Winterizin yer Sled

[BillJ]

One of the bennies of living in Texas (heck, one of the reasons for living in Texas!) is that we don't have to "winterize" much of nothin'!

However, since I've had to let my bikes sit for extended periods during my recuperation, I paid close attention to what the gurus said about storing bikes. One thing everyone seemed to agree on was that running a bike for short periods of time (the way you might in your garage) is actually worse than letting it sit for months.

First, there's condensation - a motor doesn't really burn off accumulated moisture in oil cavities until it's been run 15 to 20 minutes. If you run it for shorter periods, you're just contaminating your oil.

Then there's something about a destructive acid that develops in stagnant engine oil. Whatever it is, it will damage bearings and other fine surfaces if you don't run the motor long enough to burn it off. Two good reasons to run your bike 'til it's good and hot.

Because I couldn't ride 'em myself, I had a buddy ride mine several times during my longest stretches of downtime. However, at one point he wasn't available, so I opened the garage door, aimed a huge fan directly across the engine, and ran the thing at varying RPMs for about 15 minutes. No way of knowing for sure but, based on what I got from the gurus, I like to think I was doing my motor some good.