2Wheeltips

Well, we may still have a couple of decent months left in this years riding season before the weather turns ugly here in Iowa. Typically, come Thanksgiving, any good riding days left are few and far between. By mid December, “forget-about-it”!! Trust me, I’ll take advantage of every good day we’ve got left but I’m already planning and preparing for next season.

Having lived in the South for almost 15 years before moving back north, I must admit I am very envious of you Southerners who can ride 80 to 90 percent of the year. Here in Iowa, I had to come up with other ways to stay in touch with motorcycling thru those very long and dreary winter months. Here are some of things I do to stay connected when I can’t ride for our four plus months of winter:

• I do a very deep cleaning of my bike and detail it so it is pristine come spring. I remove all the side covers and try to clean out all those little nooks and crannies that dirt loves hide in. I give it a fresh coat of wax and polish all the chrome and aluminum wheels.
• I try to get my maintenance done if it’s relatively close to being due. The GoldWing I have was just serviced in July and won’t be due again until late spring early summer so that’s not going to work this year. The Kawasaki cruiser I had happen to need its scheduled maintenance at the end of the season. This worked out great because my local dealer would come over with an enclosed trailer, pick-up the bike, do the maintenance and any other work I wanted done, then deliver it back for only about $15 extra bucks. I love it because I didn’t have to worry about riding in crap weather to get the service done and they love it because this was their slow time and they were always looking for work during the off season. You Northerners might want to explore that kind of arrangement with the shop that services your bike. It minimizes loosing precious riding days to have your bike serviced during prime riding season.
• I have on hand or on order all the “stuff” I’m going to install on my bike in preparation for next season: (two DC power outlets, a fuse panel for accessories, a passenger volume control for the bikes intercom/audio system and some additional front marker lights). This gives me something to do when cabin fever begins setting in and allows me to become more intimate with my bike, in a “wrenching” sort of way. No snide comments please!!
• The big project I have planned this winter is to have my stock seat, which is not all that comfortable for a touring bike, completely redone and customized to fit me and my wife’s specific size and shape. I’m having this done by Russell Cycle Products in Shasta Lake, CA. We are calling this a Christmas present to our “butts”!! Ho Ho Ho!! This is going to take 3 to 4 weeks as I have to ship the stock seat to them and they completely redo it and send it back. I’m very excited about feeling the results of this investment and will let you know how it turns out.
• The other thing I like doing when I can’t ride in the winter is read. I enjoy re-reading all of my motorcycle riding skills books and I usually buy a couple to three new ones to keep things interesting and add to my collection. It keeps thinking about the sport so I don’t feel so rusty come spring and needing a refresher course to remember how to start the thing.
• The season's end is a perfect time to re-evaluate the type of riding you did and what you might want to do differently next season. For me, riding the same roads repeatedly gets monotonous. We continue to ride further and explore areas outside of our typical 150 mile radius from home. For us, the upgrade we made late last year from our cruiser to our touring bike worked out great. It could be that it works the other way where you get tired of taking the long trips and want to take shorter “joy rides” closer to home. In that case you might want to consider that your current bike may no longer be the best choice for the new style of riding you are planning and consider making a change in equipment. Doing this during the off season gives you plenty of time to familiarize yourself with the new bike and have everything ready to go come spring. My experience changing bikes at the end of the season has been very good. Dealers are anxious to get what they have on their floor gone and more than eager to make deals. Being the buyer you are in no hurry to purchase so you definitely have the time advantage working in your favor. In any event, spending time kicking tires on bikes and negotiating with sales people is a wonderful winter passtime for me even if I decide to maintain status quo.