Episode 003 - Pre Trip Motorcycle Maintenance

Transcript:

(00:00) what do you do when the bike won't start you hotwire [Music] it hello and welcome to best motorcycle roads I'm Tom and I'm Todd we have over 30 years of motorcycling experience and 15 years of planning and riding motorcycle trips we're here to share what we've learned with you our goal at best motorcycle roads is simple make your next motorcycle trip the best it can be we'll dive into technology planning packing the roots other tips and everything in between from essential prep to Unforgettable roades routes

(00:42) we've got you covered before we Kickstart today's Journey we ask you to sign up for our BMR Rider alerts it's our way of keeping you in the loop with the latest rides tips and stories we promise no spam only Essentials to enhance your motorcycle Adventures join the BMR crew today we'll put a link in the show notes this segment is what we use to start off each episode and talk about motorcycle gear reviews and tips and we call it the toolkit this might be a literal segment name today actually we're talking about

(01:15) the toolkits right how do you build a toolkit for your bike um how do you even figure out and know the essential tools that help um you kind of have a musthave and a nice to have category maybe and that really kind of doesn't really matter how long the trip is um we really kind of need to know what those musthaves are and I guess Todd on my list of must haves I'd say some sort of multi-tool uh assortment of zip ties and then either duck or electrical tape and a flashlight I guess for me um yeah the nice to have starts to get a little more

(01:51) bike specific I think you're talking about wrenches screwdrivers pliers some sort of a tire repair kit um yeah and then I don't know when I think about building the toolkit I think about when I'm working on the bike here really paying attention to the tools that I'm using or the the literal wrench sizes that I'm using you know a lot of the modern day bikes have both wrenches and a lot of Allen you know Allen um bolts that it uses so you really got to pay attention I think um because that's

(02:22) kind of when you figure out what you what you need um yeah and I I've purchased a set of the cruise tools and and cruise tools you can buy a set specific to uh whether you know it's American size or you know the Japanese bikes um but those are great sets they make them in in different sizes but uh like you said pay attention to what you're using when you're at home so that when you order a cruise tool set you get the right one the one that you know has everything you're going to need it's

(02:51) always amazing to me when you see the old old bikes you know it's always come with that tool kit right and it like ends up having like eight Tools in it you know and you're like and but but like I know the old Honda Gold Wings every you could rebuild the entire bike with everything in that in that toolkit and I think things have changed changed a little bit but uh you just probably I would think though eight tools will get you almost everything that I'm comfortable doing while we're on the road so yeah there's a lot of uh compact

(03:20) stuff out now you know as Innovation and Technology does um there's some tools from WEA Klein weha they're great brands of quality tools they're expensive um and then you know I like to look at like Reddit tools subreddits and they'll talk about different options and these are made by the same company that makes these and that's um I don't know I think you really just got to learn to see what you need what you have and what you're using um as far as safety considerations though I think you know you got to say

(03:53) the normals right you like everybody wants to work on their bike that's good make sure you're in a safe location um make sure it's stay before using it a lot of people you know you can pick up lifts at Harbor Freight once they're stable it's really great to get those up up in the air a little bit um but yeah you just got to use those safety things am I forgetting anything there one other thing I would just mention is if you're riding in a group of you know four five six people yeah um make sure you're not like

(04:19) duplicating tool sets all over the place you know just ask each other what are you bringing uh here's what I was thinking about bringing and then you might be able to save some weight leave a few things at home and save some space on your bike if you don't need six people with 10 mm wrenches you know or 10 mm sockets well I do because I always lose the 10 mm but you know uh yeah try to try to talk with everybody in your group and find out who's bringing what yeah uh ridewise is the section where we

(04:46) focus on planning and safety tips uh so today we'll discuss uh pre-trip maintenance uh kind of a list of things that uh we do and we've got a we've got some lists that we've made over the years and just kind of keep working on those but really we want to start with uh Tire inspection because um unfortunately that's gotten us several times on our trip where uh you don't think about it you look at your tire and think well it's got it still has tread left but you're not thinking well wait a

(05:15) minute I'm going on a 26 2700 mile trip and you know sometimes motorcycle especially back tires you know will only go about 8,000 so um you know take a real good look at those um check for proper inflation um check that that tread wear or any signs of damage if there's any you know cracks or splits or anything in the sidewalls um and remember your tires are really the only thing that's contacting the road so they really do need to be in excellent condition yeah um check the fluids go through and check your engine

(05:48) oil your coolant um check your hydraulic fluids check your brake fluids you know all the reservoirs should have lines that you can um you know view or they've got a dip stick that you can check on that uh make sure your your fluids are clean you know make sure they're not too dirty um you know just being real consistent about your your fluid levels you know it's real vital to uh for for your bike's performance and Longevity um your your battery we've had batteries you know uh go bad on trips as well uh

(06:19) if it's 5 years old just change it um the battery is like 200 bucks I sometimes and the same thing with tires I mean you you want to take a trip you want to have this fun like you'll spend 100 bucks to have a great Stak at some place but you know we don't spend you know two 200 bucks for tires and same with the battery I mean I don't know like it's and the thing about it is when you're on trips with batteries is like oh yeah it it starts when I start it but like what always happens is you stop

(06:47) turn the bike off leave the GPS running you're trying to figure out you know it's three years ago you're trying to syn the C A 20s for an hour you know this is on that's on the GPS is on you're running more things and you and then pretty soon it won't start you know like we've seen it happen before and it it's it's okay it's just a bummer and you know older bikes it wasn't that big of a deal I remember push starting Mike once on his yeah but like now it's it's

(07:13) 20 minutes just to find the battery uh you got to take a side cover off you know this that so yeah batteries like just why mess with them yeah and that's you know that's another thing we didn't mention in uh things to take with you set jumper cables you know motorcycle jumper cables are pretty thin they're pretty small they you know they roll up and pack pretty tight but make sure there's at least one set on your trip make sure someone has those um you know really walk around and check all the

(07:38) lights uh your headlights your tail lights your brake lights your indicators um on actually twice while I've been traveling I've had a headlight go out um luck the first time I was uh you know I was still in the daylight uh and we looked for a dealership it was a Saturday morning um got to the dealership just before they closed so I got a headlight then but you know just carry an extra headlight with you you know they're small they're lightweight they don't take up any room just pack one of those M um check your steering

(08:09) and your suspension uh we we do have kind of a story about that uh funny thing that happened but um you know when we start packing the bikes we forget how much load we're actually putting on the bikes and you know if you're riding two up um and two ups worth of gear and and two ups worth of gear is the other thing uh you know check the the weight rating on your motorcycles and and really try not to go past that you know it has like a maximum load and that's for you your passenger your fuel and all of your

(08:39) luggage so really check that um and if you're if you're like Tom and you buy a whole bunch of accessories the night before we go on a trip right and start bolting all this this stuff on and strapping it on uh get out and ride a little bit because what happens is soon as you get out in that you know that highway speed you know the wind starts hitting everything it starts rattling and and all those new mirrors you just put on start falling off and getting loose so uh you know make sure you you have a chance to ride your bike if

(09:09) you've added some accessories to make sure they're on there real solid and you know you're not getting vibrations you're not getting weird winds and and things like that driving for two hours on the interstate you know there's a lot of force on some of those pieces so we've got a link we've got a list that we've started for pre-trip inspection we've got that on best motorcycle roads.

(09:28) com we'll put a link in the show notes just something to check off and just make sure you think about all those things so yeah the next segment is what we call mile marker it's where we get to talk about the stories that kind of reiterate some of these things um yeah you said we've had several trips three trips where we had Tire issues yeah it seems silly but the first time I took it was actually a solo run on the west side of Iowa between um on the on the east side of Missouri river is something that's really cool I don't I don't think

(09:57) you've been there yet but it's low Hills um and it's it's wild man um Hills made so you think of the desert and how all the you know the sand dunes get made it's the same thing except it's made with black dirt so you're just riding along these roads and it just looks like a cliff face like a you know like the edge of a mountain and it but it's dirt it's the craziest thing I would highly recommend if you're in the area to take it um if you're heading east towards Omaha you get to the Missouri River Head

(10:29) North and uh we'll throw a map on there but it's pretty crazy I mean it's neat to see but I was running all day um I was parked at night I stopped at a hotel to stay overnight I was getting the last bag off the bike and I looked at the tire and sure is shooting steel belt showing oh so um I'm was a ways away I ended up luckily I called my brother-in-law he came over and picked me up he happened to have an extra Tire in his garage we changed the next day and it was good but you know I don't

(11:00) know what I was thinking I I wasn't thinking I wasn't really paying attention um I'm sure that it wasn't showing belt when I left but it was a 400 mile day you know um and it and it was you know so it just kind of ruined the trip I ended up having to get you know help and that's just that's just not fun you know it ends ends a day not well and it could end it really well if I wouldn't have noticed it right the next day yeah so and and I remember just uh a little more recently we were on a

(11:30) trip and we were down in the Nashville area and and actually when before we left we we kind of noticed on one of our friends bikes Mike that uh his back tire was sketch SK it was a little sketch it was kind of at the end of its life it had you know kind of a bare spot you know and we thought well you know Mike are you sure no no it's it's it's fine you know I've I I haven't had it on there that long but you know not again back tires on motorcycles don't last that long but um you know we got riding

(12:01) um riding down the Nashville area and all those great roads down there and it was you know then it started raining on us so got out our rain gear and we riding in rain and pretty soon uh we kind of pulled into this town we riding slow and there's puddles in the road and you know one of the guys looked at Mike's Tire he says I think Mike's back tire is low and I looked I thought no he's sitting in a puddle you know that's just the puddle of making it look like that well at the very next stop sign we

(12:26) wrote up next to him and sure enough his tire was nearly flat so um luckily we were close to a a hotel parking lot you know and pulled in there and um again it was on a it was on a maybe a Saturday I can't remember what day it was but you know we had to start calling around for tires and you would think Nashville right yeah big city big city we had a heck of a time trying to find a a tire I don't know if we ended up having to have one shipped in but um it it took us a whole another day of downtime you know

(12:58) we didn't get get to ride the next day because we're waiting for the tire to be changed but the good the good news was uh it rained that whole day so we were you know inside didn't have to ride and rain that whole day but um yeah you know kind of it messed up the trip a little bit and just one of those things that you know had we been a little more diligent we could have said look let's just change the tire before we go and you know so we don't have trouble well and then you know the thing that didn't

(13:24) happen which was good was you know accident right I mean that will end a trip real quick um so yeah I mean some of the good things about Nashville though you guys ended up didn't you hit an Airbnb was that you kind of did a stay where you did Airbnb and the Clover Leaf it was a vbo kind of the same thing but uh yeah we used that as our our Central U unit you know place to stay we Hub and we unpacked our all of our luggage so that was nice and light up the bikes and then we just made big Cloverleaf rides out

(13:55) from Nashville every day and uh so that was great so during that rain day we were at least at our home hub and um but it was nice I mean we went out to um tale of the Dragon you know and it did some of that kind of stuff so that's awesome it was great other roads near Nashville I know that uh We've rode that on a different well rode into Nashville on that nachez Trace Parkway that's quite a road um I don't know unique interesting thing about that is that is there's four National Park roadways in

(14:26) the US and that's one of them um that one starts down in Mississippi I think it ends in Nashville that was an interesting Road um I'd like to do that again sometime too um but that one starts as like an it's kind of one of the old American roadways um I think it was traveled a lot you know over the years and it just kind of became one of those things but you know I think that alone could be a it's a 444 Mile Road which isn't super long but I think there's just a lot of stuff to do especially if you're the

(14:58) type of people that like activities along the way I think there's quite a bit of things to stop and do on that Parkway um I don't know if you remember anything specifically along that way I just remember it being a it was a tranquil Road I would say um like when we rode it they don't allow commercial traffic so it's only vehicles and bicycles y um so it's pretty quiet and calm um but I don't know it's it's quite a visual it's it's good it's got good visuals yeah I

(15:29) would definitely ride that again yeah I would too yeah yep um the last Tri the last trip we took actually was another freaking time we had a stupid Tire problem you know and then this one was where I ended up borrowing a motorcycle from a friend borrowed Turk's bike nice bike KTM we looked at the tire and it was it looked like sometimes tires get this way when you're ride on the highway all the time they start to square a little bit right but there there was plenty of tread on both sides of the square and

(16:01) the square so you know we checked the pressures the pressures were good it had actually uh TPS sensors on the bike so I was watching them the whole time boy oh boy we didn't if we're not coming home on the last day and look at and again freaking steel belt showing on the on the tire so you know it's one of those things where I would have bet a paycheck that that tire would not have done that and the funny thing is is you would think that it was when if we were riding in hot hot weather well heck we rode the

(16:30) rain part of that so yeah I don't know I know when he went to get that tire changed the guy's like somebody's been doing burnouts on your motorcycle I'm like and he's like not this guy he wouldn't do it but you know it's just one of those things where you just got to be careful right I mean like when you think it's going to be fine just fix again you're putting 1500 1600 miles on a trip and that's that's a lot of miles that's a lot of miles you know when you start talking about that kind of stuff

(16:56) and the other thing I remember too is um uh I think at that same stop when you found that the tire you know that we had belt showing um we noticed that the uh the kickstand was was vibrating off like the bolts had come apart and it was like dangling it you couldn't set the bike up on the the side stand at that point so uh we didn't have the size wrench we needed so we used a bunch of zip ties I think yeah zip tied it up zip tied it up yeah yeah then had no yeah didn't have any way for it to then you had to lean

(17:26) it against things after that but um yeah just really keep watching your bike as you go you know every time you stop just take another quick look around yeah from that's a great point I mean um you know and then one other thing that I remember that wasn't a tire problem is we stopped for lunch one day I it was a vom I was riding a vrms and fun bike we got back on to get up and I it wouldn't I couldn't start it it the starter wouldn't engage and uh what ended up happening that time was the the clutch

(17:57) switch actually went out which is a little tiny you know little three probably $10 switch and what we ended up having to do is like um basically it's technically not Hotwire and we just wired through that switch so it just would start no matter if you're in gear or not which you just had to be careful of but um but yeah just another one of those times when we just had to have a few tools we kind of you know had some tape had some wire we ended up bypassing the switch and everything was fine um as long as we were safe with it but man

(18:28) sometimes you just never know what's going to happen you know and and it's a little bit of kind of knowing your bike a little bit otherwise what are you gonna do I mean you're just stranded it's it's not going to start without that switch working properly so yeah yeah yeah you just made me think of one more thing I need to add in here um I remember you you had added some I think a mud flap or something to your front fender on on your motorcycle a fender extender a fender extender and we got to riding on the

(18:55) very first day um we were you know kind of on a four lane was what I remember you know just to get the trip started and then we were going to get off onto some two lanes but um you were behind us and we had the helmet communicators good thing and we're coming up to an offramp and you know the guy in the front said you know here's our off-ramp so we all you know head off the offramp and all a sudden we hear Tom going I can't turn I'm going straight I'm going straight I can't turn my steering wheel or my

(19:25) handlebars and we're like What are you kidding and uh pretty soon we looked back and Tom wasn't with us so we all you know as quick as we could found a turn around on the highway and went back and sure enough got up and instead of being able to take the the uh the exit ramp or go it was almost like a y you know uh you had to go straight and then you just came to a stop and sure enough your handlebars were locked dead center and it took us a little while to figure it out but that Fender extender that was

(19:56) down on the on your front tire had kind of folded back folded back somehow and got pinched against the radiator or the scoop by the radiator and locked them together yeah um and that was because probably you hadn't ridden it you just put that stuff on and then went I don't recall exactly the details but I just remember I had to cut it out of there like I cut it off and uh yeah I dealt with it later but yeah just one of those things where that was bad and then you know not having any tool if we had any

(20:26) tools I I don't know like how you'd have got that out of there but yeah well it's it's a good thing that you stopped when you did because you were like right in the intersection where splits you went straight ahead and stopped no choice yeah yeah funny uh so this podcast can be found on best motorcycleroads.

(20:43) com SLP podcast all the information you need will be there but you can subscribe on Spotify Amazon music apple pocketcasts and YouTube um roadside Q&A in this segment uh we'll be looking to answer your questions take any suggestions you have for topics and then we'll provide our insights and advice based on our years of uh planning trips and our writing experiences yeah you can use the contact us for on best motorcycle roads and submit those and we'll get them right into the queue so the closing segment is

(21:14) let just kind of lets us reflect on the the podcast we call it the last mile um you know Todd what what do you got from today I I really think just um when you're talking about tools um talk to each other don't duplicate a bunch of tools uh decide who can bring which things uh you know there's no need for that extra weight and that extra room on your bike so I that's kind of a big one for me I agree you know me me having two issues with tires I just say hey you know like just don't let that happen

(21:43) again like be prepared check your checklist get tires ordered in advance you know get it handled prior to leaving and honestly these TPMS sensors the tire pressure monitor sensors I mean they're your friend now um my opinion is many of the tire issues are caused by bad the incorrect inflation rates especially like when you were talking about putting that load on there all that stuff you got to check your tires after you have all that stuff on there not before you know that's when you need to have that

(22:12) maximum pressure um you know that's what they're designed for they can go up to that maximum pressure um so yeah so all right yeah next episode we're going to do the first try of a route highlight the Tail of the Dragon um so yeah if you like this episode if it up your day don't keep it to yourself like subscribe and share it with your crew we're all about the thrill of the ride and the bonds it creates keep the spirit of Adventure alive and remember bikes friends and endless roads the stories

(22:40) ride forever take [Music] care