Posts tagged maintenance
Preparing for a motorcycle holiday – Bikesure’s 5 top tips
Jun 14th
Thinking of hitting the open road and going on a motorcycle holiday? Whether you’re planning to travel abroad or stay in the UK, Bikesure offers five top tips to help your motorcycle touring adventure go without a hitch.
Top 5 tips for motorcycle holiday preparation
Motorcycle touring in Japan
- Plan your route. Allow ample time for unexpected hold ups and allow time for plenty of comfort and rest breaks.
- Check your bike. Make sure your servicing is up-to-date and give your bike a thorough once over. Don’t forget our essential motorcycle maintenance checklist too.
- Pack and load your bike. It’s best to take only the bare minimum on a motorcycle holiday. Try and distribute the weight evenly across the bike’s centre of mass. Some essentials to take with you include first aid kit, tool kit, torch and a map.
- Make sure all your documentation is up-to-date and take it along with you. This includes MOT, insurance, road tax and driving license. If you are travelling abroad you will also need to check you bike insurance covers you in your country of travel, as well as making sure you have with you an EHIC card, passport, travel insurance, breakdown cover and V5 registration doc. It is a legal requirement to be able to produce the original V5 registration document in a number of countries.
- If you are travelling abroad check the legal requirements for country of travel. Be familiar with local speed limits before you travel, too.
Finally make sure you are dressed in comfortable, weather-appropriate protective clothing and have enough fuel and currency for your journey.
Motorcycle holiday resources we like:
Highland Motorcycle Holidays – Nigel provides self guided tour document of motorcycle holiday routes, hire advice and accommodation in the Highlands.
Top Ten Motorcycle Tyre Safety Tips
Apr 26th
Here are our tips to help ensure that you, and your bike, get the most from your tyres. Properly maintained tyres can make a big difference to the enjoyment of your ride, will save you money, and, most important of all, they may save your life in a pinch.
- Pressure: Check your tyre pressures weekly using an accurate gauge – you can buy them in Halfords for pennies. Remember to do it while the tyres are cold – the pressure will increase as the tyre heats up which will give you an incorrect reading. You should maintain your tyres to the pressure recommended in your manufacturer’s handbook. Your bike will perform better, and be more economical. Incorrectly pressurised tyres contribute to a surprisingly large number of accidents.
- Integrity: Inspect your tyres for any obvious defects, including any cuts, bulges, rips or foreign objects. Check for signs of uneven wear. If you are in any doubt about the tyres integrity or safety, bin it. Your life is more important than a few quid for a new one.
- Cap It: Always use valve caps as they will keep dirt and oil away from the valve and give you an additional seal too keep everything airtight.
- Wheels: Check your wheel rims. If they show signs of warping, cracking or other damage, replace them – they are crucial to keeping your tyre attached to your wheel, and you don’t want to find out they aren’t working properly while you are on the move.
- Tread: Check that your tread depth is well above the legal minimum of 1mm (for bikes over 50cc). In practise, 2mm gives you a better safety margin and you should start thinking about replacements when your tread gets to this level.
- Stems: The valve stem is easily damaged, because it sticks out, and can also rub or shear against the wheel rim where it pokes through the hole. Pay particular attention to this area.
- Direction: Make sure your tyre is fitted the right way round, by checking that the directional arrow is pointing the correct way. It is surprisingly easy to get this wrong if you’re not careful, and this will compromise safety, and cost you more money as your bike will be less efficient.
- Balance: Have your wheel assembly properly balanced to ensure even wear and maximum economy. This will only cost a few quid and could save loads in fuel costs.
- Clean: Wipe your tyres with a washing up liquid solution – this will clear away any oil and grease they’ve picked up from our filthy roads – just don’t use the wife’s favourite dishcloth…
- Buying: Check that, where possible, both of your tyres are made by the same manufacturer with the same tread pattern and rubber. Select the correct type of tyre for your machine – often you’ll have a choice of tyres to suit different conditions and different riding conditions. Your local tyre specialist should be able to help you choose something that meets your needs if you aren’t sure. If you are a four seasons biker you should definitely get a set of specialist winter tyres for the winter months.
Essential Safety Checks before you ride this Summer
Mar 30th
Easter is just about upon us, and many bikers will be getting their motorbike out of the shed ready for a new riding season. After a few months of storage, it is essential to check your bike for potential issues before you ride it, as the consequences of neglecting a solid maintenance regime don’t bear thinking about. Even if you are one of the hardy souls who got your bike out as soon as the snow went, it is still worth giving the bike a once over.
I always find a checklist helps me accomplish a task more quickly, so we’ve compiled our tips into an easy to follow list.
Here is Bikesure’s Spring Bike Checklist for getting your bike out of cold storage. You can download a printable version to use as you work through it here.
- Review any notes you made when you put your bike into winter storage. It can be easy to forget little things like that small part you removed to get a matching replacement and never got around to replacing. It’s easy to lose your notes too, but if you remember tinkering with your bike before you stored it, you’ll hopefully remember what you were doing… If not, best check everything!
- Did you removed the battery for winter storage? Or perhaps as some people prefer, you just left the negative lead attached? Check and clean the battery terminals before refitting. A bicarbonate of soda solution works well to clean the terminals.
- Charge and refit the battery. Positive lead first!
- Check / change the oil and filter, and check the grease and other lubricants.
- Check all cables and lubricate with the specified lubricants.
- Drain the fuel tank, clean and refill with fresh. This especially applies if you left it nearly empty during the winter. An empty tank will have air inside, and that air will have moisture, which will condense out in the cold as water.
- Check the tyre pressure and wear of tread. If you had a special winter pressure, remember to change it for summer. Don’t use a tyre cleaner on bike tyres – it will make them hard and slippery.
- Check all lights. Don’t forget the flashing ones!
- Check brake fluid level and ensure brake pads and shoes aren’t worn.
- Clean the inside of your helmet with a mild soapy solution and ensure it is dry. Examine it for hairline cracks.
- If you put away your winter cover during the summer, air it properly, then store it somewhere warm and dry. Don’t let yourself suddenly discover it damp or mildewy next winter when you suddenly need it again.
- Start a new log book for the year and write down your starting mileage – and all the actions you took to get out on the open road again. Promise yourself that you will keep it up to date this year!
Did we forget anything? Please let us know, and we’ll add it.
Don’t for get you can get printable copies of this checklist, which you are welcome to share with friends.
Other motorbike safety resources:
www.bikesafeshow.co.uk – BikeSafe is a national initiative run by UK police forces to promote better biking, improve the safety of motorcyclists on the roads
www.wairbag.com – This ingenious jacket acts like an in-car airbag system. On falling off your motorbike the the airbag system inflates to protect your neck and torso.
Twelve steps to save yourself from a claim
May 16th
After the unseasonably warm April we’ve had, many of us will have already been out on our bikes this year, but if you haven’t, or if you have, but you haven’t carried out our simple maintenance checklist, now is the time to do it.
After spending the winter in your shed, garage or under a tarp, it always pays to make sure that your bike is still in full working order before you set off for a ride. Even if you’ve used it every day during the colder weather and into spring, giving your bike a thorough health-check this weekend could save you from more than just the dreaded Eastenders omnibus.
Bike insurance claims show a definite spike at this time of year, as bikers start making the most of the warmer weather, and in many cases the claim – along with resulting injuries and inconvenience (not to mention increased premiums) – could be avoided by giving your bike a once once over and following the checklist the BikeSure team have put together.
Head honcho, Rob Balls says “A much greater proportion of the claims we get in the spring are related to maintenance issues. Whether from breakdown insurance, or accidents related to maintenance issues, the winter takes its toll on your bike, and too few people check the points. Bikers stand to benefit if the level of claims go down, because the fewer claims you have, the lower your insurance will be next year. It’s vital to give your bike a thorough going-over if you’ve stored it during the brass monkey weather.”
So here’s Rob’s checklist of the simple maintenance tasks which can save you money and might even save your life.
- Review any notes you made when you put your bike into winter storage. It’s easy to forget little things like that small part you removed to get a matching replacement and never got around to replacing.
- If you removed the battery for winter storage, check and clean the battery terminals before refitting. A bicarbonate of soda solution works well to clean the terminals.
- Charge and refit the battery. Positive lead first!
- Change the oil and filter, and check the grease and other lubricants.
- Check all cables and lubricate with the specified lubricants.
- Drain the fuel tank, clean and refill with fresh. This especially applies if you left it nearly empty during the winter. An empty tank will have air inside, and that air will have moisture, which will condense out in the cold as water.
- Check the tyre pressure and wear of tread. If you had a special winter pressure, remember to change it for summer. Don’t use a tyre cleaner on bike tyres – it will make them hard and slippery.
- Check all lights. Don’t forget the flashing ones!
- Check brake fluid level and ensure brake pads and shoes aren’t worn.
- Clean the inside of your helmet with a mild soapy solution and ensure it is dry. Examine it for hairline cracks.
- If you put away your winter cover during the summer, air it properly, then store it somewhere warm and dry. Don’t let yourself suddenly discover it damp or mildewy next winter when you suddenly need it again.
- Start a new log book for the year and write down your starting mileage – and all the actions you took to get out on the open road again. Promise yourself that you will keep it up to date this year!