>One time, when a customer asked him to help revive a beloved 1983 Honda Magma V45 that hadn’t been driven for two years, Crawford responded harshly: “Assuming it’s got all the usual problems from sitting, you’re looking at a thousand dollars to get it back on the road. First, it is the Honda Magna . Second, this mechanic took him to the cleaners. The Magna isn't nearly as complex as a Goldwing. $1000 for cleaning th…
I am not even remotely an expert, but many motorcycles I've seen that spent couple of years in the storage, let alone ones as old as that, need a lot of gaskets, seals, tubing and what-nots worked on or replaced - or at least examined/tested/cleaned. Plus you want to give a conservative estimate. Also remember - if I am doing repairs for fun, I only count the parts cost. But if I go to professional mechanic, it's $10…
What motorcycles teach about maintenance
61–70 of 155 posts
Re: What motorcycles teach about maintenance
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also have a plan B if things go south. And yes, that means not working on your daily (or someone else) if you don't have a backup transportation solution. Because just like we have bugs in production, things break when you wrench on them, even if you do everything by the book (note: first-hand experience there). But those are just setbacks, and no big deal if you are prepared for them.
So basically if you want to work on your vehicle, you need a second vehicle. That was basically the reason I could never get behind doing work on my own car.
Re: What motorcycles teach about maintenance
#63I find the root premise flawed. I have known many people that loved working on cars. The plethora of very old vehicles where I live kind of holds that up, as well. My truck is 23 years old, and I'm positive it isn't even close to the oldest around here. Even closer to the general idea, the radio show "Car Talk" was less about cars than the name would have implied. Would love to see it revived in spirit. That said, st…
I think the key is that motorcycle riding hooks you into the machine in a way that few car builds can replicate. Motorcycle maintenance and riding is a tighter loop, with far higher stakes if simple procedures are not followed. Troubleshooting may be similar across all machines, but the best troubleshooting is not having to do it at all. If nothing else, the tight loop created by the motorcycle teaches preventative m…
That is, the miles you have put into a car "at speed" is almost certainly far greater than what you put your motorcycle through. For reasons of the car giving much more utility of use. And the fact that you still have a motorcycle is clearly a choice. One that you have to put effort into keeping up. That you would also choose to see something special about that choice is not at all surprising.
Re: What motorcycles teach about maintenance
#64There is a major step change in maintenance difficulty from motorcycles to cars . motorcycles are more exposed and intimate so it’s easier to detect issues earlier . Modern cars have adopted more non-user-serviceable tech. Intermediate procedures like clutch replacement , brake maintenance , tune ups are accessible to beginners on a motorcycle . in general motorcycle maintenance is more accessible due to the open dri…
And if you don't trust the shop you are taking your vehicle to for rigorous standards, you should probably look into a different shop. :(
Re: What motorcycles teach about maintenance
#65I’m curious to hear the perspective of someone who is both into motorcycles and bicycles, as I’ve only ridden on a motorcycle a handful of times, while I cycle nearly daily. Bicycle maintenance can be annoying, but it doesn’t seem nearly as time-intensive as motorcycle maintenance. On the other hand, the process of cycling feels better to me compared to being on a motor bike. It’s quieter, slower, and great exercise.…
Road motorcycling, especially if you can fix anything on the motorcycle, comes with a strong sense of freedom compared to car driving, and it’s for traveling longer distances. There’s an aspect of shedding all your dependencies, not needing to rely on a huge machine that you can’t fix, but still being able to go fast & far. Weird analogy, but I find it similar to long distance running - there’s a threshold for me above about 15 or 20 miles where it suddenly starts to feel like I can go anywhere with my feet.
Dirt biking is technical motorcycling, shares some aspects of downhill mountain biking, but requires a lot of very different skills from any other kind of riding. Learning those skills is really fun, and being able to get far out into the wilderness and access places you can’t go by any other means is also very fun. The technical riding requires a lot more simultaneous clutch, brake, and throttle work than road riding, and I find it similar in certain ways to playing the drums in the sense that you need a lot of body awareness and the ability to do things with hands and feet at the same time. Technical uphill riding is very different from downhill and/or mountain biking. BTW technical dirt biking can be insane amounts of exercise. Some dirt moto rides I’ve done are equivalent to doing 50-100 miles with big climbs on a bicycle, everyone in the group burned thousands of calories and started bonking by the end. Can’t talk while you ride, but it’s very social; riding with others is an absolute must, there’s planning beforehand, there’s lots of stoping and talking, and you can end up with a lot of camaraderie when working through difficult features and pushing your abilities or helping others.
Mountain biking has all the advantages you mentioned for cycling, it can quiet and serene. Even better than road biking sometimes since you don’t have to deal with traffic. I usually ride with others, but sometimes alone is very zen. There’s anything from riding dirt roads, to cross-country single track through the forest, to adrenaline: technical downhill or mountain bike park with jumps. Fabulous exercise, and a great way to experience the outdoors.
For the maintenance question, I’d say I probably spend as much or more time on bicycle maintenance, but it’s mainly because I currently ride bicycles much more frequently. The maintenance tasks are smaller, shorter, and simpler, but need doing more often. Cleaning, chain & joint lube, and fixing flats is the majority of bicycle maintenance. I bled my mountain bike brakes once, and that was pretty involved for a noob, required a special kit & a couple hours. The moto maintenance tasks take longer per session, they’re more difficult, and require more tools and knowledge, but they’ve been less frequent. Changing oil, bleeding shocks, fixing electrical, replacing parts. A tire/tube change on a bicycle is a 5 minute task, while a tire change on a motorcycle can easily take an hour or two if you try to do it yourself with tire irons (not recommended!). The big stuff goes to a professional mechanic, of course.
Re: What motorcycles teach about maintenance
#66I find the root premise flawed. I have known many people that loved working on cars. The plethora of very old vehicles where I live kind of holds that up, as well. My truck is 23 years old, and I'm positive it isn't even close to the oldest around here. Even closer to the general idea, the radio show "Car Talk" was less about cars than the name would have implied. Would love to see it revived in spirit. That said, st…
Stuff like needing a lift, or needing a hoist to lift heavy parts like the engine or transmission.
And even almost new motorcycles have minimal computer/electronic issues where the manufacturer is hiding how to do things. Get the Service manual and it tells you basically everything except how to hack the ECU.
Re: What motorcycles teach about maintenance
#67What Motorcycles Teach About Maintenance: fuel injection is great.
Carbs are also great. My xr650r can sit in a shed for 300 years and if it was clean when stored will start up in 2 kicks or at worst in 15min after opening the bowl with one screwdriver and cleaning the jets. There is no fuel pump to break (or weight the bike down), I could run the carb with a soda bottle if I had to. There are no complex computers to break and brick the bike. Beyond the reliability, the real value o…
And the # of people who ever drove a car that had separate throttle butterflies + carbs for each cylinder is miniscule. Even with EFI not many people have driven a car that is built like a motorcycle. Pretty much only supercars are built that way.
Most cars with carbs seem to have had far more issues than bikes too.
Re: What motorcycles teach about maintenance
#68I’m curious to hear the perspective of someone who is both into motorcycles and bicycles, as I’ve only ridden on a motorcycle a handful of times, while I cycle nearly daily. Bicycle maintenance can be annoying, but it doesn’t seem nearly as time-intensive as motorcycle maintenance. On the other hand, the process of cycling feels better to me compared to being on a motor bike. It’s quieter, slower, and great exercise.…
In general with a few exceptions everything on motorcycles is far more competently engineered.
Bicycle manufacturers brag about engineering a lot but actually seem to employ very few engineers. The bicycle industry is still re-engineering things like brakes over and over when all those lessons were learned on motorcycles decades ago and the bike companies could have copied almost all of it from motorcycles.
There's just a lot of stuff on bicycles where the tools are more expensive than the motorcycle equivalents and the maintenance procedures are more annoying. Motorcycle brakes are a great example. Things are relatively standard and all the tools are affordable and the maintenance procedures are great. Do the same job on hydraulic disc brakes on a bicycle and it's all terrible. Tools cost 3x more and might be vendor specific, procedures are terrible because of the design of the brakes, and the job probably takes longer.
You can go spend more on a Trek or a Specialized than a lot of motorcycles at this point. Other than the amount of carbon fiber there is almost no justification for the price, especially since 99% of the bicycle is outsourced.
I always found the education level among motorcyclists in terms of how a bike actually rides much higher. The % of "expert cyclists" who understand basics like counter steering is shockingly low, and bicyclists are far more likely to have poor understanding of how to ride in traffic safely. Mostly because motorcycling actually has a training & education system. I always felt like motorcycling actually taught me more about bicycling than the reverse.
Re: What motorcycles teach about maintenance
#69I find the root premise flawed. I have known many people that loved working on cars. The plethora of very old vehicles where I live kind of holds that up, as well. My truck is 23 years old, and I'm positive it isn't even close to the oldest around here. Even closer to the general idea, the radio show "Car Talk" was less about cars than the name would have implied. Would love to see it revived in spirit. That said, st…
Lots of jobs you can do on a motorcycle yourself in a garage are like 100x harder on a car so it's nowhere near as accessible. Stuff like needing a lift, or needing a hoist to lift heavy parts like the engine or transmission. And even almost new motorcycles have minimal computer/electronic issues where the manufacturer is hiding how to do things. Get the Service manual and it tells you basically everything except how…
I'm surprised you would say modern motorcycles aren't harder, honestly. Even modern bicycles are getting into the "you really can't do this without a dedicated shop" for a lot of things. Regular maintenance is easy enough. But that is true of cars. I'm always surprised when I hear folks have never changed brake pads. Drum brakes are a pain, sure, but most folks don't have drum brakes.
Re: What motorcycles teach about maintenance
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lots of jobs you can do on a motorcycle yourself in a garage are like 100x harder on a car so it's nowhere near as accessible. Stuff like needing a lift, or needing a hoist to lift heavy parts like the engine or transmission. And even almost new motorcycles have minimal computer/electronic issues where the manufacturer is hiding how to do things. Get the Service manual and it tells you basically everything except how…
Certainly. But the premise was 'Nobody proclaims “Live to ride! Ride to live!” about cars.' Obviously, the bit about there being popular philosophy written around motorcycles is true, but I'm not sure that proves much? I'm surprised you would say modern motorcycles aren't harder, honestly. Even modern bicycles are getting into the "you really can't do this without a dedicated shop" for a lot of things. Regular mainte…
It's just nowhere near as severe as cars where the manufacturers are ultra hostile to the owner working on the car and even do their best to make it hard for independent mechanics & shops to work on it.
If cars were like motorcycles I doubt we'd have movements for right to repair.