Let's Ride_ Sonny Barger's Guide to Motorcycling Part 4

If you ride a lot, you'll probably need at least two motorcycle jackets-one for warm weather and one for cold weather. Traditional leather jackets still work well for cooler weather, and you can get ventilated leather jackets for riding in warm weather if you like the look of leather.

Otherwise you can buy one of the riding suits from a company like Aerostich. These are the suits you see a lot of serious long-distance riders wearing. They are usually made of water-resistant materials like Gore-Tex, and can either be one-piece overall-type suits or traditional two-piece pants and jackets. These are nice if you commute to work on your motorcycle because you can wear them over your street clothes. The newer mesh riding suits are pretty nice, too. Most have built-in body armor, so they provide at least minimal protection in a crash, and they provide the maximum cooling in hot weather.

The minimum you want for leg protection is a pair of jeans. If you are riding around in shorts, you are a fool. If you crash, even at a low speed, you're going to spend years getting painful skin grafts. Plus you'll look like an idiot. Regular jeans are the bare minimum you should consider for riding motorcycles. Better yet would be a pair of jeans made especially for riding motorcycles, with built-in armor in the knees. Best of all would be leather motorcycle-specific pants, or at least a pair of Gore-Tex or mesh motorcycle pants.

I'll be honest-I've never worn gear with built-in armor, but I've been lucky. My coauthor, Darwin, hasn't been so fortunate-he took a low-speed spill a couple of years ago when he wasn't wearing armor and crushed his knee so severely that he'll walk with a limp for the rest of his life and will eventually need knee-replacement surgery. Armored jeans or riding pants may well have prevented much of the damage.

Boots and Gloves Always wear a st.u.r.dy pair of gloves when riding motorcycles. Ideally you'll want a pair with gauntlets that extend over your wrists because these will prevent bees and other insects and debris from flying up your jacket sleeves while riding down the road. Having an angry hornet stinging your armpit can be a little distracting when you are riding through traffic. Motorcycle-specific gloves will have extra leather on the palms, fingers, and knuckles to provide extra protection in the event of a crash.

You'll also want to wear boots that go up over your ankles. If you see someone riding around in tennis shoes, or worse yet, sandals, you're probably seeing the same fool who wears shorts while riding. I recommend not getting too friendly with an idiot like that because then you'll have to go and visit him or her in the hospital while he or she is getting painful skin grafts.

Good boots serve a variety of purposes on a bike. First off, your feet are an important part of your motorcycle's suspension-after all, it's your legs that are suspending the bike when it's not moving. You want the contact points with the ground (your feet) to be as firm and secure as possible, so make sure your boots have grippy soles. If you go with cowboy boots, make sure they're work-type cowboy boots with rubber soles rather than the fas.h.i.+on-type boots with smooth leather soles, which are as slippery as banana peels. I wear cowboy boots and always make sure to get boots with rubber soles.

Your boots will also protect your feet, and not just in the event of a crash; every time you ride they'll protect your feet from getting burned by the exhaust pipes or getting hit by rocks thrown up by your front wheel.

WHAT Y YOU S SHOULD K KNOW.

- Countersteering is the only way to get your bike to start turning at speeds faster than a walking pace.

- The front brake provides most of your stopping power; use it.

- Helmets not only protect your head, but they make riding more comfortable.

by Tina Hager

Chapter Four.

Evaluating a Used Motorcycle WHY BUY A USED MOTORCYCLE?.

THE MOST COMPELLING REASON to buy a used motorcycle is to save money. Any new motorcycle you buy will be worth much less money the moment you ride it out of a dealers.h.i.+p. to buy a used motorcycle is to save money. Any new motorcycle you buy will be worth much less money the moment you ride it out of a dealers.h.i.+p.

For many years Harley-Davidson motorcycles were exceptions to this rule; when Harley built fewer bikes than it could sell each year and their motorcycles were in short supply, you could buy a new bike and turn around and sell it that same day for a profit. But those days are long gone. Once you had to get on a waiting list to buy a Harley, but now the Motor Company builds more bikes than it can sell. As a result, used Harleys are worth less than new ones. If you don't believe me, do a little snooping around the cla.s.sifieds, Craigslist, or eBay and see what's selling.

In the old days when motorcycles wore out more quickly than they do today, you could make a good argument for not buying used bikes, but that no longer applies. Most motorcycles built today will outlast several owners. Unless you crash, it's pretty hard to wreck a modern motorcycle. Today's bikes will easily run for a hundred thousand or more miles, and most riders seldom put more than four thousand or five thousand miles per year on their bike. At that rate a modern bike should last for twenty or more years, so if you buy a five-year-old motorcycle that's in good shape, you should be set to ride for many years.

There are exceptions, though. Take Harley-Davidsons, again. While some Harleys might run forty thousand to fifty thousand miles without a rebuild, most of them are pretty tired by the time they hit the thirty-thousand-mile mark. When the Evolution engine came out in the 1980s, the California Highway Patrol ran their Harleys for thirty thousand miles, rebuilt the top ends of the engines, and then retired the bikes from active duty. They used them for training at the academy for a while before selling them, but they were no longer considered reliable enough for patrol work.

You can plan on rebuilding a Harley four or five times before a Honda wears out. I personally do not believe that any Harley will last longer than fifty to sixty thousand miles without a rebuild, regardless of how well maintained it is. Many Harley dealers won't accept a used Harley on trade if it has more than forty thousand miles on it, which tells me that their a.s.sessment of how long the bikes will run between engine rebuilds jibes with mine. On the other hand, at least you can can rebuild your Harley; when your Honda wears out, it's done. Because of the way most Honda engines are constructed, it will probably cost you four times as much to rebuild a worn-out Honda as it will to buy another used Honda. This is why some people call j.a.panese motorcycles "disposable." rebuild your Harley; when your Honda wears out, it's done. Because of the way most Honda engines are constructed, it will probably cost you four times as much to rebuild a worn-out Honda as it will to buy another used Honda. This is why some people call j.a.panese motorcycles "disposable."

You'll also want to avoid motorcycles that have been raced or used heavily on racetracks. When I say a modern bike should be good for a hundred thousand or more miles, I'm talking about a hundred thousand street miles. A mile spent on a racetrack takes a lot more out of a bike than a mile spent on the street. If a bike has been raced or used for a lot of track days, all bets are off when it comes to reliability.

Fortunately there are ways to tell if a bike has been raced. If the bike has some sort of aftermarket bodywork on it, there's a good chance that it's been raced, or at least crashed heavily. Or it may have just been owned by some dipstick who fancied himself a racer, but the end result is the same.

A definitive way to see if a bike has been used on a racetrack is to check the axle bolts and the bolts holding on parts like brake calipers, footpegs, and s.h.i.+ft and brake levers; if they have holes drilled in them, they've been safety wired. This is a sure sign that the bike has seen heavy track use. If you're buying a track bike to use on the track, then having a bike ready for safety wiring is a good thing, but for anyone buying a street bike for street use, evidence of safety wiring should be a big red flag that this bike has led an extremely hard life.

Although you can generally find good, reliable motorcycles in the used-bike market, the potential to get ripped off is high. The following information should help you negotiate the minefield that is the used-bike market.

A CAUTIONARY NOTE ABOUT RESURRECTING WRECKS.

ONE OF THE CHEAPEST ways to buy a bike can be to find one that's been wrecked and rebuild it, but unless you're a seasoned motorcycle restorer, I recommend against this route. If you know what you are doing and enjoy that sort of work, then rebuilding a wrecked bike can be a rewarding process, but for most of us it's a complete pain in the a.s.s. ways to buy a bike can be to find one that's been wrecked and rebuild it, but unless you're a seasoned motorcycle restorer, I recommend against this route. If you know what you are doing and enjoy that sort of work, then rebuilding a wrecked bike can be a rewarding process, but for most of us it's a complete pain in the a.s.s.

Even if you have experience, chances are that the end result will be a bike that is never completely reliable. I used to ride with a guy who got all of his bikes this way, and even though he knew what he was doing, his bikes always suffered from niggling little problems.

Most of these resulted from the fact that the bike had sustained more structural damage in its crash than had been apparent when my buddy first examined it. An engine case might have a hairline crack, or a steering head might have been slightly tweaked, or some hidden piece of bent metal might have been wearing a hole in the wiring harness. My friend spent more time hunting down oil leaks and electrical gremlins than he did riding. I finally quit riding with the guy because I got sick of waiting for him while he made roadside repairs.

Trying to save money by rebuilding a wreck can also be an example of what the Brits call "false economy"; in the end you might spend more money trying to fix all the little problems than you would have spent buying a nonwrecked bike in the first place. Even if the damage to the bike is just cosmetic, you'll be shocked when you see how much bodywork and trim pieces for modern motorcycles cost. There are always exceptions to every rule, but generally speaking you'll probably save money by buying the best bike you can afford right from the start.

This brings up another potential hazard of buying used bikes-getting a bike with a salvage t.i.tle. These are bikes that have been crashed and purchased from the owners by a salvage yard or an insurance company. This means that the motorcycle has been declared a total loss by a state's department of motor vehicles. "Total loss" means that the cost to fix the damage from a wreck would have exceeded the value of the motorcycle.

When a bike has been declared a total loss, any future owner who wants to license the bike has to create a new t.i.tle for the vehicle, which will be marked as "salvage" by most states' motor vehicle departments. A few states allow the t.i.tle to be resurrected as "clean" after some kind of inspection, but most states don't. Unless the t.i.tle is cleaned in one of the few states that still allows this, the motorcycle will always be marked as a salvage-t.i.tle vehicle.

Sometimes a motorcycle might end up with a salvage t.i.tle because of superficial cosmetic damage, and the bike will be as good as new with a few new parts, but then again there's a good chance that the motorcycle might have suffered some serious structural damage when it was wrecked, structural damage that might not be readily apparent but will make itself known at the worst possible time, like when you're riding across Utah or Arizona on a 110-degree day.

Even if a bike didn't receive serious structural damage in a wreck, what are the odds that the same careless rider who crashed the motorcycle in the first place abused its engine or transmission to the point of failure before he or she wrecked the bike?

A related issue to watch out for is a bike with a salvage t.i.tle that has been "cleaned" as just mentioned. Someone may have bought a wrecked bike, rebuilt it, and then exchanged the salvage t.i.tle for a clean t.i.tle in one of the states that still allows this sort of thing. The person then resells the bike as if it's never been wrecked, even though it is as likely to have serious problems as any other wrecked bike. Be wary of bikes that have been t.i.tled in several different states. This could be a sign that the bike has had its t.i.tle cleaned, which in turn means that it's either been wrecked or, worse yet, stolen. In the latter case, you might have worse problems than an unreliable motorcycle; you might find yourself under arrest for receiving stolen property.

MECHANICAL INSPECTION.

THE BEST WAY TO avoid buying a bike that's been wrecked is to have a professional mechanic examine the motorcycle before you buy it. This is a good idea for any used bike that you might buy, whether you buy it from a dealers.h.i.+p or from a private seller. avoid buying a bike that's been wrecked is to have a professional mechanic examine the motorcycle before you buy it. This is a good idea for any used bike that you might buy, whether you buy it from a dealers.h.i.+p or from a private seller.

If you know a motorcycle mechanic whom you trust, spend a few dollars to hire him or her to examine the bike. Otherwise do a little research to find a reputable shop where you can take the bike. If you're buying the bike from a shop, there's not much point in letting the shop staff examine the bike themselves, since they've already examined it. You're best off having a third-party mechanic who hasn't got a stake in selling the bike examine it. A shop or individual seller who won't let an outside mechanic examine a bike should be a bright red flag telling you to find a different bike.

To ensure the most objective mechanical inspection, take the bike to a shop that doesn't carry the brand of bike you're buying. Like all things, there are exceptions to this advice. For example, if you're buying a Ducati, which will have desmodromic valves (valves that are opened and closed mechanically, rather than being closed by valve springs, as on most engines), you probably won't learn much about the bike from your local Harley shop, where the mechanics are unfamiliar with overhead cams in general and probably wouldn't know a desmo valve from a pig's aorta. But in general you'll get the most unbiased opinion if you take a bike to a shop that doesn't sell that particular brand.

I understand that getting the bike professionally inspected will be a ha.s.sle and will cost you money, but the grief (and money) you might save yourself could make it worthwhile. It may even be impossible in some cases, but most dealers should allow you to take a motorcycle to an off-site mechanic or allow you to bring in a mechanic to inspect the bike. They won't encourage this, and they won't advertise this fact, but if you show you're serious about buying a bike, most reputable dealers will allow it.

DEALERs.h.i.+PS VERSUS THE PRIVATE SELLER.

UNLESS A PRIVATE SELLER has unrealistic expectations or he or she is just fis.h.i.+ng for a sucker to pay an inflated price, chances are that a private seller will ask less for the exact same bike than would a professional dealer. There are a number of reasons for this. A private seller isn't working on a business model that accounts for the interest he or she is paying the bank for inventory. He or she may have a loan for the bike, but most people don't think in terms of how much interest they're paying every day, as do most businesses.To make up their own financing costs, dealers.h.i.+ps charge a little extra to help offset interest payments. They also add a certain percentage to the prices of their used bikes to cover operating costs. It costs a lot of money just to turn the lights on in a dealers.h.i.+p every morning. Add in the salaries and health-care costs of their employees, and you can see why dealers.h.i.+ps have to charge more for used bikes. has unrealistic expectations or he or she is just fis.h.i.+ng for a sucker to pay an inflated price, chances are that a private seller will ask less for the exact same bike than would a professional dealer. There are a number of reasons for this. A private seller isn't working on a business model that accounts for the interest he or she is paying the bank for inventory. He or she may have a loan for the bike, but most people don't think in terms of how much interest they're paying every day, as do most businesses.To make up their own financing costs, dealers.h.i.+ps charge a little extra to help offset interest payments. They also add a certain percentage to the prices of their used bikes to cover operating costs. It costs a lot of money just to turn the lights on in a dealers.h.i.+p every morning. Add in the salaries and health-care costs of their employees, and you can see why dealers.h.i.+ps have to charge more for used bikes.

On the other hand, if a dealers.h.i.+p is any good, you'll get something in return for the extra money you spend there. When buying from a private seller, the general rule is "buyer beware." After you buy a bike from a private seller, if something is wrong with it and the seller won't make it right, your only recourse may be to sue the seller, which will end up costing you even more money with no guarantee that you'll be successful.

Most shops, however, offer some sort of warranty, and if they want to have your repeat business, they'll bend over backward to make certain you are happy with your new bike. They may even be required to make it right for you by law; some states have lemon laws that apply to motorcycle dealers.h.i.+ps as well as automobile dealers.h.i.+ps.

If your bike does need repair, even if it's for something that happened after you bought it, dealers tend to take care of their customers. They'll be more motivated to help out a loyal customer whom they know than they will be to help out some stranger who bought a bike from a private seller. Also consider that if a dealers.h.i.+p originally sold the bike when it was new, which is often the case with good shops that have a lot of repeat customers, chances are they'll know your bike's entire service history and will be familiar with its idiosyncrasies.

If you buy a motorcycle that still has time remaining on its factory warranty, you may be able to use the warranty to defray the cost of necessary repairs. (Be sure to check the terms of the warranty to ensure the repair is covered.) If you've bought your bike from a dealers.h.i.+p, any dealers.h.i.+p worthy of your business will take care of arranging for the repair and filling out warranty paperwork. If you bought your bike from a private party and take it in for warranty repairs, you may find that the dealers.h.i.+p is not quite as helpful. That might not seem fair, but that's just the way it is.

If you need to finance your motorcycle, a dealers.h.i.+p will have a department that does nothing but arrange financing for motorcycles. It will also be able to help you deal with all the other legal paperwork involved with buying a motorcycle, like paying sales tax, getting insurance, filling out your registration, and transferring the t.i.tle. When you buy from a private seller, you'll have to deal with all these details yourself.

A good dealers.h.i.+p will inspect, service, and check to make certain every motorcycle it sells is roadworthy; the odds are that the used bikes a good shop is selling will be reliable. The same holds true for a good private owner. A responsible owner will keep his or her motorcycle in good repair. The trick is deciding whether or not a shop or individual is reputable, and it's a lot easier to determine if a shop that sells hundreds of motorcycles every year is reputable than it is to determine the trustworthiness of a private seller who sells a bike maybe once every five or six years.

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS.

REGARDLESS OF HOW DIFFERENT motorcycles may seem, at their hearts they are more or less all the same. After spending an entire chapter discussing the different types of bikes, this might seem like a contradiction, but when it comes to inspecting a used motorcycle, the process is pretty much the same for everything from a 250-cc single-cylinder trail bike to an 1800-cc six-cylinder Gold Wing. motorcycles may seem, at their hearts they are more or less all the same. After spending an entire chapter discussing the different types of bikes, this might seem like a contradiction, but when it comes to inspecting a used motorcycle, the process is pretty much the same for everything from a 250-cc single-cylinder trail bike to an 1800-cc six-cylinder Gold Wing.

In addition to a mechanic (or at least a friend who's knowledgeable about motorcycles), you'll want to bring the following items when you go to look at a used bike: - Flashlight for looking into dark places - Tire pressure gauge to avoid a flat while on a test ride - Clean rag to wipe off the inevitable grease you will get on yourself - Mechanic's mirror to see hard-to-reach items like the wiring harness The following procedures apply to all bikes, as does the following advice: if something doesn't check out, move on and find another bike. Unless you have a mechanic estimate the costs of repairing any problems you might find, you can a.s.sume the costs will be high. Even routine maintenance like valve adjustments or tire replacement can cost hundreds of dollars. Serious repairs, like fixing a failing transmission, will cost thousands. If you pay $4,500 for a nine-year-old Yamaha Road Star with 59,000 miles, then have to drop another $3,000 fixing the transmission, you're getting dangerously close to the cost of a two-year-old carry-over version of the same bike with zero miles. (A "carry-over" is a brand-new bike from a previous season that has gone unsold.) To keep this manageable, we'll group the parts of the bike together as follows: - Cosmetic-This refers to the condition of the bodywork and the condition of the metal parts.

- Electrics-This will refer to the charging system, lights, battery, starter, instrumentation, and ignition.

- Cha.s.sis-For our purposes, this will include the frame itself and the bearings and bus.h.i.+ngs a.s.sociated with the frame as well as the shocks, swingarm, fork, steering head, and wheels and tires.

- Drivetrain-Here we'll examine the engine, transmission, and final drive.

You can break the inspection process down into two sections-the macroscopic inspection and the microscopic inspection.

THE COSMETIC EVALUATION.

THE MACROSCOPIC IS THE broad cosmetic overview of the bike, which is really a fancy way of saying your first impression of the machine. broad cosmetic overview of the bike, which is really a fancy way of saying your first impression of the machine.

Does It s.h.i.+ne?

Is the bike clean? Is it obviously well maintained? Does it have rusted metal or oxidized aluminum showing? Does is show evidence of a major crash?

Does it look like the owner took decent care of the motorcycle you're inspecting? If he rode it as carefully as he'd shave his own mother's legs with a straight razor, you'll be able to tell just from the bike's appearance. The bike will have a fresh coat of wax and the paint will glow. Even if the bike has a few miles under its belt, if it's been stored properly, ideally inside a garage, but if not, at least under a quality cover that breathes and doesn't trap moisture, the paint should be almost like new. Sure, there may be some minor scratches or some swirls in the finish-these sorts of things are inevitable on a motorcycle that gets ridden regularly-but overall the bike should s.h.i.+ne.

Likewise the chrome should be polished to the point where the sun's reflection practically burns out the corneas of your eyes. It should not be rusted or pitted, and the chrome should be deep; you should be able to look down into it. If you find pitting in the chrome finish or rusty exhaust pipes, you could be looking at some expensive repairs.

Any exposed aluminum should be smooth and clean. If it has a whitish appearance, it is oxidizing. This usually occurs only when a bike has sat out in the elements for long periods of time (although it can occur more quickly in areas near oceans, where salt.w.a.ter spray can get on a bike and degrade its metal parts). Replacing oxidized aluminum parts like engine cases and fork legs is prohibitively expensive and often exceeds the value of a motorcycle, even a Harley-Davidson. It can also be a sign that there are deeper problems with a bike, since the same elements that degraded the aluminum parts will have compromised other parts, like electrical components and rubber seals.

You may find corrosion on the metal parts around the battery box. This might look like h.e.l.l, but usually it is just cosmetic, caused by an overheated battery puking out a bit of battery acid because it was overcharged. Or it had a blocked vent hose, or the battery cracked at some point. It's difficult (if not impossible) to remove this scarring, but as long as it appears to have been an isolated occurrence, it shouldn't cause any long-term harm. If it appears to be a repeated event, however, it might indicate a more serious problem with an electrical system that overcharges the battery.

On many j.a.panese bikes, you might find that the exposed aluminum parts have taken on a yellowish appearance, especially on older bikes. This is because they're coated with a protective film that takes on a tint as it ages. The brownish-yellow tint isn't pretty, but it's common and doesn't indicate deeper problems beyond age.

What Do Dents Mean?

Be sure to look for dents and other signs of cras.h.i.+ng. A small ding on an exhaust pipe, footpeg tip, or clutch lever likely means a bike has fallen over, but that isn't necessarily a deal breaker. Motorcycles are inherently unstable machines, and as such they are p.r.o.ne to falling over. Sooner or later, every bike will fall over. A kickstand will sink into the asphalt on a hot day, or you might hit a slick patch of diesel while rolling up to a gas pump just as you happen to be crossing a rough seam in the pavement. s.h.i.+t happens. The vast majority of these parking-lot tip overs result in such minor cosmetic damage that it's not worth fixing, but they do leave telltale marks on the machine.

Also, don't worry about stone chips on the fenders or the frame behind the front wheel. This is natural wear and tear and is unavoidable if the bike is to be ridden in the real world. The only bikes without stone chips are brand-new ones sitting on showroom floors or useless trailer queens hauled from bike show to bike show. All of my bikes have fallen over more than once, and each of them have pitted chrome and paint from rocks and road debris. If you ride forty thousand miles or more each year, your bikes will be pitted too.

Bigger dents are usually signs of more serious crashes that can have more dire consequences to the motorcycle's structural integrity. If a bike took a hit that was hard enough to put a grapefruit-sized divot in the gas tank, chances are the parts that you can't see took a hard hit, too. At the very least it indicates that the owner didn't treat his or her bike with the respect it deserved.

If a bike has plastic bodywork like a fairing, saddlebags, or a trunk, even a minor tip over can have much more expensive consequences. Check to make sure that all the gaps in the body panels have a uniform fit and all the tabs holding the parts together are intact and not broken off. Examine all the plastic for cracks. Even if the plastic isn't cracked, spiderweb cracks in the paint around mounting bolts are a sign that the bike has been through some sort of traumatic event. This will also show up in the metal mounting brackets that hold the bodywork in place. Visually inspect all the plastic pieces to ensure they line up straight; if they sit crooked, something underneath them is probably bent, which could be a very bad thing.

Even if the plastic pieces appear straight, examine the brackets holding them in place (at least the ones you can see) to make sure they aren't bent or tweaked. Even if the brackets are straight, examine them for evidence that they have been straightened. This is a sign that the bike has been in a serious crash.

Check the seat cover for rips and tears. The st.i.tching should line up, and everything should be straight. If the seat cover doesn't line up with the rest of the bike, chances are it's an aftermarket seat cover. Again, if the seat looks okay and is comfortable, this shouldn't be a deal breaker-a previous owner may have simply hooked the original seat cover with his boot and ripped it-but it could also be a sign that a motorcycle has been in a serious crash and has been rebuilt.

Most important, does the bike match the owner's description? If the seller claimed the bike was in mint condition, does it really look like it just rolled off the showroom floor, or is there oil weeping out of the head gasket? Does the bike look like it has a lot more miles than the odometer suggests? This may mean that the owner tampered with the odometer, or else that the bike spent a good part of its life sitting out in the elements even when it wasn't running. Either way, this is not good. A little exaggeration on the owner's part is to be expected, but if there is a gross discrepancy, you have no choice but to question the owner's honesty in general. If the owner has grossly misrepresented the bike, you can either negotiate the price downward or, better yet, go find a better motorcycle.

Sometimes a bike might look like it has a lot more miles on it than it really does, but in reality, it just has a lot of years under its belt. As I mentioned earlier, many riders rarely take their motorcycles out of the garage. If you just ride to town once or twice a month, you'll be lucky to put on more than four hundred miles per year. That means you can have a ten-year-old motorcycle with three or four thousand miles or less on the clock. Harleys seem especially p.r.o.ne to spending more time in garages than out on highways.

The end result can be a bike that might not have many miles on its odometer but is still a ten-year-old motorcycle, with ten-year-old seals and ten-year-old bearings. Harleys seem more susceptible to this sort of rot than other brands. Harleys with low miles but lots of years usually have very dry gaskets that leak motor oil everywhere. Not only should you avoid buying one of these, but you should avoid parking them in your driveway.

A PART-BY-PART GUIDE TO INSPECTING A USED MOTORCYCLE.

ONCE A BIKE HAS pa.s.sed the macroscopic examination, it's time to put it under the microscope. You would think a bike that looks good on the outside would be good on the inside; after all, an owner who treated a bike's cosmetics with respect should treat its mechanicals with respect, too. In most cases, you'd be correct. An owner who puts the effort into maintaining a bike's appearance usually puts as much effort into maintaining its mechanical parts. But there are always exceptions to every rule, and when you are paying your hard-earned money for a motorcycle, you don't want to pay even more because you ended up with one of those exceptions. pa.s.sed the macroscopic examination, it's time to put it under the microscope. You would think a bike that looks good on the outside would be good on the inside; after all, an owner who treated a bike's cosmetics with respect should treat its mechanicals with respect, too. In most cases, you'd be correct. An owner who puts the effort into maintaining a bike's appearance usually puts as much effort into maintaining its mechanical parts. But there are always exceptions to every rule, and when you are paying your hard-earned money for a motorcycle, you don't want to pay even more because you ended up with one of those exceptions.

When buying a bike, you'll be able to put all the things you learned about the parts of a motorcycle in chapter 1 to good use. If you need to, go back and skim over that chapter to refresh your memory regarding the different systems and subsystems of a motorcycle, because you'll be examining each of them when checking out the parts of a used bike you're thinking about buying.

The Electrics Electrical systems have historically been the weakest parts of motorcycles and the most p.r.o.ne to failure. This is partly because there's just not enough s.p.a.ce to package a heavy-duty electrical system like you'd find on a car. For most of the 110 or so years that motorcycles have been manufactured, the manufacturers' solution to the problem was to keep electrical systems as simple as possible. On the earliest bikes the electrical system consisted of a crude magneto that provided spark; if the bike had any lights at all, they'd be powered by kerosene. The earliest electrical lights were powered by batteries, just like your flashlight, and as with your flashlight, those batteries had to be replaced when they ran down. This is called a "total loss" system.

The earliest regenerating electrical systems used six-volt DC generators to charge batteries and power lights. These systems could remain crude because they didn't need to be more sophisticated; the single most difficult task of riding-starting a motorcycle-was done with legs of the flesh-and-blood kind rather than of the electrical variety. When the riding public began to demand electric starters on their motorcycles, these systems were no longer adequate and were replaced with twelve-volt systems that used automotive-style alternators to provide electrical power. By the time electronic ignition became common on bikes in the late 1970s and early 1980s, relatively reliable alternators provided all electrical power.

The slow evolution of motorcycle electrical systems is one good reason to avoid buying older bikes. Even newer bikes with early electronic ignition systems can be riddled with expensive electrical problems. For example, Yamahas from the early 1980s tended to have electrical systems that would overcharge, cooking batteries and voltage regulators. Worse yet, the Maxim 750 and 1100, a couple of Yamaha's bigger four-cylinder bikes, had crude computerized ignition systems that, when they failed, would make a bike completely inoperable. And they did fail, all the time. The system was virtually unusable and Yamaha abandoned it after just a couple of years. Yamaha is notorious for not carrying replacement parts for a motorcycle after it is out of production, meaning that within a few years, replacement computers for these bikes were virtually un.o.btainable. As a result, you still might run across a Yamaha Maxim 750 or 1100 or a 750 Seca that appears to be in almost new condition. Beware and avoid these bikes at all costs.

Throughout the history of motorcycles, really lousy bikes like this do crop up, sometimes from the least likely sources. For example, the four-cylinder Honda 1200-cc Gold Wings from the 1980s had a tendency to burn out their stators, which are roughly the equivalent of automotive alternators. This would have been bad enough by itself, but Honda made the matter worse by placing the stator inside the engine cases. This means to replace a stator, you'll have to split the engine cases. This is the most extensive operation you can perform on a modern j.a.panese motorcycle engine. It's also the most expensive one; replacing the stator on a 1200-cc Gold Wing can easily cost you $2,000$3,000, which is close to the value of the entire bike.

As motorcycle technology advanced, bad designs like these became increasingly rare, which further underscores my point that modern motorcycles are your best bets when considering used machines. The worst electrical problem you're likely to encounter when buying a modern motorcycle is a weak battery. Modern batteries can last for years, but some climates can make them wear out more quickly. Both cold and heat can shorten the life of a battery. If a battery's not properly cared for in northern climates, they can wear out during the winter months, and in hot climates, the sun and heat can shorten a battery's life. I live in Arizona, where I replace my battery every two years just to be safe.

As good as modern electrical systems are, you'll still need to give the electrical system a thorough examination just to be safe. This is easier said than done, however, because most of the parts are buried deep within the motorcycle. Some things are easy to check, like whether or not the lights and horn work, but other things are going to take more work.

Take the wiring harness, most of which runs along the frame, or even through it; it would be d.a.m.ned hard to examine an entire wiring harness without completely dismantling a motorcycle, but you should make sure that at least the parts of the harness that you can see are in good shape. Big chunks of black friction tape around some section of the wiring harness, particularly up by the steering head area where the harness can get pinched in a bad crash, is a sign that the bike has likely had some major repairs.

Even the battery can be difficult to see on some bikes, but you should try to take a look at it because it can tell you a lot about a motorcycle. The terminals should be clean and free of corrosion, and the cables should be bolted on tightly. Most motorcycles now used sealed batteries, but if the bike you're looking at was built more than five or six years ago, it may have a refillable battery. If so, make certain that the battery water is set at the correct level.

The more accessories a bike has, the more powerful its electrical system needs to be. Be wary of bikes that have a lot of aftermarket electrical accessories, like GPS systems, heated seats and grips, stereos, and a couple of dozen driving lights. Modern bikes have reliable electrical systems, but only within reason. If your system was designed to produce a certain amount of power reliably, and then you mount accessories that draw twice as much juice as the system was designed to provide, your formerly reliable electrical system may not be very reliable at all. It's best to stick with a bike that only has the accessories with which it left the factory.

A lot of aftermarket accessories aren't a deal breaker. If you don't like them, usually they are easy to remove. If you do decide to keep them, make sure the owner knew what he or she was doing when they were installed. Make sure that they are wired properly, that the exposed connections are taped or sheathed, and that all connections are properly soldered or crimped.

You may not even consider the most important electrical accessory-the starter-an accessory, but those of us who began riding back when starting a motorcycle required a strong leg and a good boot know better. This is one accessory that needs to work properly. If the bike hasn't been run in a while or if the weather is cold, a bike you're looking at might need a little help to turn over, but once the bike has been run for a while-say thirty minutes or so out on the highway-the starter should spin the engine to life with no drama. Failure to do so might just mean that a bike needs a new battery, but it could also be a sign that a bike needs expensive repairs.

If you aren't able to take the bike out for a test ride to charge up the battery, at least check the charging indicator light. Most bikes will have some sort of idiot light (that's what we used to call indicator lights that were used when what was really needed was a good gauge) for the charging system. Although it does not provide much useful information, at the very least an idiot light lets you know when there is a problem. If the light continues to glow after the engine is running at normal idle speed, the bike either has charging problems or soon will have them.

If you do uncover anything amiss with the electrical system, my advice is to run as far and fast as you can and find another bike to buy. The problems may well be simple and inexpensive to fix, but usually they will be difficult and extremely expensive, and they'll undoubtedly be tricky to find and diagnose. If you have any doubts about your expertise in motorcycle electrics, this is one of the best reasons to have a competent professional examine the bike you're thinking about buying.

With more and more bikes using antilock brake systems (ABS), electrics also are playing an increasingly large role in brake performance. These are highly complex, computer-based systems that defy intuitive understanding. But it doesn't take a scientist to understand that brake performance can be the difference between life and death. If you look at a bike that has ABS and the brakes don't seem to perform properly, do not buy that motorcycle without having a qualified mechanic check the ABS equipment. I know that in addition to being dangerous, ABS failures are extremely expensive. I personally would not buy a bike with ABS problems.

The Cha.s.sis You'll need a good electrical system just to get your bike out on the road, but once you're out riding, you must make sure the rest of the bike is up to par, too-particularly the frame and suspension.

I'm going to start at the front of the bike and work my way back. The most complicated system (and thus most p.r.o.ne to failure) is the fork. A fork is probably the most likely item to get tweaked in a crash, since it is at the front of the bike and the first thing that connects with whatever a rider might be cras.h.i.+ng into. It is also p.r.o.ne to less serious problems, like worn-out seals.

The majority of motorcycles you will be looking at will use hydraulically damped telescopic forks. These are the two long shock absorbers connecting your front wheel to your handlebar. There are other types of front ends-Harley uses an old-fas.h.i.+oned springer-type fork on some models, and BMW has too many oddball systems to keep track of-but I'm going to focus on the hydraulic front fork, which is the most common type.

The fork a.s.sembly is held together by metal pieces called "triple clamps." These attach the fork to the steering head, which is the tubular a.s.sembly on the front of the frame in which the fork pivots. The triple clamps hold either the fork tubes or the fork sliders, depending on what type is used. Think of the fork tube as the male part of the fork, the part that inserts into the female part, and the slider as the female part that gets penetrated by the male part. (This may seem crude, but these are the terms that mechanics have always used.) Traditionally the male part is at the top and the female part is at the bottom, but I've noticed that in recent years the trend has been to reverse these positions. Consequently, the inserting male part is now often found at the bottom, down by the wheel, and the female part is up by the triple clamps. These were originally called "upside-down forks," and are still often referred to as "USD forks," though they are becoming so common that more often than not people just call them "forks." At first USD forks were only found on sport bikes, but now they've begun to appear on all types of bikes, including cruisers. Harley uses USD forks on its new Sportster XR1200 and Victory uses them on its Hammer and Kingpin models.

The first tools you'll need to check a bike's fork are your eyeb.a.l.l.s. Look at the fork from the side. The two legs of the fork should line up perfectly. If one of the legs is skewed at a bit of an angle or looks bent, chances are the bike has experienced more than the normal amount of wear and tear. If the whole a.s.sembly looks a little c.o.c.keyed, then either the triple clamps are bent or the frame itself is bent in such a way that the steering head itself is tweaked. In the grand scheme of things, these problems range from really bad to downright terrible, and they should motivate you to find a different bike.

The other thing to look for in the visual inspection is oil leaking from a fork seal. If the fork hasn't been cleaned, you'll easily be able to see a ring where oil has collected and grime has built up around the fork tube, right at the end of the fork slider's travel (the point at which the male part is most deeply inserted into the female part). Even if you don't see this telltale ring, the fork seals may leak; the owner may just have wiped the tubes down so the leak wasn't obvious.