Let's Ride (10 page)

As you ease out the clutch lever and get into the friction zone, twist the throttle to give the engine just enough gas to start moving smoothly. Too little throttle and you’ll stall the engine; too much throttle and you’ll spin out and crash or even wheelie over backward, which are both terrible ways to start out your first ride. If at any time you feel you are not in complete control of the bike, pull in the clutch and apply the brakes to stop.

Because almost every motorcycle has a manual transmission, you’ll need to shift gears once you get rolling. It works just like in a car—when your engine reaches a certain rpm, you need to shift up a gear to avoid overrevving. When your engine drops below a certain rpm, you need to downshift to avoid stalling the engine. Your goal is to keep your engine in what’s known as the “powerband,” which is the rpm range in which an engine generates power most efficiently.

Overrevving can cause your engine to blow up in extreme cases, but underrevving an engine can do damage, too. It can lead to detonation, which is when there are tiny explosions inside the engine that can damage components, and it can also cause the buildup of unburned carbon deposits. But the main problem with letting the rpm level drop below the engine’s powerband is that when this happens you won’t have the ability to accelerate out of danger.

If your brakes are your primary tools for avoiding crashes, the ability to accelerate runs a close second. Sometimes it’s better to accelerate out of the way of danger than it is to brake to avoid it. If your engine is running below its efficient powerband and is bogging down, when you twist your throttle, there will be a pause before the engine reacts. If you’re trying to get out of the way of a speeding car and this happens, you’re probably not going to live very long. It’s best to just make sure that your engine is in its powerband at all times so you’ll always have the option of accelerating should you need it.

To shift up, roll off the throttle at the same time you squeeze in the clutch lever. When the throttle is fully closed and the clutch disengaged, move the shift lever up with your left toe in a firm, smooth movement until the lever stops. If you hesitate, your shifter might get caught between gears so that when you release the clutch and twist the throttle, your transmission will be in what’s called “false neutral” and your engine will just spin without moving you forward. This can be deadly if you are trying to get out of the way of something, or if some jackass is following you too closely on the highway.

To downshift, roll off the throttle and squeeze the clutch. Firmly press down on the shift lever, and then apply a small amount of throttle as you ease out the clutch lever. You do this to match your engine speed to the speed of your rear wheel. If your rear wheel is going faster than your engine is spinning, you’ll get wheel hop, which can lead to a dangerous skid.

When coming to a stop, you might shift all the way down to neutral without releasing the clutch, but you’ll want to do this gradually because you can damage your motorcycle’s transmission by shifting down into too low a gear while you are moving, even with the clutch lever pulled in. This is especially true if your bike’s clutch is starting to wear out.

This sounds a lot more complicated than it is. In recent years there’s been a trend toward motorcycles with automatic transmissions, but I think this is happening because people think riding a manual-transmission bike will be too complicated. It really isn’t. You’ll quickly get the hang of it, and once you’ve got a few miles under your belt, shifting—and everything else associated with riding a motorcycle—will come as naturally to you as breathing.

GEARING UP

B
EFORE YOU DO ANY
of the preceding activities, you’ll need to have proper riding gear. The minimum gear you should always wear when you ride includes the following:

• Helmet
  
• Riding jacket
  
• Full-finger gloves
  
• Long pants
  
• Over-the-ankle boots
  

Helmets

A lot of people are surprised when they find out I never ride without a helmet. Like most people my age, I did ride without a helmet for decades. We didn’t even have helmets available to us when I started riding, so we never even gave them any thought. Then in 1983 I had throat cancer and had a laryngectomy. After that I didn’t have a choice. The air passing over my laryngectomy made it impossible for me to breathe unless I wore a full-face helmet, so I either wore a helmet or I didn’t ride. For me that was no choice at all—I started wearing a helmet and using a windshield.

Today I’d wear a helmet whether I needed to or not, and not just because they are safe; I find riding is more comfortable and enjoyable with a full-face helmet. It reduces road noise, keeps the wind blasts out of my face, and keeps bugs and other debris out of my eyes.

That said, there’s no doubt that wearing a helmet is a lot safer than not wearing a helmet. Harry Hurt, of Hurt Report fame, conducted a long-term study of helmet use for the University of Southern California’s Head Protection Research Laboratory and discovered that you are five times more likely to suffer a head injury if you crash without a helmet as you would be if you crashed while you were wearing one. Every study conducted since has backed up Hurt’s findings.

This doesn’t mean that a helmet is some sort of magic totem that will save you in every circumstance. If you get hit by a bus or crash into a guardrail at 80 miles per hour, you’ll probably experience so much blunt trauma to your body that you won’t survive even if you have a helmet. But for every extreme example like that there are many cases where a person without a helmet died from hitting his or her head in a minor tip over; had he or she been wearing a helmet, the person would have suffered only minor embarrassment.

Take Indian Larry, the custom bike builder from New York, for example. On Saturday, August 28, 2004, while filming an episode of
Biker Build-Off,
Larry was performing stunts for the crowd. He rode his stunt bike through a wall of flames and topped this off with his signature bike-surfing bit, standing up on the seat, his arms stretched out in a crucifix pose. But something went wrong. His bike was probably going too slow, no more than 30 miles per hour, and the front end began to wobble badly. Instead of leaning forward to grab the handlebars and then sitting back down in the saddle, as he might usually do, Larry fell backward off the bike and cracked his skull on the asphalt.

Everyone expected Larry to get back up. When he didn’t, friends and the film crew ran to his side. No one could quite believe it was happening. Larry had performed that stunt thousands of times. He knew what he was doing. Had he been wearing a helmet, he would have just been embarrassed on camera, but he wasn’t, and on Monday, August 30, Indian Larry died. The guy was a good rider with decades of experience. If it could happen to him, it could happen to any of us.

It doesn’t matter to me if you wear a helmet for comfort or wear it for safety. It doesn’t matter to me if you don’t wear any helmet at all. It’s a free country and what you do is your business, not mine. Just know that I think you should wear a full-face helmet. If you don’t and crack your skull and kill yourself, don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.

If you do the sensible thing and decide to wear a helmet, make sure you get one that is comfortable. If you’re like me, you’ll practically live in your helmet, so it’s worthwhile to spend a little extra money to get one that fits and has good ventilation. The only way you’ll know if a helmet fits will be to try it on.

Different helmets fit different-shaped heads. I find that Nolan helmets fit me the best. My coauthor, Darwin, is of Swedish and Norwegian descent. Some people call Swedes “round heads” and Norwegians “square heads.” There might be some truth to both stereotypes because he has a hard time finding helmets to fit his misshapen head. He finds that Shoei helmets fit him the best. You’ll have to try on a bunch of different helmets to see which brands fit your head shape the best.

As for ventilation, that’s tougher to test when trying on helmets in a motorcycle shop. Generally speaking, the more expensive the helmet, the better ventilation it will have. A well-ventilated helmet will flow so much air around your head that when you’re riding at anything above a walking speed your head will be cooler with the helmet than without it. Believe it or not, when the temperature hits 110 degrees here in Arizona, wearing a well-ventilated helmet keeps me cooler than I would be if I rode without a helmet. When it comes to quality helmets, you usually get what you pay for.

Riding Jackets and Pants

When I started riding motorcycles, bikers had one option for a riding jacket: black leather. This was fine if you wanted to be Marlon Brando, but for those of us who identified with Chino there weren’t a lot of options. That’s changed completely now. Today you can get anything from one-piece Gore-Tex riding suits to fully armored mesh pants and jackets. To list all the options and features would take a complete chapter. At the very least you’ll want a jacket with built-in armor to protect you in case of a crash.

If you ride a lot, you’ll probably need at least two motorcycle jackets—one for warm weather and one for cold weather. Traditional leather jackets still work well for cooler weather, and you can get ventilated leather jackets for riding in warm weather if you like the look of leather.

Otherwise you can buy one of the riding suits from a company like Aerostich. These are the suits you see a lot of serious long-distance riders wearing. They are usually made of water-resistant materials like Gore-Tex, and can either be one-piece overall-type suits or traditional two-piece pants and jackets. These are nice if you commute to work on your motorcycle because you can wear them over your street clothes. The newer mesh riding suits are pretty nice, too. Most have built-in body armor, so they provide at least minimal protection in a crash, and they provide the maximum cooling in hot weather.

The minimum you want for leg protection is a pair of jeans. If you are riding around in shorts, you are a fool. If you crash, even at a low speed, you’re going to spend years getting painful skin grafts. Plus you’ll look like an idiot. Regular jeans are the bare minimum you should consider for riding motorcycles. Better yet would be a pair of jeans made especially for riding motorcycles, with built-in armor in the knees. Best of all would be leather motorcycle-specific pants, or at least a pair of Gore-Tex or mesh motorcycle pants.

I’ll be honest—I’ve never worn gear with built-in armor, but I’ve been lucky. My coauthor, Darwin, hasn’t been so fortunate—he took a low-speed spill a couple of years ago when he wasn’t wearing armor and crushed his knee so severely that he’ll walk with a limp for the rest of his life and will eventually need knee-replacement surgery. Armored jeans or riding pants may well have prevented much of the damage.

Boots and Gloves

Always wear a sturdy pair of gloves when riding motorcycles. Ideally you’ll want a pair with gauntlets that extend over your wrists because these will prevent bees and other insects and debris from flying up your jacket sleeves while riding down the road. Having an angry hornet stinging your armpit can be a little distracting when you are riding through traffic. Motorcycle-specific gloves will have extra leather on the palms, fingers, and knuckles to provide extra protection in the event of a crash.

You’ll also want to wear boots that go up over your ankles. If you see someone riding around in tennis shoes, or worse yet, sandals, you’re probably seeing the same fool who wears shorts while riding. I recommend not getting too friendly with an idiot like that because then you’ll have to go and visit him or her in the hospital while he or she is getting painful skin grafts.

Good boots serve a variety of purposes on a bike. First off, your feet are an important part of your motorcycle’s suspension—after all, it’s your legs that are suspending the bike when it’s not moving. You want the contact points with the ground (your feet) to be as firm and secure as possible, so make sure your boots have grippy soles. If you go with cowboy boots, make sure they’re work-type cowboy boots with rubber soles rather than the fashion-type boots with smooth leather soles, which are as slippery as banana peels. I wear cowboy boots and always make sure to get boots with rubber soles.

Your boots will also protect your feet, and not just in the event of a crash; every time you ride they’ll protect your feet from getting burned by the exhaust pipes or getting hit by rocks thrown up by your front wheel.

W
HAT
Y
OU
S
HOULD
K
NOW

• Countersteering is the only way to get your bike to start turning at speeds faster than a walking pace.
  
• The front brake provides most of your stopping power; use it.
  
• Helmets not only protect your head, but they make riding more comfortable.
  

© by Tina Hager

WHY BUY A USED MOTORCYCLE?

T
HE MOST COMPELLING REASON
to buy a used motorcycle is to save money. Any new motorcycle you buy will be worth much less money the moment you ride it out of a dealership.

For many years Harley-Davidson motorcycles were exceptions to this rule; when Harley built fewer bikes than it could sell each year and their motorcycles were in short supply, you could buy a new bike and turn around and sell it that same day for a profit. But those days are long gone. Once you had to get on a waiting list to buy a Harley, but now the Motor Company builds more bikes than it can sell. As a result, used Harleys are worth less than new ones. If you don’t believe me, do a little snooping around the classifieds, Craigslist, or eBay and see what’s selling.

In the old days when motorcycles wore out more quickly than they do today, you could make a good argument for not buying used bikes, but that no longer applies. Most motorcycles built today will outlast several owners. Unless you crash, it’s pretty hard to wreck a modern motorcycle. Today’s bikes will easily run for a hundred thousand or more miles, and most riders seldom put more than four thousand or five thousand miles per year on their bike. At that rate a modern bike should last for twenty or more years, so if you buy a five-year-old motorcycle that’s in good shape, you should be set to ride for many years.

There are exceptions, though. Take Harley-Davidsons, again. While some Harleys might run forty thousand to fifty thousand miles without a rebuild, most of them are pretty tired by the time they hit the thirty-thousand-mile mark. When the Evolution engine came out in the 1980s, the California Highway Patrol ran their Harleys for thirty thousand miles, rebuilt the top ends of the engines, and then retired the bikes from active duty. They used them for training at the academy for a while before selling them, but they were no longer considered reliable enough for patrol work.

You can plan on rebuilding a Harley four or five times before a Honda wears out. I personally do not believe that any Harley will last longer than fifty to sixty thousand miles without a rebuild, regardless of how well maintained it is. Many Harley dealers won’t accept a used Harley on trade if it has more than forty thousand miles on it, which tells me that their assessment of how long the bikes will run between engine rebuilds jibes with mine. On the other hand, at least you
can
rebuild your Harley; when your Honda wears out, it’s done. Because of the way most Honda engines are constructed, it will probably cost you four times as much to rebuild a worn-out Honda as it will to buy another used Honda. This is why some people call Japanese motorcycles “disposable.”

You’ll also want to avoid motorcycles that have been raced or used heavily on racetracks. When I say a modern bike should be good for a hundred thousand or more miles, I’m talking about a hundred thousand street miles. A mile spent on a racetrack takes a lot more out of a bike than a mile spent on the street. If a bike has been raced or used for a lot of track days, all bets are off when it comes to reliability.

Fortunately there are ways to tell if a bike has been raced. If the bike has some sort of aftermarket bodywork on it, there’s a good chance that it’s been raced, or at least crashed heavily. Or it may have just been owned by some dipstick who fancied himself a racer, but the end result is the same.

A definitive way to see if a bike has been used on a racetrack is to check the axle bolts and the bolts holding on parts like brake calipers, footpegs, and shift and brake levers; if they have holes drilled in them, they’ve been safety wired. This is a sure sign that the bike has seen heavy track use. If you’re buying a track bike to use on the track, then having a bike ready for safety wiring is a good thing, but for anyone buying a street bike for street use, evidence of safety wiring should be a big red flag that this bike has led an extremely hard life.

Although you can generally find good, reliable motorcycles in the used-bike market, the potential to get ripped off is high. The following information should help you negotiate the minefield that is the used-bike market.

A CAUTIONARY NOTE ABOUT RESURRECTING WRECKS

O
NE OF THE CHEAPEST
ways to buy a bike can be to find one that’s been wrecked and rebuild it, but unless you’re a seasoned motorcycle restorer, I recommend against this route. If you know what you are doing and enjoy that sort of work, then rebuilding a wrecked bike can be a rewarding process, but for most of us it’s a complete pain in the ass.

Even if you have experience, chances are that the end result will be a bike that is never completely reliable. I used to ride with a guy who got all of his bikes this way, and even though he knew what he was doing, his bikes always suffered from niggling little problems.

Most of these resulted from the fact that the bike had sustained more structural damage in its crash than had been apparent when my buddy first examined it. An engine case might have a hairline crack, or a steering head might have been slightly tweaked, or some hidden piece of bent metal might have been wearing a hole in the wiring harness. My friend spent more time hunting down oil leaks and electrical gremlins than he did riding. I finally quit riding with the guy because I got sick of waiting for him while he made roadside repairs.

Trying to save money by rebuilding a wreck can also be an example of what the Brits call “false economy”; in the end you might spend more money trying to fix all the little problems than you would have spent buying a nonwrecked bike in the first place. Even if the damage to the bike is just cosmetic, you’ll be shocked when you see how much bodywork and trim pieces for modern motorcycles cost. There are always exceptions to every rule, but generally speaking you’ll probably save money by buying the best bike you can afford right from the start.

This brings up another potential hazard of buying used bikes—getting a bike with a salvage title. These are bikes that have been crashed and purchased from the owners by a salvage yard or an insurance company. This means that the motorcycle has been declared a total loss by a state’s department of motor vehicles. “Total loss” means that the cost to fix the damage from a wreck would have exceeded the value of the motorcycle.

When a bike has been declared a total loss, any future owner who wants to license the bike has to create a new title for the vehicle, which will be marked as “salvage” by most states’ motor vehicle departments. A few states allow the title to be resurrected as “clean” after some kind of inspection, but most states don’t. Unless the title is cleaned in one of the few states that still allows this, the motorcycle will always be marked as a salvage-title vehicle.

Sometimes a motorcycle might end up with a salvage title because of superficial cosmetic damage, and the bike will be as good as new with a few new parts, but then again there’s a good chance that the motorcycle might have suffered some serious structural damage when it was wrecked, structural damage that might not be readily apparent but will make itself known at the worst possible time, like when you’re riding across Utah or Arizona on a 110-degree day.

Even if a bike didn’t receive serious structural damage in a wreck, what are the odds that the same careless rider who crashed the motorcycle in the first place abused its engine or transmission to the point of failure before he or she wrecked the bike?

A related issue to watch out for is a bike with a salvage title that has been “cleaned” as just mentioned. Someone may have bought a wrecked bike, rebuilt it, and then exchanged the salvage title for a clean title in one of the states that still allows this sort of thing. The person then resells the bike as if it’s never been wrecked, even though it is as likely to have serious problems as any other wrecked bike. Be wary of bikes that have been titled in several different states. This could be a sign that the bike has had its title cleaned, which in turn means that it’s either been wrecked or, worse yet, stolen. In the latter case, you might have worse problems than an unreliable motorcycle; you might find yourself under arrest for receiving stolen property.

MECHANICAL INSPECTION

T
HE BEST WAY TO
avoid buying a bike that’s been wrecked is to have a professional mechanic examine the motorcycle before you buy it. This is a good idea for any used bike that you might buy, whether you buy it from a dealership or from a private seller.

If you know a motorcycle mechanic whom you trust, spend a few dollars to hire him or her to examine the bike. Otherwise do a little research to find a reputable shop where you can take the bike. If you’re buying the bike from a shop, there’s not much point in letting the shop staff examine the bike themselves, since they’ve already examined it. You’re best off having a third-party mechanic who hasn’t got a stake in selling the bike examine it. A shop or individual seller who won’t let an outside mechanic examine a bike should be a bright red flag telling you to find a different bike.

To ensure the most objective mechanical inspection, take the bike to a shop that doesn’t carry the brand of bike you’re buying. Like all things, there are exceptions to this advice. For example, if you’re buying a Ducati, which will have desmodromic valves (valves that are opened and closed mechanically, rather than being closed by valve springs, as on most engines), you probably won’t learn much about the bike from your local Harley shop, where the mechanics are unfamiliar with overhead cams in general and probably wouldn’t know a desmo valve from a pig’s aorta. But in general you’ll get the most unbiased opinion if you take a bike to a shop that doesn’t sell that particular brand.

I understand that getting the bike professionally inspected will be a hassle and will cost you money, but the grief (and money) you might save yourself could make it worthwhile. It may even be impossible in some cases, but most dealers should allow you to take a motorcycle to an off-site mechanic or allow you to bring in a mechanic to inspect the bike. They won’t encourage this, and they won’t advertise this fact, but if you show you’re serious about buying a bike, most reputable dealers will allow it.

DEALERSHIPS VERSUS THE PRIVATE SELLER

U
NLESS A PRIVATE SELLER
has unrealistic expectations or he or she is just fishing for a sucker to pay an inflated price, chances are that a private seller will ask less for the exact same bike than would a professional dealer. There are a number of reasons for this. A private seller isn’t working on a business model that accounts for the interest he or she is paying the bank for inventory. He or she may have a loan for the bike, but most people don’t think in terms of how much interest they’re paying every day, as do most businesses.To make up their own financing costs, dealerships charge a little extra to help offset interest payments. They also add a certain percentage to the prices of their used bikes to cover operating costs. It costs a lot of money just to turn the lights on in a dealership every morning. Add in the salaries and health-care costs of their employees, and you can see why dealerships have to charge more for used bikes.

On the other hand, if a dealership is any good, you’ll get something in return for the extra money you spend there. When buying from a private seller, the general rule is “buyer beware.” After you buy a bike from a private seller, if something is wrong with it and the seller won’t make it right, your only recourse may be to sue the seller, which will end up costing you even more money with no guarantee that you’ll be successful.

Most shops, however, offer some sort of warranty, and if they want to have your repeat business, they’ll bend over backward to make certain you are happy with your new bike. They may even be required to make it right for you by law; some states have lemon laws that apply to motorcycle dealerships as well as automobile dealerships.

If your bike does need repair, even if it’s for something that happened after you bought it, dealers tend to take care of their customers. They’ll be more motivated to help out a loyal customer whom they know than they will be to help out some stranger who bought a bike from a private seller. Also consider that if a dealership originally sold the bike when it was new, which is often the case with good shops that have a lot of repeat customers, chances are they’ll know your bike’s entire service history and will be familiar with its idiosyncrasies.

If you buy a motorcycle that still has time remaining on its factory warranty, you may be able to use the warranty to defray the cost of necessary repairs. (Be sure to check the terms of the warranty to ensure the repair is covered.) If you’ve bought your bike from a dealership, any dealership worthy of your business will take care of arranging for the repair and filling out warranty paperwork. If you bought your bike from a private party and take it in for warranty repairs, you may find that the dealership is not quite as helpful. That might not seem fair, but that’s just the way it is.

If you need to finance your motorcycle, a dealership will have a department that does nothing but arrange financing for motorcycles. It will also be able to help you deal with all the other legal paperwork involved with buying a motorcycle, like paying sales tax, getting insurance, filling out your registration, and transferring the title. When you buy from a private seller, you’ll have to deal with all these details yourself.

A good dealership will inspect, service, and check to make certain every motorcycle it sells is roadworthy; the odds are that the used bikes a good shop is selling will be reliable. The same holds true for a good private owner. A responsible owner will keep his or her motorcycle in good repair. The trick is deciding whether or not a shop or individual is reputable, and it’s a lot easier to determine if a shop that sells hundreds of motorcycles every year is reputable than it is to determine the trustworthiness of a private seller who sells a bike maybe once every five or six years.

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

R
EGARDLESS OF HOW DIFFERENT
motorcycles may seem, at their hearts they are more or less all the same. After spending an entire chapter discussing the different types of bikes, this might seem like a contradiction, but when it comes to inspecting a used motorcycle, the process is pretty much the same for everything from a 250-cc single-cylinder trail bike to an 1800-cc six-cylinder Gold Wing.