Spring Motorcycle Maintenance

As a motorcyclist, you must act to ensure you’re safe on the road. Part of this involves performing regular maintenance on your motorcycle to repair or replace worn parts. With spring just around the corner, you should take the following steps to protect yourself on the road.

Change Your Brakes

Your brakes are essential to your safety. They help ensure that you stop on time when approaching traffic lights, stop signs, and potential road dangers. Whenever you identify worn brakes on your motorcycle, the part’s ability to stop your bike diminishes.

Changing your brakes allows you to stay as safe as possible on the road. Without changing your brakes, you can suffer significant injuries in a crash.

Maintain Your Tires

Two key elements of tire maintenance include air pressure and tread.

Adequate tire pressure is necessary for tire performance and life. Too little air (or too much) can cause poor handling and tire separation from the rim. Check your tires’ air pressure when they are cold (such as first thing in the morning) and adjust the PSI according to the owner’s manual or tire information on the chain guard.

Tire tread is what creates friction between your wheels and the surface of the road, allowing you to maintain control of your motorcycle. Without tire tread, significant dangers arise:

• Low tire tread can cause a blowout resulting in you losing control of your motorcycle.
• Low tire tread can make it easier to lose control on slippery surfaces.
• Low tire tread can force you to hydroplane when riding over a puddle of water.

Check Your Battery

Motorcycle batteries last approximately three to four years, when properly maintained.

Checking your battery often can help improve its lifespan. When checking on the battery, ensure that there is constant contact between the cables and the battery. Otherwise, the battery will not charge properly.

Additionally, do not store your bike in extreme heat or cold. Doing so will have a negative effect on the battery’s lifespan.

Replace Worn Parts

Whenever you recognize a part on your vehicle wearing down, it becomes crucial to ensure you’re either repairing the part or replacing it entirely. Part replacement is essential to keeping your motorcycle running safely.

Brakes and other parts of your motorcycle can break and lose their effectiveness. Your risk of experiencing a severe collision increases when you don’t replace broken or worn parts.

This includes electrical components as well, such as your lights. Some motorcycles use several different bulbs, so make sure you know which ones are right for your bike. It’s a good idea to keep spare bulbs somewhere on your bike so you can easily replace them if they burn out at night.

At The Beasley Firm, we want you to be as safe as possible on the road. However, as much as you maintain your motorcycle, you cannot control what other drivers do. Whenever someone else is negligent and causes you harm, you have specific rights to pursue legal action for any damages you sustain.

Our Philadelphia motorcycle accident attorneys will be by your side to determine who is negligent and what rights you have. We’ll be there to position your case in a way that helps you pursue the compensation and justice you deserve.