Basic Motorcycle Maintenance

Unfortunately, you can’t just hop on your bike and ride without performing proper maintenance and checks. If you do, you shouldn’t.

Pilots check their aircraft before takeoff to mitigate any chance of an unscheduled landing. Motorcycle pilots should be no less diligent.

A catastrophic failure on a motorcycle can end with equally terrible results, and you should take it just as seriously. If your engine doesn’t have enough oil in it and locks up at speed, it can behave as if you locked your rear brake.

Obviously not ideal.

Here are the most basic maintenance duties and checks for motorcyclists. Motorcycle maintenance and repair is a deep subject, however, and I want to be clear that these are the bare minimum checks you should do to ensure safe long-term operation of your motorcycle.