dandanthemotorcycleman

[dandanthemotorcycleman]

Winterizing your bike, and yourself

               So, I’m a mid-west boy born and raised.  Which means riding year-round is not necessarily advised.  Hell, I don’t run outside past about early November so safe to say, the bike will probably also not be making an appearance past All Hallows’ Eve.  I purchased my bike in the fall since it’s considered off season and I wanted a deal.  I got one, but what that meant was, my first task with the new bike was to winterize it before I even got to learn to ride it.  Since I haven’t been able to ride it, all I’ve been able to do so far is go out to the garage, sit on the bike, and imagine.  I fired it up a few times, and even once bravely tested out the clutch by riding it from one side of the garage to the other.  Boldly go and such.

               The end result of my experimentation was a dead battery.  Turns out motorcycle batteries are a tad finicky and don’t like being used but not charged regularly.  Who knew? On top of my misuse, I purchased a used bike so who knows how the battery was treated before I so carelessly wore it down to nothing.

               Being the nerd that I am, I immediately jumped into some online research to determine if I was going to need a new battery in the spring and how much one would set me back.  As it turn out, how much it’s going to set me back can vary quite a bit depending on what level of technology I want to embrace.  I’ll save you the full breakdown of options, but I’ve decided on a gel.  I believe they boast a decent cold weather start capability, mid-range pricing options, are less likely to leak than an old school battery, and the play nicely with battery tenders.  Battery tenders by the way are another topic entirely but for now just know that you’re going to need one.

               Anyway, I may be getting ahead of myself.  I may or may not even need a new battery in the spring.  Step one, for now, was to remove the current (pun intended) one and hook it up to a battery tender for the winter.  If the battery is still usable, the tender will keep it fully charged and it should be ready to hook back up and go in the spring.

               So, my friend who was kind enough to test ride the bike for me was also kind enough to let me know that I needed to pull the battery for the winter, or I may have just left it on.  Complete beginner here after all.  He assured me it was a fairly simple procedure and should, “take about five minutes”.  I don’t doubt that this would be the case for anyone remotely familiar with what they are doing.  Forty-five minutes and three YouTube videos later, I had the battery safely removed and the seat back on the bike.

               I’ll give you just a brief breakdown of what it entailed here so you have a general idea of what you’ll be doing, but I would highly recommend YouTube for some audio-visual assistance.  I started by popping open the battery cover on the left side of my 2011 Sportster.  This was fairly straightforward and even I didn’t need a YouTube video to make it this far.  It was at this point that I began scratching my head.  Two wires appeared to be attached to the red terminal and the instructions on the inside of the battery cover clearly stated, remove the black connection first.  At this point, I’m thinking that I need to remove this bracket thingy (technical term) and probably pull the battery out to access the black terminal.  Feeling a little crowded by the seat being right in my face, and wondering if it may be possible to access the black terminal from underneath the seat, I figured I should proceed by taking the seat off so I could get a better look at what I was getting myself into.  Seat removal the first time for me was five minutes and the first two of three YouTube videos.  The learning curve is steep on this and popping the seat off takes about 30 seconds the second time you do it.

               After getting the seat off, I was welcomed by a jumble of wires but still couldn’t get to the negative battery terminal. Fair enough, the goal was to remove the battery anyway, so I may as well focus my energies back on that goal.  Big pro of seat removal is that even though I think the battery can be removed without taking the seat off, getting it out of the way really makes it easier to see and manipulate the bracket holding it in place.  There was only one screw holding the bracket, so I popped that bad boy off and the bracket came off easily enough after that.  I slid the battery out of its compartment and there it was.  The vaunted black terminal.  Thirty minutes into my five-minute job and I’d found it!

Quick background interlude here.  I served for a year overseas in Operation Iraqi Freedom.   Spent a solid chunk of that year fixing radios and electrical systems in HMMWVs.  That’s a Humvee for you civilian types.  Point being, I’m not entirely unfamiliar with working on vehicular electrical systems. So I do have a healthy respect of what happens when someone shorts out a battery while trying to remove it.  I managed not to do it, but apparently PFC Garrita dropped a wrench on one and it touched both terminals.  Oh, and HMMWVs run two 12V batteries in series to provide 24V of output.  From what I heard, the end result was spectacular, and sparks flew.  The lesson here is, when you disconnect the black terminal, don’t let it make contact with the bike frame as it is often used as the ground.  My college physics is a little rusty so I can’t go into too much detail anymore about exactly what would happen and why, but just make sure the black lead is tucked out of the way or even taped off if you’re the very cautious type.  With a properly fused bike, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but best not to test the system.

Unscrew the bolt from the red, or positive, lead and disconnect the cable. There you have it.  Battery removed.  Screw the bolts back into the battery so you don’t misplace them, and your battery is ready to hook-up to that tender sitting in your basement workspace. Close up the battery cover, pop the seat back on and pour yourself a beer, all while patting yourself on the back for a job well done.  Try not to pull a muscle.  It can be an awkward angle.

So that’s your bike taken care of, but how do we make sure we’re taking care of our own internal battery during the long cold winters with short, sometimes dreary, days?

Lean on friends.  Don’t be afraid to reach out to old acquaintances.  Remember that relationships are a two-way street and it takes traffic flowing in both directions to keep them active.  If you’re feeling lonely and down, ask yourself what you’ve done to reach out to someone else recently.  Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and make an effort.  Last summer when people were really feeling stuck home alone with the Covid blues, I commented on an old high school acquaintance’s post about a local distillery that he’d checked in at the year before.  It’s a local distillery that’s opened just outside of my hometown and I was completely unaware of it.  I think my comment was something to the effect of, going to check this place out when this whole corona thing finally passes.  Next thing I know, he’s calling me via the Facebook chat app, and we end up spending the next two hours catching up.  We were by no means best friends in high school, but it was great to talk to him again and I’m really looking forward to checking out that distillery when society opens up again.

I will say, if there is one silver lining to the pandemic, it’s the fact that we all have learned how to Zoom, or Houseparty, or Google chat or whatever group video call app you use.  Point is, use one.  I have some close high school friends that historically I’ve been lucky to see once a year and we’ve actually had more virtual “face to face” interaction in the last year than actual face to face time in the previous three years combined. Technology is making our world smaller and our friends more accessible.  

That brings me to the second self service of surviving winter with the double threat of a pandemic.  Keep looking to the future.  Usually this time of year I start planning a road trip or begin eyeing up upcoming musical festival dates.  Covid obviously makes this additionally challenging due to the uncertainty factor but start doing some research on locations that may offer outdoor activities as the weather begins to warm.  So, there are certain limitations to our current ability to foresee the future, but try to remind yourself that winter and Covid, as with all things, will pass.

Try to stay active.  I’ll be honest, I don’t like outdoor activities once the temperature starts to drop below 30, let alone the teens.  I’m trying to get better at enjoying the winter season here in the Midwest. I’ve found having and wearing proper gear helps.  Even with that, I’ll just acknowledge that I’m definitely more of a summer guy when it comes to outdoor activities.  This makes watching my diet and hitting the weights all the more important from November to March.  The nights may be longer, but that isn’t going to guarantee a good night’s sleep by any means.  I struggle with being tired already by 6pm but then being unable to sleep at midnight when I finally crawl into bed.  Even getting just 5 or 6 rounds of short but high intensity lifting or cardio during the day gets blood flowing and helps my body prepare to shut down and recharge at night.

Finally, find and keep alive, your year-round hobbies.  Aside from picking up the bike as a hobby, I home brew, play guitar, and write…which is what brought me here.  If your hobby is a productive one that results in say, some mildly palatable beer, all the better.  But there’s nothing wrong with having a hobby with no end goal or use other than enjoying loudly and poorly attempting to play and sing along with your favorite songs while no one else is around.  The more varied our hobbies, the better the mental exercise and more importantly, the more interesting and fulfilled people we become.  

Until next time, take care of your bike and take care of yourself.