium one in your on-bike tool kit and keep the others in your garage tool kit.

  Screwdrivers. To save space, I have a screwdriver with replaceable tips and keep a variety of tips in both Phillips and flat-blade sizes. If you have a Harley, you’ll also want to get a Torx screwdriver. This has a star-shaped tip and is the only way to remove some screws on Harleys. You can also get these with multiple tips.

  Don’t skimp and try to get by with cheap screwdrivers. And throw out screwdrivers as soon as they start to wear out. If you have rounded tips on your screwdrivers, you’ll strip screw heads, turning a simple job into an expensive trip to a machine shop to have a stripped screw drilled out. If it’s an important screw, it may even require you to tow your bike to the shop. One tow trip to the shop would pay for a lifetime of screwdrivers.

  Allen wrench set. You can usually get one Allen wrench that contains all the different sizes you need folded up like a pocketknife. Remember to get the right type for your bike: metric or SAE standard.

  Pliers. Ideally you’ll want both regular and needle-nose pliers, but if you only have room for one, I’d go with the needle-nose pliers. I used to recommend regular pliers but have changed my mind because needle-nose pliers are more versatile. Needle-nose pliers can do pretty much anything regular pliers can do, although they aren’t very good at things like removing bolts. But needle-nose pliers can do many things that regular pliers can’t. Besides, if you have your wrenches and sockets, you should use those for removing bolts and nuts instead of pliers.

  Spark-plug wrench. The best spark-plug wrench

  is a deep-well socket that you can use on your ratchet, but make sure your socket is deep enough to get down to the bolt lugs on your spark plug.

  Air pressure gauge. Get a good-quality gauge that provides an accurate reading. I prefer a dial gauge because it’s more accurate, it’s easier to use in tight spaces, and also because it takes up less space in my tool kit than a traditional pencil-type gauge.

  In addition to your portable tool kit, you should have a few basic tools at home in your garage:

  A stool. It doesn’t hurt to squat beside your bike for a moment or two, but most jobs take longer than you expect. Your legs will get sore in a hurry if you squat beside your motorcycle for any length of time. You might even do permanent nerve damage. It’s much more comfortable to sit on a stool while you’re working.

  A torque wrench. This is a wrench that measures how tightly a nut has been twisted onto a bolt. It does this by either having a needle that points to the torque value, or a ratchet-type device that freewheels when a nut has been torqued to the proper specification. Your repair manual will have a proper torque value for just about every fastener on your bike. It’s especially important to get the proper torque on things like axle bolts and triple-clamp bolts. If they are too loose, your wheels or fork could fall off; if they are too tight, your bearings will wear prematurely.

  An oil filter wrench. This will be a wrench that either wraps around the body of your oil filter with bands that tighten as you turn the wrench or else a cap that you place on the bottom of the filter itself and turn with a ratchet (and usually a long extension).

  A soft-faced mallet. You’ll often run into a situation where some stubborn part needs a little persuasion. The trouble is you can’t bang on these parts with just any tool or you’ll damage them. A soft-faced mallet will allow you to use the required amount of force without damaging the part in question.

  Lubricants. At the very least you’ll need engine oil and some WD-40. If you have a bike with a chain final drive, you’ll also need some chain lube (don’t use WD-40 on your chain—see the upcoming “Maintaining Your Chain” section for details).

  Funnels. You’ll need a variety of funnels of d
ifferent sizes and different-length spouts to reach all the places in which you’ll need to get fluid into a motorcycle. You can also use them to catch the fluids you’re removing from a motorcycle, especially motorcycles with dry-sump engines and remote oil tanks, like older Harleys (and current-model Sportsters). You’ll want funnels made of different types of material, as some applications will call for a stiff funnel made of aluminum, whereas others will require a pliable plastic funnel.

  Containers. You’ll want a red plastic can to hold fresh gas, and you’ll want a small spray can to spray oil or small amounts of gas. You’ll also want a fairly large catch pan to catch the oil you drain from your engine when you’re performing an oil change, and larger covered containers in which to store the oil until you can get it to a recycling center.

  CHANGING OIL

  ENGINE OIL TECHNOLOGY HAS developed at almost the same breakneck pace as motorcycle technology, and the oils we have today are much better than the oils we had available even thirty years ago. All the major brands are very good, though you need to make sure that you use the oil weight specified by your bike’s manufacturer. But as good as modern oil has become, you’ll still need to change it on a regular basis. I prefer to err on the side of caution and change oil every twenty-five hundred miles, even though I use high-quality oil.

  The following is a general outline of what’s involved in changing engine oil. I’m not going to go into the preparation needed to ready your bike for an oil change, like removing bodywork, because the process will vary from bike to bike so there’s no way to cover it here. On some bikes you might not even have to remove bodywork. I know a guy with a sport bike who removes just one bolt from his inner fairing and that lets him pull the fairing out far enough so that he can get the oil to drain straight down into his oil pan. You’ll have to figure out how to get access to your own drain plug and oil filter. After that, you’ll use the following procedure: