A single headlight is all that’s legally required for the front of a motorcycle, but there are disadvantages. Amber running lights on either side clearly proclaim “I am a motorcycle” rather than “I am a car with a burnt out headlight.” Additionally, a single point of light makes it difficult for others to determine how close I am and how quickly I’m approaching. I’ve definitely been cut off more frequently after removing the faulty light bar, whose running and driving lights made it much easier for others to judge my distance. I’d wanted to replace my temporary turn signals with Lowbrow Customs’ amber dual filament bullet lights to match the red ones I already put on the back of my bike, but they’ve been out of stock for a while, and when I asked when they’re getting more they said they didn’t know.

I was watching various motorcycle videos on YouTube the other day, and the title of a suggested video caught my eye: “How to have a turn signal and running light in 1.” This is quite relevant to my interests, so I watched it.

He faced a similar issue, where his fancy new LED mirror/turn signals could only be turn or running lights, not both. He demonstrated that by connecting the power wires for the turn signals and running lights together, the single light would serve both functions. The problem was that this fed running light power back through the turn signal circuit to light up the rear signals as running lights as well. Amber running lights are illegal on the rear – they have to be red. So he added diodes to the circuit to only allow power to flow in one direction. The fronts remained combination turn/running lights, and the rears were turn signals only.

But wait – I’ve already changed my rear turn signals from amber to red. I tapped power off the license plate light for the dim filaments to make them additional red running lights, and wired the normal turn signal wires into the bright filaments. On a recent New England Riders group ride, my group’s sweep rider politely informed me that these rear turn signals weren’t particularly visible to her, and suggested that I might want to see to that. Over the winter I planned to run new running light wires from the front to the back of the bike so that they, too, would shut off when the turn signals were on, just like the front. But I realized that if I simply connected the run and turn wires together without the diodes shown in the video, my rear turn signals would become running lights, using the bright rather than dim filament for added visibility. Since they’re already red, they’d be legal tail lights, unlike the bike in the video. So rather than adding wiring, I removed the custom running light wiring I’d already added to turn off the dim filaments in the back. The bright filaments are even brighter running lights, and located far enough away from the run/brake light to not obscure it when I’m braking. When I signal for turns they flash on/off rather than bright/dim, solving the visibility issue. I’m not using the dim filament at all now, but that’s OK. The dual filament lights were the same price as the single filament ones, so it’s not like I wasted money.

I spent more time undoing my wiring with the rear lights than I did modifying my front lights to serve double duty. That was maybe a five minute job for both sides since I already knew how that wiring worked. After doing one side, I, too, had the issue shown in the video where the turn signal indicator was constantly on, but after doing both sides this was no longer the case, at least on my bike.

Since this modification affects the rear turn signals too, no additional wiring is necessary. If your rear signals are red, you’re done. If not, you may be able to swap from amber to red lenses, or use red tint on your amber lenses. I understand that a contrasting color like amber is more clear as a turn signal than red. But my tail light isn’t huge, and I’m willing to make the color trade-off to gain two additional tail lights that double as turn signals.

This also means I no longer have to wait for Lowbrow Customs’ dual filament amber bullet lights to come off of indefinite backorder. Instead I bought a pair of single filament units to replace my temporary turn signals up front. (I got the last two they had in stock, which is why I jumped on them immediately.) They’ll match my bike better, and are larger and more visible than the dinky little lights I have now (the NER ride leader also mentioned he had trouble seeing my front signals – hopefully this will fix that too). They’ll also serve as both running lights and turn signals, now that I’ve figured out how to tweak the factory wiring slightly to enable that functionality.

Follow @justinhughes54

You suck at driving. Well, I mean, not you specifically. You are great at driving. And me, I’m also great at driving. But everyone else? Everyone else sucks at driving. This is especially disconcerting for those of us who travel on two wheels, because while automotive safety has been steadily improving for vehicle occupants, it is still quite dangerous to be outside the car that drifts into oncoming traffic while the driver is liking his friend’s swipe-chat, or whatever it is you kids do these days. I mean, not you, but, you know, other people.

I’ve been dodging lunatic four wheelers for 15 years now and managed to not get hit by any of them up until a couple months ago when another driver decided my left leg should have 17 degrees of freedom.

I’m usually the guy telling everyone that motorcycles are not as dangerous as everyone says they are. Two weeks in the hospital make it tough to stand by that, but I still believe it. A huge number of motorcycle wrecks and injuries fall under a small number of causes. If you know what these causes are, and you prepare for them appropriately, your risk goes down significantly, and you can protect your femur from the scourge of shitty Ford Mustang drivers, and from yourself.

Okay, without further delay: the top four things that will kill you:

• Being a new rider
• Being a drunk rider
• An oncoming car turning left in front of you
• Your un-helmeted face bouncing off the oncoming car turning left in front of you

There are many other ways that motorcycles are dangerous, but these four things account for the majority of motorcycle injuries. Avoid these four things and you are way more likely to make it home safe. Two of these things are suuuuper easy to avoid. Can you guess what they are? If you guessed “Being a drunk rider” and the face thing, you win a prize.

Drunk Riders

Guess how many motorcycle fatalities involved a rider who had been drinking?

A third.

Hey, guess what? Don’t ride drunk and your statistical chance of dying on a motorcycle just went way down. Easiest thing ever.

Full Face Helmet

Second easiest thing ever? Full face helmet. Helmets are estimated to be about 40% effective in preventing fatal injuries for motorcycle riders. The data also shows them to significantly reduce not only head injuries, but also neck injuries, so for those of you that think the helmet will just cause whiplash, the data is not on your side. Also, just for fun, take a look at the windshield of this Mustang.

Now take a look at my helmet.

Now back at the Mustang.

Now look at my face.

Notice that my face doesn’t look like it got smashed up by a windshield at 40 MPH.

I’m not going to be the All-The-Gear-All-The-Time guy here because this is an article focusing on the really statistically significant things, but I’ll just note that everywhere I wasn’t wearing protective gear has road rash. I only slid for a short distance and my legs and feet had road rash scattered all over. My torso, head, and hands literally don’t have a single scratch because of the helmet, gloves, and jacket. So make your own decision on your other gear, but the data says your helmet is mandatory.

New Riders

Have you ever gotten in your car and driven somewhere while thinking about something, and you arrive at your destination without any recollection of the drive there? Me too. This is because you and I are wizards.

Not really. It’s because your subconscious knows how to drive because you’ve been doing it for long enough that (as long as everything goes normally) it’s just a reaction. If you haven’t been driving for more than a few years, this doesn’t apply to you, and you are an indiscriminate death missile. Riding a motorcycle has a totally different set of subconscious programming that needs to happen. The cool thing is, you won’t even know what you’re reacting too sometimes. I notice this when my subconscious expects something to happen but then it doesn’t. Something like the driver in the lane next to me will make some slight movement, and before I know it I’m reaching up to grab the brakes because a few times before a different driver has made the same movement and then changed into my lane without looking or using a turn signal because his subconscious has been programed to be an asshole.

You know those big white rectangles at crosswalks? They’re really slippery when wet. I’m not sure why I know that, but my brain figured it out for me at some point and I slow down without even thinking about it. There are a million little dangers like this that you pick up over time, but you just have to ride and experience them to program them in there, and while you’re programing them, you need to be prepared for them with extra space, extra time, and extra traction, because your subconscious doesn’t know about them yet.

So, for the first year at least, you need to be super aware and be a lot more careful than you think you need to be.

Oncoming Cars Making A Left Hand Turn In Front Of You

Okay, final thing. This seems really specific but is the cause of a huge number of motorcycle wrecks and often leads to serious injuries for the motorcyclist because it results in a head-on or near head-on collision. This exact thing has almost happen to me enough times that I always ride with my high beam on during the day, and I recommend you do the same. Just remember to turn it off at night.

Just as a quick bonus, two other things that are significant enough to mention. The first happens to me a lot: cars changing into your lane (or through your “lane” if you’re splitting lanes). Adjust your speed and spacing to be prepared for any of them to do it at any time. And the second not so common, but near to my heart given my current handicapped situation: When your light turns green, make sure the cross traffic is slowing down before you go, because sometimes they will ignore the red and accelerate directly into your foot.

So that’s it. Four things, two super easy, two you just need to keep in mind while riding, that will significantly reduce your chances of being injured on a motorcycle:

• Don’t drink and ride
• Wear a full face helmet
• Be very careful for your first few thousand miles
• Watch out for oncoming cars turning left in front of you

Riding is still dangerous. Life is dangerous. But it’s worth it. Yes, I’m getting another bike when I can ride again; probably two. I love motorcycles, and I’ll be out again, a little bit more cautious, and hopefully a little bit safer, looking forward to the day when the roads are filled with self-driving cars.

Also, if you drive a Mustang, you are a terrible driver. You suck at driving.

Seriously, this is not a joke, you are a menace to civil driving, and you should have your license revoked.

Matt Brown is a sometimes writer, occasional engineer, and guy who barely keeps up SuperfastMatt.com.

You may have already read what Jason Macierowski had to say about it. I, like Jason, was riding on a track for the first time, and in the fast run group as well. But I had an advantage that Jason and most of the other riders didn’t. This wasn’t my first rodeo at Palmer Motorsports Park. Last year I spent two days driving this track with Chin Motorsports in my Subaru BRZ. I already knew where to go.

Though this was my first time taking a bike to the track, I’ve done about fifteen track days in cars, as well as countless autocrosses, ice time trials, and even two days of training at Team O’Neil Rally School. Because of this, I’ve long considered myself a rather good driver, yet a merely adequate rider. I’ve pondered taking the MSF Advanced RiderCourse at some point, but never quite got around to it. I’ve known about motorcycle track days, but I ride for the enjoyment and experience of riding, not for speed. Besides, racing leathers are expensive, and my Honda PC800 isn’t designed for the track at all.

I totally blame Kate Murphy for changing my mind about this, partly because of her article about it. Her Yamaha Super Ténéré is no more a sportbike than my PC800, yet she had a blast at one of these events at Thompson Speedway last year. Additionally, although we’re riding on a track, the emphasis is on skills for the street rather than racing. So with all that in mind, I decided to divert my track day fund to the bike instead of the car.

I’m SO glad I did. Again, read Jason’s article for a good overview of what it’s like and what you get out of it. I, too, feel like my riding skills have improved by quantum leaps after the track experience. But I’m equally surprised by just how many of the techniques I learned from performance driving translated over to the bike, many of which I’d already started using before the track day.

What Was The Same

The racing line is the racing line, regardless of what you’re driving or riding. I first learned how to pick the proper line through corners during my teenage bicycle racing days, before I even had a driver’s license. It’s been more years than I care to admit since I last raced by pedal power, but when I ride my motorcycle on the street I follow the outside-inside-outside line through the curves while staying in my own lane. That’s much of the fun of riding for me, in fact. I don’t need to be going fast or on a track to get the thrill of nailing my line through a tough corner, because it just feels right when you get it.

My previous experience at Palmer in my BRZ helped, too. Though some techniques on a motorcycle were different, I already knew where the track went, unlike most people there who were seeing it for the first time. In fact, one CBR rider told me after a session that since I’d driven here before, he’d tucked in behind me for a while specifically to follow and learn my lines. His bike is much faster than mine, but this isn’t a race, and there’s nothing wrong with slowing down to try something different.

We often talk about weight transfer when it comes to performance driving. Though side-to-side weight transfer works differently when you only have two wheels, the same theory still applies between the front and back wheels. It’s far more effective to squeeze on the front brake than to jam on it instantly, since more of the bike’s weight has a chance to transfer to the front wheel and give you more traction as you add more braking. Similarly, you want to roll on the throttle when leaving a corner, rather than whacking it wide open, so that weight will shift to the back wheel and give you more traction to handle the power you’re adding.

Along with weight transfer comes trail braking. In the past, on a bike, I’ve typically done my braking in a straight line, released the brakes, then turned into a corner. I’ve been afraid of exceeding my traction limits by asking the front wheel to turn and brake at the same time. But part of the classroom instruction focused on trail braking on a bike. The process is really no different than a car. You start to let off the brake as you start to turn in, blending from braking to turning rather than stopping and starting like I’d been doing. During one particular session I struggled to get the bike turned into the apex of turn 7. I was probably carrying more speed into the turn than earlier in the day, and I couldn’t seem to get the bike closer to the apex than the center of the track. Then we discussed trail braking. I tried it during the next session, and doggone if it didn’t work beautifully. Just a little bit of trail braking added enough weight and traction to my front tire to turn the bike more effectively and clip the apex just like I should.

In a car I heel/toe downshift. It’s the process of blipping the throttle in the middle of a downshift to match engine speed to wheel speed in a lower gear. My heels and toes don’t perform the same functions on a bike, but the general concept of rev matching my downshifts worked well. It’s a more advanced technique that they didn’t even cover in classes geared toward street riding rather than racing skills, but it helped a great deal. The bike reminded me of this one time when I messed up my rev match, let the clutch out too quickly, and engine braking caused the back wheel to lose grip for a second. That was a pucker moment, but I knew exactly what I’d done wrong and didn’t repeat it.

What Was Different

That leads to the biggest difference between driving a car and riding a bike on the same track – there’s so much more room on a bike. The track obviously hasn’t grown larger, but it feels larger on a smaller vehicle. There’s much more room to work with. As a result, I was actually more willing to take some chances with different lines and techniques on the bike than in the car. There was more room for error. And I made a few big errors. In class we talked about double apexing turn 7 rather than using a single late apex. I tried it, but I couldn’t get that line to work for me at all. I actually ended up pretty close to the outside of the track when I was supposed to be at the “real” apex near the end of the turn – a classic early apex result. But in a car, the same mistake would probably have put me at least into the grass, and possibly into the wall, because a car is so much wider. In my case, yeah, I screwed up big time, but I had enough space on the track to slow down and compensate for my mistake without incident. I can’t say the same about my favorite twisty back roads. Another technique that doesn’t translate is countersteering and leaning into turns. This is how I learned to ride in the MSF course, and I’ve been riding this way ever since. But never before had I leaned so hard into the turns. There are too many hazards on the street for me to commit to a corner at the edge of my personal riding skill, with nothing in reserve. But as Tony’s Track Days‘ slogan says, “No cops, no cars, no limits!” Plus I was hitting the same turns every two minutes and forty seconds or so, over and over and over again, so even though many of Palmer’s turns are blind, I knew exactly what was on the other side and could commit to them safely. Plus I had a lot more room for error if I didn’t nail every apex every time, which I assure you I didn’t.

One of the major differences I had to get used to was passing. At track days in a car, passing is tightly controlled. The faster car is not allowed to pass the slower, leading car until given the proper signal, a point-by that tells the faster car to pass and on which side. Then it’s up to the faster car to make the pass safely. But here, passing was only prohibited between turns 1 and 2 (with the track narrowed by cones to create more runoff area for safety), and after a rider tipped the bike in toward the apex you were not allowed to pass on the inside. That’s it. Plus, our mirrors had to be either removed or taped over to force us to focus on what’s ahead of us, not behind. There was no way to know if there someone about to pass, so it was 100% up to the passing bike to do so safely. I was probably the slowest bike in the entire group, so I got passed frequently. I got passed on the outside of turns regularly.

Someone coming from track days for cars might think this is ludicrous, especially with newbies thrown into the fastest run group with basically open passing. But it worked. There was plenty of room on the track for everyone, and since bikes accelerate more quickly than cars we were side-by-side for only a short time. In fact, this avoided the issue I always see at track days for cars where there’s “that guy” who’s going slow and won’t give a point-by, causing a long line of faster cars to get stuck behind him. I was “that guy” here, and it was no problem at all.

Finally, the instruction here was different, by necessity. You’re not going to take an instructor as a passenger on your bike as you would in a car. Instead, instructors – experienced racers on sport bikes – rode with the rest of us. Sometimes they’d follow someone and watch what they’re doing before zooming by. Sometimes they’d tap the back of their bike as a signal to follow them. This is exactly what happened to me when lead instructor Ken Condon caught up to me during my second open session.

The Bottom Line

What amazed me most was how many techniques from performance driving I’d already carried over to the bike, and that they were right. If anything, I needed to apply even more of them, like trail braking, to improve my riding further. Having track experience in cars definitely helps on the track, but it’s still a very different experience on two wheels. Plus, without a metal cage around you, there is a higher element of risk if you should crash while testing your limits. That’s why full riding gear, head to toe, is absolutely mandatory. But I didn’t see any yellow or red flags all day, which meant that everyone rode more cleanly than they drive at the automotive track days I attend. Maybe being inside a car gives some people a false sense of security that leads to spins and off-track excursions. Everyone I rode with was well in control of their bikes, and rode intelligently enough to leave a margin for error when trying something new.

The final piece of knowledge I took away from this event was that I don’t have to worry about having to choose between being able to attend more events like this or my current desire to buy a cruiser. There was an entire run group for cruisers, and it inspired me to see all those flashy Harleys, Victories, and such out there on the track doing their thing. Cruisers are the slowest of the three run groups, but that doesn’t matter to me. I’m not out here to go fast. I’m out here to learn, and I can learn on a cruiser just as well as a PC800 or any other bike.

I’m already looking forward to going back for more next year, whatever I’m riding by then.

Follow @justinhughes54

Like: Always put your oil drain plug back in with a torque wrench, until you’re comfortable with the “feel” of the 16 ft/lbs it takes. Never replace spark plugs on an engine that isn’t stone cold. You can boil the fork oil out of those soaked brake pads, but when they’re $20/pair you really should replace them.

And: The right tool for the job always makes things easier. Sometimes, the right tool for the job is the difference between the possible and “time to trailer it to the shop.”

One fun thing I learned about recently: Plastic Razor Blades. You’d think (as I did) “what the hell good is a plastic razor blade?” But oh, dear reader, they are magic.

Got sticker residue or pine sap on a painted surface? Of course you do; we all do. Metal razor blades are great for removing sticker residue and pine sap from glass, but they are also very, very good at scraping paint down to the metal. No bueno. Let me tell you this: use your plastic blade to scrape the pine sap first, then hit it with isopropyl alcohol (on a microfiber cloth, not a paper towel!) to dissolve it. For sticker residue, loosen it with isopropyl first, then scrape off the goo with the plastic blade. It won’t scratch your paint, I promise. Wash these surfaces afterwards, and wax them with good wax (I like Zymol, but use whatever warms your heart; the important part is that you wax the paint after scrubbing with alcohol!)

Because single-blade razor blades have been around approximately since the Bronze age, there exist infinite handles that fit this form factor. Search the internet for the handle of your choice, or buy one from a local hardware or big-box store.

Another great (if dangerous) tool I was recently introduced to: a Hose Removal Tool. Now, you’re thinking, I’ve seen those; they’re small and work great for fuel lines and breather hoses. Gracious no, not those little pliers. We all have those (and indeed, they are often the Right Tool For the Job.) I am referring to the stuck coolant hose, which requires this thing. Yes, it is quite dangerous to use; you can injure yourself grievously with one; I don’t have to describe it because I’m sure your imagination will do just fine. But, and we’ve all been there, when you are arguing with a coolant hose which hasn’t moved in 20 years, and you don’t want to destroy the hose in the removal process, this tool will get you there in a jiffy. Just… be careful.

Last in this installment: We all have circlip pliers, right? Yes, you can live without them. No, you don’t particularly want to, when they make removing and installing circlips this much of a breeze. But imagine a lock ring, with no circlip (this is what you will find inside, say, the starter assembly in an early-to-mid-2000s BMW oilhead). Having struggled with that particular lock ring during my annual starter rebuild and impaled myself on one too many flathead screwdrivers attempting removal, I’ll say: if you encounter lock rings in your life, get the Lock Ring Pliers.

And then there’s hockey. As a kid I played hockey in driveways and on frozen ponds. As an adult I played a couple pickup games a week and in over-30 summer league. On a few occasions I played in charity games that took place in large arenas prior to professional hockey games.

To be honest, I was never that great a hockey player. One of my hockey buddies likened me to a mosquito because, he reasoned, I was small and annoying and just never gave up. To improve my game, I learned to pay close attention to the guys who were better hockey players than I was. One good place to do that, and coincidentally a place where I spent a fair amount of time, was on the bench. In fact, it was on the bench that I developed a skill, learned by observing my teammates, which eventually proved highly beneficial to me while riding a motorcycle.

Jump forward to a warm summer morning. I left my home in Western Massachusetts at first light, observed the Fifty Mile Rule and rode to Vermont for a diner breakfast of eggs, bacon and coffee. With carb and caffeine levels suitably elevated, I began working my way south, more or less, toward home.

Route 67 runs smooth and easy along the Quaboag River. On this lovely Sunday morning I had cracked open my visor a bit to let the warm breeze in. As it turned out, it wasn’t only the breeze that came into my helmet. An insect of undetermined species got swept into the airflow, slipped through that narrow opening under my visor, and embedded itself in my right nostril.

The bugger was BIG and wedged deeply in the dark, unfamiliar confines of my proboscis. It buzzed around with so much intensity it reverberated inside my head. Agitated and enraged, that insect wanted out of my nose – now!

To make that happen, I channeled my inner hockey player. Flipping up my visor and using the snot-removal technique I perfected on a hockey bench, I covered my left nostril with my left thumb and exhaled sharply. The uninvited visitor, lubricated by a helping of nose juice, erupted like a bullet from my nose.

I assume it flew on its merry way, perhaps back to the hive to share this harrowing tale with others of its species. (“And then it shot me out of that cave like a cannonball in a hail of coffee breath and mucous!”)

The entire in-the-nose-and-gone scenario played out in a few seconds. I never took my hand off the throttle or my eyes off the road. I continued riding south, smooth and easy on Route 67, and arrived home in time for lunch.

May skills you developed for other purposes find useful applications when you’re riding a motorcycle.

Scott ‘Bones’ Williams is a rider, writer and thinker from Wilbraham, MA. You can read more on his web site at MotoBones.com.

A weekend trip for a New Englander is a choice of Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. They depend on your starting point, the length of your weekend, your group’s tolerance for long rides and your wants and needs for travel. Quebec is fascinating since most of the people there speak French. The Gaspé Peninsula should be on every motorcyclist’s bucket list. Also, Poutine. Nova Scotia is quite beautiful and very motorcycle friendly!

A trip to the Canadian border will take you some or most of the day from the Boston area so it’s important to plan ahead. There are loads of fantastic campgrounds and bed & breakfasts in northern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine, so your trip doesn’t have to cost a fortune, or be a death march. You can zip up north Friday afternoon, stay the night and cross into Canada in the morning to ride for lunch.

It’s important to know a few things about riding across a border crossing, if you’ve never crossed one without involving an airport.

1. You’ll wait in line: Unless you pick a tiny crossing (which I highly recommend) you’ll be stopped in traffic waiting for your turn with the officials. Take a look at a map, and you will see all the roads in New England that cross into Canada. The smaller the pass-through road, the better. You do not want to be stopped on your motorcycle on a four-lane highway waiting to cross the border with three thousand other vehicles, especially on a hot day. Choose a small road with a single-lane one-shack crossing and you are more likely to get a bored and friendly border official who will talk to you about your trip and give you road and lunch suggestions.
2. You cannot bring any firearms with you. Canada has quite different gun laws than the US does. Your CCA has no reciprocity. If you try to hide your firearm from the border official, you may or may not get away with it. If you lie and they find out, or search you, you will be in a whole big heap of trouble. It will involve more border officials with their own guns, handcuffs, the term “smuggling,” someone else touching your motorcycle… It’s not worth it; leave your guns at home. Everyone in Canada is super nice, anyway.
3. If you are in a group, you must meet the border guard one at a time. Everyone hangs back at the red light, and once clear waits for the rest of the group well up the road. You should all have the same idea about your trip, since if the border guard gets five different stories from five different people they are likely to become suspicious. It doesn’t take much.

1. They might search you. There is no rhyme or reason to the people they decide to search, and they like it that way. Do not be in a hurry. Also, remember #2 on this list — don’t carry anything you don’t want them to find. This includes but is not limited to: firearms, ammunition, illegal drugs, legal drugs outside their original packaging, prescription drugs outside the bottle that has your name and your doctor’s name on it. Border officials are humorless.
2. You don’t need a passport to enter Canada. But you do need a passport to reenter the United States! Bring your passport, because this is a large pickle and you do not want to be in it.
3. They might not let you in. If you’ve ever been arrested (I know it’s tempting; I know it is. But do not, and really listen to me here, do not sing Alice’s Restaurant at the border officials. They’ve heard it, and they don’t find it funny anymore) they might not let you into the country at all. If you have been convicted of any of the following crimes (and take special note of the fifth one here, since the US does not weigh DUI as heavily as Canada does) you may not be let in. Poke around on the Government of Canada’s website for more information.
   • theft,
   • assault,
   • manslaughter,
   • dangerous driving,
   • driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and
   • possession of or trafficking in drugs or controlled substances.
4. Everything is in KPH. Most motorcycles have KPH on the speedometer in tiny numbers; some have only MPH. Many GPS units will know that you’ve crossed into Canada and will translate the speed limits into MPH for you. My Yamaha lets me convert my entire dashboard into kilometers, which is super handy! Check your owner’s manual! Or, if you’re great at math on the fly, 1 mile is 1.6 kilometers. Quick, what’s 50 KPH in MPH? You really don’t want to have to come back to Canada for a court date for a speeding ticket.
5. Your phone will not work. Unless you have an international plan, it’s best to turn your phone off at the border. Your cell carrier will charge you stupid amounts of money to connect to a Canadian network. It will warn you at the border, and it will tell you exactly how stupid those charges will be. This means no googling places to eat, or the weather, though, so again, plan ahead.
6. You can only bring back a limited amount of stuff. If you’ve purchased various gifts or mementos they’re probably fine but it doesn’t hurt to mention them at the crossing. The US Customs and Border Patrol has a lot of info on this. Short form: two bottles of wine is fine. A case of wine will cost you in taxes.
7. They have different holidays! Here’s a fun note. When you have a Monday off due to a federal US holiday, it’s likely Canadians don’t — so you won’t have to worry about the same traffic and crowds you would if you went somewhere in the US. Check your schedule and see if you can find an offset holiday.

Now you’re ready! Find a nice place to stay in northern New England and go have an adventure in Canada!

What did I miss? Where’s your favorite Canadian adventure?

Particularly since I tend to ride older bikes – my PC800 is the newest bike I’ve ever owned, and it’s 18 years old – this can get me, and particularly my wallet, into trouble. I bought my last pair of tires (Metzeler ME880, if you’re curious – one of the few tires that fit my bike) at The Shop That Shall Not Be Named. Let’s call them Voldemort Garage so I don’t get sued (please be kind, J.K. Rowling). A week or two later, my rear tire sprung a slow leak. The valve stem had started to pop out of the rim. I brought it back, and they fixed it – and insisted on charging me for it, even though an improper previous installation caused the problem, since my old tire never leaked. A few weeks after that, I was out cruising western Massachusetts with my now-wife on the back, and THAT valve sprung a leak. I was lucky to save the resulting tankslapper, not dump the bike or my wife, and pull over to the side of the road where we spent the next two hours waiting for a tow. I took it to Central Mass Powersports who replaced the valve stem, and the tire which, in their opinion, had been ruined from many miles of low pressure. My back tire never leaked again.

On my recent SaddleSore 1,000 shakedown, it was my front tire’s turn to go flat. After my darling, wonderful wife, who I’m still very much sucking up to, hooked up the trailer and drove 60 miles to come rescue me, I tracked down the cause to – surprise, surprise – the valve stem, which had been installed by Voldemort Garage. As a great philosopher once said, “How hard could it be?” I’m a hack mechanic, but even I, under the watchful eye of my professional auto tech friend, managed to use his shop’s equipment to swap tires and install four valve stems, none of which ever leaked.

I don’t have a tire machine at home. But RWT‘s Kate Murphy owns half of one, and offered to help me swap tires myself rather than have a shop do it. She pointed out that you can buy tires online for much less than shop prices, plus you don’t have to pay the mounting and balancing fee. As it turns out my tire is actually fine. The air leak is much faster than last time, which means I didn’t ride on it after it started leaking and cause excessive wear to the tire. But I still needed to replace the leaky valve stem. No worries, said Kate. They have a zillion spare valve stems, and we didn’t even need to fully remove the tire to replace it. Great, so I’ll just load the bike on the trailer and take the wife’s car over to deal with it…

…except my wife can’t drive my car. It’s not she can’t drive a stick, but that the motion of shifting my Subaru BRZ causes her pain. Being stranded at home with her kids and no wheels is bad. How was I going to get the bike there? Just remove the front wheel and bring it alone, said Kate.

I autocrossed seriously for several years. I used to swap all four of my street wheels for wheels with sticky R-compound tires, race all day, then swap back to my street wheels and drive home. I’m not NASCAR fast, but I can swap all four wheels myself in about 10 minutes given the proper tools. But I had never removed a motorcycle wheel myself before. I can’t even get my PC800 up on its center stand by myself. But wait, I no longer live alone. I just need someone to give the bike an extra push from the front, and it’s there. So I did. But the bike sits on the stand and the front wheel, not the rear. Throw some weight on the back, suggested Kate. So I put the old warped brake rotors from my wife’s Ford Flex in the trunk. They’re heavy, but not heavy enough. After looking around the garage, I grabbed one of my snow wheels/tires from my BRZ, placed it on the back seat, and BAM, the bike rotated on its center stand onto the back wheel, lifting the front a few inches off the ground. With a bungee cord to hold the wheel to my top trunk, I was ready to pull the wheel.

First I had to pull the calipers. Having done many brake jobs on cars, this part was familiar to me. I needed a cheater pipe on the bolts and was afraid of breaking my Allen wrench, but with the extra help they popped and came off with no problem. A single Phillips head screw held the speedometer cable on – easy enough. I had to figure out exactly what direction to tap the axle out with a hammer, but I did, and with just a little jiggling the wheel dropped out. (Thank goodness I don’t have an earlier PC800, with almost a full fairing around the wheel.)

I packed all the bolts and little pieces that came out of the axle into a small box to save for later, and then I was ready to take the front wheel away. It even fits in my BRZ’s trunk without folding down the back seat.

After work I drove to Will’s place, the other half-owner of Kate’s half-owned tire machine. We fired up the air compressor, pulled the valve out of the stem, and then Kate broke the bead on one side of the tire right next to the stem. This, it turned out, was all we needed to do to gain access to the stem. The rest of the tire machine served as a table but little more for the rest of the project, since we had no need to dismount the tire any further than that. From there it was a simple matter to remove the old stem (which Kate confirmed was shot), then pull the new one through the hole in the rim.

Rather than a stem with a 90 degree bend, we used a short, straight one. That’s what CMP did on my rear wheel, and it’s worked fine ever since, so we decided to keep it simple. And simple it was – pull the valve through the rim until it locked into place. Insert the valve. Add air to pop the bead back on and inflate to 33psi, the PC800’s recommended pressure. Done! I couldn’t believe how quick and easy it was. I spent more time geeking out with Will about Miatas than Kate and I spent fixing my flat. All I had to do now was go home and let it sit overnight to see if it lost any pressure. It didn’t!

“Installation is the opposite of removal.” This sentence is every repair manual’s cop-out for not documenting the reassembly of something it just told you how to disassemble. As a professional technical writer, this irks me. In the case of reinstalling the front wheel on my bike, it was almost correct. Almost. After reinstalling the bearing caps and tapping the axle back through the forks and wheel with a hammer (Jeremy Clarkson’s favorite tool), I discovered that the holes on the non-bolt end of the axle are there so that you can stick something through them to keep the axle from rotating as you tighten the bolt. Lacking a special tool for this, I used a punch and a cheater pipe, then torqued the axle bolt down to Really Friggin Tight (that’s a technical term). The brake caliper pistons needed to be squeezed in a little bit to go around the rotors, but that’s no big deal – I’ve done it a billion times before on my cars. The speedometer gear wasn’t lined up quite right to reattach the cable, so I had to loosen the axle, rotate it, and retighten it. No big deal. All of the parts I removed went back on the bike, with nothing left over. I rolled the bike off the center stand with an inflated front tire.

Kate didn’t trust the pressure gauge on the tire machine, so I finished inflating the tire to the recommended 33psi. (It was 25psi before.) I geared up and took a quick trip around the block. Something in the front didn’t feel quite right, so I pulled over to check all the bolts. That was when I realized that I’d forgotten to tighten the bolts at the bottom of the forks that further clamp the axle in. Oops. I gently rode home, did that, and tried again. It felt pretty good, and I got more and more confident in my repair with each mile I rode. I think I’m back in business – and, thanks to Kate, without spending a dime.

Diving into new territory for my wrenching skills and emerging unscathed has given me more confidence to do more work on my own bikes in the future. This is a very good thing considering the new project I’ve just taken on…

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I played Ingress on and off, Niantic’s geekier predecessor to the latest fad to hit our phones. Like Pokémon Go, there are real life locations – portals, rather than Pokéstops and gyms – that different factions battle for control over. This requires actually traveling to these places to play the game and do whatever it is you’re going to do. Both games are intended to get you outside and walking, and Pokémon Go seems to be doing just that. If you live in a densely populated area, this is great, because you have many of these locations within easy walking distance. But if you’re out in the ‘burbs or the middle of cow country, it could be miles between Pokéstops, making walking impractical. You can get in your car and drive, with the driver not actually playing while in motion, of course. Passengers can play all they want, even on the Nürburgring. But when I actually reached some destinations, I ran into a small but devastating problem – there was nowhere to park. I remember trying to reach one particular Ingress portal located toward the back of a cemetery, except I couldn’t stash my car anywhere safely. I couldn’t even do an ill-advised drive-by because the portal was so far away from the road, making it impossible for me to reach it without abandoning my car in the middle of the road and taking a walk. (I didn’t.)

The solution: a motorcycle. They’re much smaller than a car, and can safely park almost anywhere. You may want to bring a kickstand pad for parking on loose dirt just off the shoulder, but that’ll let you park out of the way and still catch a Clefairy.

There are other benefits as well. You can plan a ride to a series of Pokéstops to stock up on items, or to various gyms to train your critters or battle rival teams. Town centers often have plenty of both within short walking distance, so if you don’t live in a “target rich environment,” hop on the bike and go to one. And then another, if it strikes your fancy. Weather permitting (or not, if you’re hard core), isn’t it more fun to make the journey by motorcycle than by car? If you plan a particularly fun route between Pokéstops, going back to the same ones again to get more stuff after they refresh is a perfect excuse to attack the same twisties multiple times. Just don’t try to catch a Charizard while banging apexes.

Many have written about how Pokémon Go is getting gamers out of their mom’s basements and interacting with each other in the real world. If some of your biker buddies are also playing, why not gather them up and take a group ride to a Pokéstop with some lures to catch more critters together? You could even coordinate your efforts to take over a rival gym. Teams Mystic, Instinct, and Valor could become virtual biker gangs, with all the rivalries the stereotypes bring with them, but fought out by Pokémon in gyms rather than people beating or killing each other in real life. Then after the battle we can all go out for ice cream together, regardless of who’s on what team, because we’re all in it for the fun, right?

These are just a few of the ways I could think of off the top of my head that motorcycling and Pokémon Go could be safely combined. I’m sure there are more. Got any bright ideas? Let us know in the comments.

And go Team Valor.

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This makes it like a mountain begging to be climbed for some riders. That led to the Iron Butt Association beginning to certify long distance rides starting in 1993. Today they certify many long distance rides in addition to the SaddleSore 1,000. Since one can undertake one of these rides anytime, anywhere, they require a fair amount of documentation to prove that you actually completed the ride you claim to have done. But once you do, you’re certified, and no one will argue about whether you really did it or not.

I’ve never been a hard core put-down-the-miles kind of rider. Like many, I prefer tackling the twisties and having an enjoyable experience rather than a mad dash from point A to point B. Some of my trips over long weekends haven’t even covered 1,000 miles in total. But it does seem like one way to get a whole lot of riding done in a short period of time, which is appealing. Plus there’s the question of whether I can pull off this milestone ride or not. There’s only one way to find out.

I tend to overthink and over analyze everything. I’ve done a lot of reading, both on the Iron Butt Association web site and from others who have done the ride themselves. Here’s what I think will work for me.

The Route

Good planning is key to a successful ride. One of the biggest questions is what route to take. With 1,000 miles to cover there are endless possibilities. Since the purpose is to cover the miles, interstates and other superslabs are the easiest way to go. Some say it’s too easy, but screw that on a first attempt. Doing the math tells me that covering 1,000 miles in 24 hours requires an average overall speed of 41.7 mph. If you take interstates allowing 65, 70, or more, you’ll quickly put extra time in the bank to cash in later for fuel stops, rest stops, and to finish in less than 24 hours so you can catch up on some sleep.

I live in New England, which is a beautiful area but tricky for a ride like this. I’m blocked by an ocean to the east and south, and the Canadian border to the north. While I have a passport and have crossed the border on a bike before, I feel it’s an unnecessary time sink when you’re trying to cover the distance, plus a risk of excessive delay and missing the mark through no fault of your own. That leaves west. Southwest heads straight to New York City, which is yet another major roadblock, so that’s out. Northwest there aren’t very many interstates, none to make a loop out of, and then there’s that pesky international border again. But I-90 will take me as far due west as I want to go. And there’s a Kwik-Fill station barely across the PA border that’s just over 500 miles from home. Out there and back will give me the mileage I need.

One problem that plagued Matt LeBlanc was a shorter fuel range than the cars. My Honda PC800 has a 4.2 gallon tank. I checked the model’s reported gas mileage on Fuelly, which shows most people getting around 44 mpg – some better, some worse. That gives me a maximum range of 185 miles between stops if I push it. While I’d have nothing against carrying an extra gallon gas can in case I run out, the documentation requires time stamped gas station receipts to prove you covered the mileage you did. An undocumented gallon of gas could throw that off. Fortunately, the New York State Thruway has well established travel plazas at known locations along the way. With additional stops near home to start and finish, in western MA for my second and second-to-last tank, and the Kwik Fill in PA, I calculated that I can make the trip on three tanks of gas in each direction. The longest leg would be 148 miles, well within the limits of my range even if my gas mileage drops to 35 mpg, lower than I get even in city riding. The Googles say that my route will take 15 hours, 20 minutes, not including stops. That gives me nearly nine hours I can spend off the bike and still make the deadline.

The Strategy

In go-karting, I’ve always been a better endurance racer than the short sprint races. I’m not the fastest driver out there, but I can put down lap after lap at 95%. If the faster guy gives it 102% and wipes out, I win. Similarly, when I did courier work, I learned that the key to making timely deliveries wasn’t to achieve the highest speed, but to make the best progress. Speeding was frowned on, of course, but if I could just keep on keeping on, medium speed and steady would win the race.

You can see this every day on the highway. There’s always “that guy” who finds a gap in traffic, charges ahead faster than everyone else, then gets stuck behind slower people until they can work they way back into the fastest moving lane – usually several cars behind where he started. “That guy” definitely achieved the highest speed, but by holding tight in the fastest moving lane, you put distance on him.

This seems the best strategy for a long distance ride as well. My pace will probably be slower than the highway portion of my commute. Even with a fairing and windshield, the elements can get to you, and the difference between 70 and 80mph is far greater than the difference between 25 and 35. Also, getting pulled over for speeding eats a chunk of time you’d rather spend on the bike.

Traffic sucks, so it’s best to do this when there won’t be much – a weekend, and not a holiday weekend. Also, though I’ve made significant improvements to my forward lighting, I’ll want to have as much daylight as possible for my ride. That means doing the ride sometime around the Summer Solstice which is… um… two days ago. Whoops. But still, maximizing daylight will maximize safety, and allow you to ride faster than at night for longer.

Another important consideration is that you don’t want to have a face full of sun for several hours of your ride. That means not riding east at sunrise, or west as sunset. Geography actually helps me here, forcing me to ride with my back to the sun at pretty much all times.

And although my gas stops could certainly be a quick NASCAR style splash ‘n’ dash without ever dismounting the bike, I’ll likely take those opportunities to get off the bike, stretch, and walk around a bit. There’s no prize for finishing in 16 hours instead of 17, and while I don’t want to push it to a point where I’m actually sleepy, regular short breaks will probably keep me going longer.

The Equipment

Since it’s my only bike, I’ll be doing this on my Honda PC800. I bought it already well equipped for touring, with a Givi top trunk, Bill Mayer seat, and Clearview windshield (which I modified with my Puig clip-on visor, since the previous owner was shorter than me). I lived off this bike for a week when I rode to Cape Breton Island and back. After some trouble and extensive repair a couple of years ago it’s run perfectly ever since. Of course, I’ll want to check the oil, tires, pressure, and all that before taking it 500 miles away from home.

Everything I’ve read tells me that hydration is critical. I suffered from heat exhaustion on a camping trip a few years ago, and I have no wish to ever repeat that experience. I won’t want to pull over to drink, so some kind of hydration system is in order. If it’s easy to use, I’m more likely to use it. Something like a Camelbak is the obvious choice, but I’m not sure I want to carry that weight on my back for 1,000 miles. Maybe I can find a way to attach it to the bike instead.

I typically dislike tank bags, but I’m reconsidering for the sake of a SaddleSore 1,000. I already own one that I haven’t used in years. Its magnetic base is useless on my plastic not-a-gas-tank, but a couple of straps would hold it on. Here I could anything I’d want to reach while riding, like snacks and a water bottle (with a larger jug in the trunk for refills anytime I need them). Documentation could go here too, but it would have to be in a closed compartment so nothing could blow away while I’m grabbing a drink on the fly. There’s a clear map pocket on top where I can put a list of fuel stops for reference.

Though I’ve found using a phone for navigation to be problematic in areas with spotty cell service, it won’t be a problem on this route. I’ve driven most of this trip before using Waze and never had an issue with connectivity. So I’ll use my RAM X-Grip mount for my phone, and program Waze to guide me from fuel stop to fuel stop. That way I won’t forget to stop and run out of gas, plus it’ll answer the proverbial “Are we there yet?” Not to mention the hazard and police alerts. I’ve found the traffic warnings only come up after you’re already stuck in it, which kind of defeats the purpose. Finally, I can share my route with my wife, enabling her to track my progress and reduce how much she’s worrying about me.

Finally, the smallest, cheapest, yet probably most important piece of equipment: earplugs. I don’t use them on my commute, but I use them for any ride with significant time spent at higher speeds with their higher noise level. They don’t block my hearing, just turn the volume down a little bit. I’d argue that at highway speeds I can actually hear better with earplugs than without, because it’s easier to pick up noises other than the wind when it’s not overwhelming your eardrums. This is not only to protect my hearing, but to prevent fatigue as well. I can’t explain it, but hours of loud wind noise can wear you out, even with a helmet that covers your ears and keeps the actual wind out of them. For over 15 consecutive hours in the saddle, I’m going to need them.

The Time

Considering that I said I’d prefer to maximize available daylight, it would seem that the time to tackle a SaddleSore 1,000 is now. Am I ready? I need to figure out hydration and a tank bag, plus give the bike a solid once over. With an afternoon’s work I can have the bike and equipment ready. But what about me? I haven’t had time to put in a good solid day on the bike yet this year with everything else going on in my life. Can I reasonably expect to just hop on my bike and ride 1,000 miles?

I’m not sure. I could potentially work up to it – a 300 mile ride one weekend, and a 600 mile ride another. Or I could just go for it, commit myself, and see if I can do it. Worst case, I find a hotel room on the way, check in for the night, and throw the attempt away. Nothing says you have to do it on the first try, and better safe than sorry.

I might just be talking out my ass here. All my planning and preparation might not mean a thing once the kickstand goes up and I’m actually doing it. If you have any advice for me, feel free to leave it in the comments. For now, I’ve done what I can, so all that remains is the final prep work, then giving it a try. Watch here for updates.

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I’ll say up front that MANY are more serious about motorcycle commuting than I am. In the morning I’ll check the hourly weather forecast, and if it looks like a rainy commute, or it’s below 45-50°F, I’ll take the car. I know many, including some of our other writers, who will gladly commute when it’s colder, in the rain, or even in the snow, riding year round regardless of conditions. I’m just not that hardcore.

But I do still enjoy it. Every time I ride to work I arrive there more alert and relaxed all at the same time, and then again when I get back home. Every day I ride to work I get two hours of riding I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. True, it’s not on the types of roads I prefer to ride, and there’s more traffic than I like, but it’s still riding, and riding is good. And though there are some disadvantages to commuting by motorcycle, there are many advantages as well.

The Advantages

It’s a bike. ‘Nuff said. OK, not really – some of the advantages aren’t quite as obvious as “Uh, bikes are cool, uh-huh-huh-huh.”

While I live in some great riding territory in north central MA, I go through some rather congested small towns in the suburbs of Boston to get to work. I stick to back roads, bike or car, because thanks to traffic I often can go faster than on the main roads without even breaking the speed limit. But I still have to duke it out with plenty of traffic along the way. My bike’s small size allows it to squeeze into gaps where a car won’t fit. I can sneak around a stopped car waiting to make a turn in a space too small for a car, for example.

My acceleration helps as well. My Honda PC800 is far from the fastest bike out there, but it remains true that most bikes can accelerate more quickly than most cars. I need a much smaller gap in traffic to squeeze through and quickly accelerate up to the speed of traffic than my car can. It’s also fun to let ‘er rip through first and second gear, even if you have to back off at the legal limit or the speed of surrounding traffic. Acceleration and maneuverability go hand in hand, as both help me whip around that idiot hogging the left lane at 5mph under the limit in no time at all. It only saves a few seconds each time I do it, but the number of times I’m able to use my size and power to my advantage during a commute adds up to a fair bit of time I save overall.

There are many, many roads between home and work. This is good, because sometimes my preferred route comes to a screeching halt for absolutely no reason whatsoever (or a legitimate reason, but that’s rare). When I find myself with nowhere to go and a solid line of stopped cars ahead of me, it’s super easy to make a U-turn and go find a route that’s actually moving. I can do this in my car as well, but then it’s an awkward three (or more) point turn, and I block traffic in both directions while I’m doing it. No such issues on the bike.

A bike’s small size makes it easier to avoid crashes as well. Just the other day, the car in front of me slammed on their brakes because there was a remote chance that a nearby pedestrian might possibly think about using the crosswalk. I’m all for stopping for pedestrians in crosswalks – it’s polite, and it’s the law. but this guy stopped so short that I had to swerve and stop next to him in the oncoming lane because I didn’t have enough braking distance. Go ahead and criticize me for following too closely, but there was more than one set of screeching tires behind us that agree with me.

I haven’t even mentioned lane splitting. It’s legal and even encouraged in most of the world, but not in the US (except California) or Canada. If you live somewhere it’s legal, you have a huge advantage over cars when traffic gets bogged down. You also don’t have to worry about getting rear ended by the inattentive driver who doesn’t notice traffic stopping, because you can keep going rather than sit behind stopped cars.

And, of course, there’s parking. Some offices have dedicated motorcycle parking spaces. At others, you can often leave your bike in technically a non-space close to the door, as long as you’re not a jerk about it. Don’t create an obstruction and you’re generally OK.

The Disadvantages

All is not rainbows and unicorn farts, however. While there are some great things about biking to work, there are some issues as well.

The small size of a bike means you can’t take much with you. There are ways around that, but if you need to stop for groceries, pick up the kids, or bring home a ham radio antenna tower, a bike may not work so well.

They say that if you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute. Even if the hourly forecast says it’ll be sunny and warm all day and I have an enjoyable ride to work, it may still be cold and rainy by the time I leave. I have a fairing and windshield, and I carry light rain gear with me at all times in case this happens. I’m not as worried about the ride home, because if I get soaked there’s a hot shower and a dry change of clothes waiting for me at the end of the ride. And if you’re already equipped for touring, you may already have accessories like heated gear to keep you more comfortable.

Speaking of clothes, I’m fortunate enough to work for a company with a casual dress code. I can ride to the office in my work clothes, take off my gear, and get to work. If you’re expected to wear a suit or uniform that would get wrinkled up under your riding gear, this may not work for you. Maybe you can bring a change of clothes with you in your bike luggage. Or, with some planning ahead, you can bring some extra work clothes with you one day in the car and leave them there for the days you bike. The building I work in has a locker room and showers, so even if I had to change to a zoot suit I could still make bike commuting work.

And then there’s the elephant in the room – vulnerability. Two years ago my car got rear ended when I was almost at work. It got messed up pretty bad, but I was completely unhurt, not even whiplash, and insurance got the car fixed. If that had happened to me on my bike, I would’ve at least taken a ride in an ambulance to get checked out, possibly been badly hurt, or worse. I quit biking to work for a while after this because I was scared of the far more severe consequences of getting hit on the bike. After a while, I realized that I missed the ride, and figured that the bike’s size and maneuverability advantage would help reduce the risk of getting hit. But it’s still a risk, and bike commuting to a 9-5 job puts you in the middle of the worst traffic of the day.

The Bottom Line

As with all riding, you have to make decisions you’re comfortable with. That can mean physical comfort, such as not taking the bike to work when it’s below freezing, or mental comfort, like avoiding riding in Boston like the plague. Some bikes are certainly better than others for commuting, but chances are whatever you have, you can commute on it if you want. Give it a shot on Monday the 20th. If you like it, don’t let the other 364 days of the year not being Ride To Work Day stop you.

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But thinking about it, when asked about practically of a motorcycle, a lot of people are quick to point out that it can’t carry a lot of things. Frankly, this is just plain wrong. I get told you can’t use it as a tow vehicle.

BAM. MOTORCYCLE TOWING. “…ookay, but I need to tow my sister-in-laws E46 wagon after it breaks down! A motorcycle can’t do that…”

BAM AGAIN!

Anyways, let’s get on with discussing how to add some storage space to your motorcycle and make it more practical.

1. Fork Bag

Starting front the front, we have a cruiser favorite: The fork bags. For obvious reasons, you will probably never see this on a sport bike. These are smaller bags that attach to the fork legs of the bike and can store a small amount of stuff. Your phone, wallet, some cash, maybe your smokes or a roadside plug kit. They aren’t intrusive (if mounted right, anyways) and are relatively hidden from you line of sight. This is both good and bad – good because it’s not obstructing anything, bad because if it falls off you aren’t going to notice until you stop. Wouldn’t that be just swell? These are usually pretty cheap, $50 or so.

2. Handlebar Bag

What you see if what you get. Similar to the fork bag, but mounts up on your handlebars. Again, for small stuff. And again, cheap. $25? maybe?

So, how does one go about getting their bike ready for the road? There are a few maintenance items that need to be addressed before you can hit the road.

First things first. Oil. Oil is what lubricates the bearings inside your engine and keeps your clutch cool (assuming you don’t ride a older ducati). Oil should be changed every 5000KM or so. Depending on the duty cycle.

To change your oil, the first step is to locate the oil drain plug on your specific bike. On my Suzuki for example, it’s a 14MM bolt. On my dad’s BMW however, it is a 10MM Allen key.

Once you’ve found the oil drain bolt, warm the bike up to let the oil flow a little easier. Turn the bike off, remove the oil drain plug and A: immediately make a mess because you didn’t align the drain pan right and B: drop the drain bolt in the pan where is going to be immediately be submerged in oil. Go fishing to retrieve the bolt.

Once you got the bolt out and cleaned, check for the washer. Usually made of copper, this little guy helps seal the bolt so that you aren’t dripping oil all over the road as you are riding along. It’s a pretty good idea to replace it, though if you don’t have one handy, and the one you have looks to be in serviceable condition, it’s not the end of the world to re-use it.

Now that we have the old oil out of the motor, let’s take a look at that oil filter. Most manufactures say you can replace it every second oil change. Personally, I replace them every oil change. Its $15 for some piece of mind, well worth it to me.

Locate the oil filter (some bikes may have a cartridge filter, in which case, find where the cover is). Grab your filter wrench/strap and pull that sucker off. (Word of warning: there is still some oil in the filter itself, so keep your drain pan close by). Once you have the filter off, double check the sealing surface to make sure that you didn’t leave the rubber gasket behind. Once you have established that you haven’t, you can throw that old filter out and pull the new one out of the box. Smear a little bit of oil on the rubber gasket and screw that new filter on. How tight? Refer to your owner manual. (I usually go hand tight + a turn). If you have a cartridge filter, refer to factory specs for the cover.

Now we have a new filter, new crush washer in the bolt and no oil in the bike. So, let’s put in some oil!

There are a few things you need to learn NOT to ask on a motorcycle forum.

1: what are the best tires?

2: what PSI do you run your tires at?

3: what is the best oil?

Look in the owner’s manual, choose whatever weight works best for your temperature range and get some oil.

The only thing to watch out for is that the oil is MOTORCYCLE oil. Most car oils have a few friction modifiers mixed in to help the oil lubricate better. This is all great in a car, but remember that bikes keep their clutches bathed in the same oil as the engine. Any friction modifiers in the oil will ruin the clutch plates and you will then have a very expensive bike that can’t go anywhere. So make sure you use the right type of oil and the right amount (again, check your service manual for how much is needed) Right, we have oil in the bike. What’s next? Well, that power has to get to the back wheel somehow. This is usually done via a chain, belt, or shaft.

If you have a belt or shaft, you can skip the next part. Buggers.

Still here? Great, let’s talk chain maintenance. Your chain provides the crucial link (get it? Because the chain is made of links? I’ll see myself out the door) from the engine to the rear tire. To work at its best, the chain has to be clean and well lubricated. So, step one, let’s get that chain clean.

I throw my bike up on a maintenance stand, and take a can of de-greaser and apply it liberally to the chain and sprocket. Then I take a brush, and scrub all of the gunk and crap off. Then I take a roll of paper towels, wipe off the now loosened grime, and hit it again with the de-greaser just in case I missed anything the first time around.

After the chain has been wiped dry, I take my can of lube and spray it onto the actual rollers. I see this done incorrectly a lot of the time. The lubricant doesn’t need to go on the outside of the links, it has to go on the rollers and in the actual pivot points of the chain.

NOTE: NEVER EVER EVER CLEAN YOUR CHAIN WITH THE BIKE RUNNING! It may seem like a quick and easy way to get it done, but it’s also a very quick and easy way to lose a couple of fingers in the sprocket.

Once all that is done, make sure the chain is tight (loosen the axle, turn the adjustment nuts EQUALLY until chain is as tight as you need it, right tighten axle) and you are on your merry way. Now that we have fresh oil in the engine, and our chain is nice and clean, we should check the brake pads to make sure that we still have plenty of stopping life. Checking them on bikes is relatively straight forward, as you can simply shine a light one the calipers and see how much life you have left. If you want to take a closer look, the calipers themselves are easy to take off. Two bolts (usually) hold the caliper to the mounting bracket, and once those two are undone, the caliper just slides right off.

Now with the caliper off, take a nice long look at the brake pads. Hmmm. Dirty.

When it comes time to put them back on, you may want to spread the pads apart just a little bit, to make sliding the caliper back over the brake disk easier for you. Just take a flat screw driver and use it like a lever. If you are fancy/feeling flush with cash, you can get a dedicated tool for the job. Re-tighten the bolts to w/e the factory specification is (mine are 27lb-ft) and give the lever a quick squeeze to bring the pads back into contact with the rotor.

If you have a drum brake, you will have to take the wheel off to inspect the brake pads. You pull the wheel, and then one on side you will find a removable hub that carries the lever and the brake pads. Pull it off and check to see if you still have any life left in it. Putting it back together, it’s simply the reverse process. Don’t forget to reconnect both the brake bar and the stabilizing bar.

Now we have oil, we have a nice oiled chain, and our brakes are in working order. Ready to ride yes?

Not quite. We still have ONE more thing that needs to be done. Check your tire pressures. After sitting over the winter, those big rubber bands have probably lost a couple of pounds (unlike me…curse you Christmas feasts) so it’s worthwhile to pump them back up to recommended pressure, lest something happen.

And with that, we are ready to ride. Remember as it is the start of the season, there will still be a lot of sand and salt on the streets, and people are not used to motorcycle on the road, so take extra care out there. Happy riding!