How To: Keep Your Bike Alive with Routine Motorcycle Maintenance

As a rule, accumulated mileage isn't particularly critical as long as the day-to-day stuff is performed on schedule; whether you perform the brunt of the 20K service at 18K or 22K won't matter all that much. Because I don't like to tie up my bikes during the prime riding months I change the oil when it's due and do what maintenance I must while basically letting the rest slide until the snow flies and the bike comes off the road. Then I take my time and spread whatever inspection is due over a couple of weekends. If you're so inclined, I'd suggest you take the same approach, in part because with no pressure to ride the bike, you'll be disposed to take your time and do a more thorough job. By the same token, most service departments are slow over the winter-in fact many offer incentives like reduced prices or free bike pick-up to bring in the work. If you're going to have a shop perform the inspection, schedule it for the colder months when things are quiet, even if it means running up a few extra miles.

Doing It By the Book
Let's look at a typical routine service checklist. Since this one is representative rather than specific to a particular bike, there may be tasks here that don't apply to your motorcycle. That goes for the 6,000-mile interval, which was used because it's a nice round number; your inspection intervals could just as easily arrive at 4,000 or 8,000 miles. As always if there's any doubt, refer to your bike's service manual.

If none of that looks particularly difficult, that's because it isn't. If you remove the valve adjustment and the carb/throttle body synchronization from the equation (and in many cases, neither will be required), the whole job can easily be completed in about four unhurried hours.

As time and mileage accumulate the workload increases. In addition to the items listed at the one year/6,000 mile mark, expect to see something similar to the following at the next level.

Obviously, there's a trend here, and it's one that will continue. Using our hypothetical example, at the four year/24,000 mark, the manufacturer may want the brake and fuel lines and radiator hoses replaced, or at least thoroughly inspected. In this regard, some manufacturers are more finicky than others. I'd also caution that some of the manufacturer's suggestions need to tempered with common sense; I've been running the same coolant hoses on my dual sport bike since I bought it nine years ago and they're still in mint condition, despite the manufacturer's recommendation to change them every two years.

In addition to the parts listed here, you're certainly going to be replacing some expendable items like tires, brake pads (and possibly the rotors), batteries and maybe even the occasional clutch or two, but you and I both know that those parts are going to wear out no matter how often you service the bike.

Benign neglect vs. neglect Unfortunately, when it comes to working on motorcycles, not everyone shares my enthusiasm, and that's perfectly understandable. If that's your case, and presuming you'd like to hang onto your bike, you have several options. For one, you can follow the manufacturer's recommendations and simply have someone else perform the work. That's a reasonable course, and I know of several 100,000-plus mile machines that have never felt their owner's hand on a wrench.

Another alternative would be the, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," program. The argument here is that if you're going to work on something, you might as well wait until it stops working entirely before wasting your time and energy. This is generally a bad way to go, in part because Murphy's law-which states that things will always break when doing so causes maximum expense and inconvenience-tends to be overly optimistic. So not only will that worn muffler bearing let go when you're 500 miles from home, it'll do so where you have no cell phone coverage and it's an uphill walk in both directions to seek help over dark, deserted and wet roads, in a neighborhood where serial killers leave their porch lights on. People that subscribe to this theory generally have a yard full of broken machinery, all of which just "needs a little work and she'll be good as new."

That being said, there are times when a little benign neglect pays off. For example, most manufacturers recommend inspecting and lubricating the steering head bearings at the two to four year mark. While it's not a particularly onerous job, it is a bit time consuming, and in most cases, the bearings are perfectly fine. Now by no means am I telling you not to do it; I must emphasize that steering head bearings take a lot of abuse, so if there's the slightest doubt concerning their condition, by all means yank them out and have a good look. However my feeling is that once they're out of there, it's just as easy to install new ones, so what I normally do is let them slide until they're shot (which generally means something closer to maybe 30,000 miles or more), and then I replace them. That approach isn't by the book and in some cases, like that of a high-mileage bike that sees a lot of use, it may not be the smartest way to go, but it works for me. So the bottom line here is that you don't necessarily have to follow the manufacturer's service recommendations to the letter so much as you have to establish a realistic and rational program that works for you.

In the end the secret to running up the big mileage is that there really isn't any secret: keep up with the maintenance, repair things that break in a timely manner, and chances are better than average that the motorcycle will age a lot more gracefully than its owner. -MZ