Walk into any bike shop, past the receptionist greeting you, the salesman with those ka-ching $$ eyeballs smiling at you, and past the indifferent service writer blocking your access to the facts. Walk right out onto the shop floor and ask any mechanic what's the greatest motorcycle killer, and the answer is pretty universal: Motorcycle Storage!
Storing your cycle is often more a necessity than a desire. We all have reasons to do it. Sometimes it's uncooperative weather. Sometimes it's an uncooperative spouse. Whatever it may be, your first love sometimes has to take a nap. Maybe for a few weeks, maybe a few years. But what goes on when you have that bike stored away? And why is storage the evil killer of the motorcycle?
Well, just like the human body, all the parts of the bike need to be exercised. Cables not used will allow the internal lube to harden and get stiff, making a pull on the clutch or brake not only hard but also increasing stress and wear on the steel cable as well as the cable sheathing. The same holds true for things like wheel bearings. Hardened or dried bearing grease doesn't do much good when you jump on and take off down the road. Not all, but just enough of the bearings will suffer scoring and flattening to the point that the race will score and the bearing will need replacement. You can follow that same line of thought through the steering stem bearings and swing arm as well.
Fuel systems. This is where it gets really nasty. Ever look inside your tank? Maybe at the filler neck or onto the backbone relief. Any rust there? That rust isn't from gasoline; it's from water. Not running your bike enough will allow exposure and the settling of humidity or condensation to attack bare parts. Worse yet, if you run ethanol-juiced fuel, that ethanol will pick up water and if left to sit, deposit it into the bottom of your tank. Ever seen pinhole leaks in the bottom of a fuel tank? I've seen plenty, and you can thank that ethanol for it.
Of course, small particles of rust can flow with the fuel. Right into the petcock. Ouch, sorry, petcock. And even worse, cause carburetor blockages, performance issues, or just make it impossible to start. So of course, it will have to be removed, disassembled, and cleaned before the bike will be happy again. If you have fuel injection, you're in business. It's easy to swap injectors, and if the pump is chewed up, that's easy too. But expensive.
Rubber loves to be stored. Oh wait. No, it doesn't. Rubber simply hardens. Hard tires don't grip, get flat spots, crack, and are just miserable to ride on. You may as well have carved wooden wagon wheels after a few months of storage. Those tires need to be taken out and run until warm. Just like your arteries, making them work makes them healthier. Basically, every part on your bike is going to suffer, from the synthetic seat cover to the gas lines themselves when left unused.
Florida exacerbates the problem. When I was a much less experienced technician, I would see many storage issues. But that was in a northern climate with its own problems. But you could leave a snowmobile carburetor full of fuel over the summer and still expect the machine to start when it was 20 degrees outside. Yeah, it would cough and sputter on that old elixir, but it would still go. Same for your bike left over the winter. Come spring with a freshly charged battery or a long enough hill, that bike would cough back to life.
Florida, on the other hand, swings the other way with carbureted anything. Leave a bike for a few months (or even weeks if it has a small carb bowl), and you'll find yourself with a horribly running bike or worse yet, an impossible-to-start bike. The consistent high temperatures, day and night, simply evaporate the fuel right out of the float bowl. That would be fine if it didn't leave behind the thick hydrocarbons or solids of the fuel that turn to a nasty, pasty varnish that will plug up the needed orifices that make the carb do its job. Of course, regular running will fend off this demon as well as many of the other issues I've mentioned.
So, what's a good solution? Storage WITH Upkeep! That's what I was getting to here. Who may need this service? I once knew a guy who bought a bike to ride on the weekends and to work occasionally. Sometimes he'd go weeks and maybe months between rides, but he loved that bike (Yamaha XJ650). Unfortunately, his wife didn't know about it... He could have used this service; instead, that bike disappeared from the corner of an underground parking garage.
Maybe you're a Military guy headed overseas for a few months. You want your bike to stay running because you won't! We love you guys! Thank you! Ask about TDY discounts.
Maybe you're a collector, and the collection is blocking a few of the bikes you want more visible. You need a place to keep a few of the extras and keep them running. Rotating your babies around may give you more satisfaction than just clustering them up. Ask about multi-bike discounts.
Maybe you live out of state for a good part of the year, and hauling your bike back and forth is just a burden. Of course, leaving it in a storage unit is possible, but you know it isn't going to run when you get back, so every year is another costly tune-up. Let's avoid that with our upkeep.
Or maybe you're just like my buddy and need to keep your bike stored until you can use it, but don't want it to die in the Florida heat. We've got your back.
The storage and upkeep are laid out on the web page Motos84. In a nutshell, we keep your bike in a double-locked facility with 24-hour surveillance. It will be covered, locked, and tended to daily. It will get a weekly check-over and running to full operational temperature and ridden enough to warm the tires. It will be maintained with fresh fuel every 90 days, tires checked, battery tested/charged as needed, and any creeping maintenance issues reported to you. Additionally, it gets the chain lubed on a regular basis, fluid levels kept up, and a weekly wipe down with cleaner/wax to maintain the paint and chrome. It also gets a full checkup before being stored and before pick up. There's a little more to it than that, but at an average cost of about four dollars a day, it's peace of mind that your bike isn't dying from neglect. It's also cheap insurance that it will still be worth more than scrap in a few years. Don
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