Don’t Clean That Bike–You May Not Like What You Find
Thursday, September 24th, 2020
This bike may be old, and it may get dirty, but hey, it gets ridden.
A lot of motorcyclists insist on keeping their bikes spotless. I am not one of those. I figure that I can spend hours cleaning a bike and then go for a ride and get in some rain and by the time I get home it’s filthy again.
No, I just try to make a point to clean each of my bikes at least once every few years. I’d rather just spend that time riding.
But it had been a few years so I’ve done some cleaning recently. I had Joel give my Concours a complete tune-up while he had the bike to put on a new front tire. After I got it back I figured what the heck, if I’m doing all that I might as well clean it. So I did. Looks nice.
That got me going. Next I decided I ought to clean the Honda. I had to admit, it was pretty dang dirty even by my standards. Plus, Joel was going to be working on it because I had had an issue with the fuel line. I figured he might appreciate working on a cleaner bike.
So I dove in. That was when I noticed the right front fork tube was spectacularly dirty, and the left tube was not. Uh oh, this looks like a failed fork seal. Who knows how long it would have been before I noticed this if I hadn’t started cleaning.
Of course it’s a good thing to notice it. And the timing was good. I just added it to the list of things for Joel to work on. So now it’s the fork seals, the fuel line, and I’m having Joel do a tune-up on this bike, too. Lord knows how long it’s been since it had one.
Considering how filthy this bike was, I’m sure Joel is glad I cleaned it.
And I have this consolation: it took a long time for that bike to get that dirty. It won’t be anywhere near that dirty again any time soon. Yahoo! Let’s go ride.
Biker Quote for Today
Reasons not to date a motorcyclist: One bike is fine, but five bikes are better.
