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Bike Maintenance

thought long and hard about what the first subject should be and decided with Christmas just behind us, new bike preparation would be a good starting point.

Most of us feel that, as a bike is new, it should be okay to race straight out of the box. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. To avoid the embarrassment of your child's brand new pride and joy breaking down first time out (which I have witnessed on several occasions) the following should be carried out.

Remove the front and rear wheels and re-pack the wheel bearings - this is essential, and to a lesser extent the steering head and swing arm bearings. These areas are lightly brushed with grease in the factory, which is inadequate - if not done straight away, at least after the first couple of rides.

Remove the petrol tank, put in about 1 litre of plain petrol (no oil), slosh it around and then tip it into a clean receptacle - surprise, surprise, you will see little bits of plastic the same colour as your bike - these are designed to block the main jet, at best stopping the bike, at worst making it run lean and overheat with resulting larger damage. Which brings me onto the subject of jetting. I will go into this in more detail in a later column, but at least remove the plug after the second tank of fuel (because you put extra oil in the first one - didn't you?) and check the colour of the plug. The year before last, when we were running leaded fuel this was easy - you got white, brown or black. Now we are all running premium unleaded (not Optimax unless it is a 4 stroke) you will get one of three colours - black, black or black! You have to look at the plug in the right light and use your imagination to decide if it is light black, medium black or dark black - then take the appropriate action.

Next, check every nut and bolt on the bike before and after the first ride. If you are really keen or bored you can remove them all and apply threadlocker, but generally you will soon find the ones that come loose and the ones that don't. Try if possible to tighten to the correct tension. For instance, if you over tighten the fork clamp bolts the forks don't work - very painful after the first jump.

Likewise, tighten the spokes. They will come loose after every ride for the first 2 or 3 rides, then generally settle into their annoying existence.

After the first ride for 2 strokes, change the gear box oil, for 4 strokes, change the engine oil.

Finally, adjust the handlebars, levers and suspension to suit the rider. These will be covered in more detail in a separate area.

So there you have it, a bike better than new and ready to race - you remembered to change the whole top end after the first tank of fuel, didn't you?