How To Prepare For Touring
HOW TO PREPARE FOR TOURING
CHUCK CLAYTON
FEW THINGS in a motorcyclists life will cause as much dread as preparing for his first long ride. He may remember the miniature catastrophes that befell his cycle riding career up to now, and wonder, with good reason, how he can avoid or overcome the mechanical problems that can occur far from his friendly dealer. The problem of preparing a motorcycle for trouble-free touring, like most other tasks in the cycle world, can be conquered easiest by applying horse sense and a few words of experienced advice : Be prepared to be resourceful and your motorcycle will always get you home.
First step in preparing for a tour is learn your machine. Setting out for a long trip riding an untested, unfamiliar motorcycle is trusting to luck, which comes in two flavors, good and bad. Better one should operate the machine close to home base until all its controls and idiosyncrasies are understood and its mechanical parts have settled down. Then, following the owner’s handbook, check all the recommended adjustments throughout the entire machine. Follow this with another short test to be certain everything is in order. If your machine feels at all uncomfortable, fiddle with handlebar height, footpeg iocation and other adjustable cycle parts (allowing for wind pressure) until you can ride it relaxed for hours at a stretch.
Items that will receive major use arc tires, suspension units, brakes, ignition and chains. They should be in good enough condition to provide an extra margin of dependability.
Put a spot of high melting point grease on the contact breaker cam follower and oil the rear chain, if your cycle has one. with chain oil. The old recommendation of boiling the rear chain in a mixture of grease and kerosene is thankfully outmoded by modern graphited penetrating oils. Worn chains should of course be replaced before thinking about a long tour, and new chains should be thoroughly bedded in and adjusted before setting out. Lubricate throttle, brake and clutch cables by immersing them in a pan of oil or. simpler, disconnect the lever ends and tape small funnels of waxed paper around the housing (sec photo). With the funnels fastened upright, fill them with 50 wt. oil and leave overnight to penetrate down the length of the cable. Since lubricating control cables is such an important item of maintenance, here is another method: trim off the tip of a plastic squeeze bottle until it slips tightly over the cable housing. Fill bottle with 50 w't. oil. slip tip over housing and gently squeeze the oil into the cable until it runs out the other end. Doing this when necessary results in smooth operation and can double the life of control cables.
Traveling by motorcycle means traveling light. With a small kit of tools (the ones supplied by the manufacturer are usually more than enough), a very fewspare parts and some additional items which we shall list, you can be entirely self sufficient and able to stay in motion far from the tender cares of service experts. Major breakdowns are rare, and a machine generally gives plenty of notice before anything drastic happens to it. The only parts worth the burden are those that fail irreparably or often, which are light bulbs, spark plugs, breaker points and chain links. Anything else that gives up can be repaired or will accept available substitutions found along the way. Most common mechanical difficulties respond to baling wire, epoxy glue or rubber bands. This prosaic stuff can be worked to remedy countless unforeseeable problems. Rubber bands, cut in 1 " strips from old car innertubes. are the handiest touring accessory ever devised, far superior to those expensive elastic cords with hooks on the ends. The black bands look neat, they loop over any projection on the motorcycle, connect to make elastic strips as long as you need, and they have the perfect tension to keep an unwieldy load of luggage snug and secure on the back of a bike. Best of all, they are replaceable, free, anywhere along the road.
Epoxy glue is a handy thing to have along for a last resort if you plan to be far from civilization for a long time. When correctly mixed (use only the twotube kind) and applied properly, it hardens into a material that has very near the strength of cast aluminum. On a tour recently I dashed a primary case into four pieces on a rock outside Mexico City. Twenty-four hours later the three pieces I managed to retrieve were hardened in an unsightly but oil-tight gob of epoxy, then bolted back onto the motorcycle and ridden to Montreal, w'hcre the primary was again cracked open on a similar rock (c'est la vie) and the aluminum broke, not the epoxy!
Flat tires are the major and most neglected touring problem to provide against. Best expedient is simply to carry a spare tube, thereby preparing for the worst, and save the patching until you can find someone to do it for you.
Aside from urging the prospective tourist to plan the weight distribution and fastening of his cargo, and suggesting that riders of two-cycle machines take along a supply of special oil. that is enough advice for a starter. The rest you will have the fun of discovering for yourself. Simply be prepared to be resourceful and nothing can stop your touring. •
