Preparing your Motorbike

Thorough preparation of your motorbike is essential to ensure a relatively mechanically trouble free trip. There will always be the odd hiccup on any long distance motor-tour. The idea is to minimise the chances of a major breakdown by knowing your motorcycle and improving any weak points. Long distance motorcycle touring is likely require a few modifications to your motorbike so it is also a good idea to ride your modified bike as much as possible before your departure date. This will allow you to iron out any unforeseen problems produced as a result of you changing your motorbike set-up. Best bet is to try a practice 'mini-tour', using all your equipment but closer to home so any mechanical failure is less consequential.

You'll have enough on your mind when you arrive abroad. Knowing your bike and equipment work before you set off will be one less thing to worry about.

I believe that if you're riding a motorbike for a long period of time in countries away from home you should be able to perform basic maintenance and repairs on the bike. Therefore, I suggest you try to do all the modifications yourself. The more you know about your bike the better equipped you are to identify and fix problems later on. I did all the modifications myself and then asked a motorbike mechanic to check the whole bike before I left. Mechanics charge by the hour. So unless you've really messed up, it'll probably be cheaper to have the mechanic just check the bike works rather than do all the modifications (and then check the bike).

Buy a Haynes Service & Repair Manual and have a go. They're not as tricky as you'd think. Of course, if you have loads of money and don't want to learn you can always take a support crew/van with you!

It is also a very good idea to check (and re-check) the motorbike Frame Number and Engine Number. It's better to discover they don't match your registration documents at home than on the border of some distant land.

There are two areas of motorbike preparation you need to work on before you head off. They are

  1. Replacing components - changing out old for new consumables if you think they won't last. [see details]
  2. Modifying your motorbike - to improve performance or any know weak points on the bike. [see details]

We'll start with replacing components >>