Surprises are more fun in your own driveway!
Apr 14 '07
The Bottom Line Invest the time at home rather than spending the time on the side of the road!
The weather has finally started to cooperate, the “honey-do” list can be prioritized, dreams of all those wonderful rides last year are in the front of your mind, and the bike calling you from the garage.
Now before you head out to see just how many “hundred” miles you can string together in a single day, it is time to listen to what your bike is saying with its mournful call. Yes, it is a motorcycle so it wants to run! But before that run it might be asking for a bit of attention. Just like your family dog, your motorcycle wants you to ease into full performance exercise. It is time to invest some of the time you might have forgotten last fall.
Should you not have a family dog (sorry, I do not have one either), maybe you could act like that Apache pilot you see flying nap of the earth on CNN almost every night. Before he lights a fire in those turbine engines he does a walk around preflight of the aircraft. He walks around the aircraft looking closely at all the mechanical bits for anything out of the ordinary. Things like oil on parts or the ground, loose nuts (no, that does not include the “nut” down the street with the loud leaf blower), cracked windshields, questionable tires, and stuff like that. You ought to be looking at all the stuff in the pre-ride (or before you ride) check list in your owner’s manual. Sort of get acquainted again with the machine you are considering taking you out for the day. That walk around will warn you of possible surprises in that hairpin turn on Deal’s Gap. It only takes a minute or two, and mechanical surprises are a lot more fun in your own driveway than three hundred miles from home – in the rain.
The next step is the one that will burn up a couple of hours of that first real riding day. Pull out your owner’s manual again and look at the maintenance service schedules. If you do not remember when the last one was performed, then you really should consider a major (or 12,000 mile) service. Addressing all those oil, rubber, and adjustment issues before your first ride is what will make for a better set of riding memories than spreading out a tool kit on the side of a lonely road. So either do that service yourself, or quickly call the nearest dealer for an appointment. If you have a service manual and some common tools it could be completed in less than three hours. If not, then entrust that work to a qualified and certified service technician. Yep, that guy with the factory certificate will expect more payment than enlisting the assistance of that neighbor with the leaf blower, but he is better prepared to deal with those potential surprises.
I know that even with my own best intentions, “circumstances” got the better of me over the winter. I would also bet that there were at least a couple of things everybody forgets to do in preparation for that first serious ride of the season. It is time to invest some of the time you might have forgotten last fall. Surprises are a lot more fun to deal with in your own driveway!
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