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Motorcycle Repair & Maintenance

Motorcyclist’s How-To section showcases technical articles on motorcycle repair, motorcycle maintenance and service procedures from our staff. Find motorcycle safety information and expert street bike riding tips and racing techniques.

Motorcycle Tips & How-To

	Nationwide Insurance Agent - And Expert Racer Pete Boccarossa Offers Safety Tips For Riders Track-proven skills translate into smart everyday riding more

	Road Safety Should Be Your Number One Priority This Summer Steadymate Travel Tips more

	Motorcycle Questions And Answers - MC Garage Ask The Pro more

	Motorcycle Touring - Preparation Get prepared to go adventure touring! more

	Lessons Learned: 20 Pro Motorcycle Roadracing Riding Tips A few things to think about at your next track day more

	Street Savvy: Passing Know when it's safe to pass and when it's not. more

	50 Ways to Save Your Life Pro Riding Secrets from the Motorcyclist Staff more

	Track Tips, Texas-Style 30-plus KSSS-approved things to do at your next track day more

	Street Savvy: Smooth Braking Training Tips Tim Carrithers offers some helpful tips on smooth braking. more

	Street Savvy: Riding in Wind Know thy enemy and you'll develop "wind guts" more

	Lean Angle: Play The Game Editor Mitch Boehm describes his defensive-riding game, "Worst-Case Scenario". more

	A Biker's Dozen 12 Simple but effective tweaks.....that'll improve your streetbike, right now more

	New Wave Brakes When most riders go hunting for speed, they pore over catalogs of engine parts like acolytes searching for illumination. Cams and pistons... more

	Street Savy: What a Drag Street motorcycles are not the most agile animals in the motoring forest. They're more nimble than our four-wheeled friends, for sure, but... more

	Street Savvy: Kind to be Cruel You've probably all been there at one time or another. You're riding along on a multilane surface street (two or three lanes moving in each... more

	Suspension Setup 101: Part II All About Damping "Today's sportbikes offer ... suspension componentry that's better than what frontline Superbikes had less than a decade ago. The downside... more

	Street Savvy: The Streetbike Spin Yanking your shiny new streetbike up onto its sidestand with both wheels in the air might seem dangerous and highly squidly. But as an aid... more

	Suspension Setup 101 Part I: Setting Sag Pity the motorcycling newcomer. On top of acquiring an acceptable machine, learning to ride it and dividing one's attention between... more

	Tire Futures Competition-tire development has driven street-tire development almost since the first time two riders decided to race for pink slips.... more

	Technique: Artful Dodging It's a painful rule of physics: Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Still, various bits and pieces of life's... more

	Street Savvy In situations where you're turning, braking and adding (or subtracting) throttle in quick succession or at the same time, such as riding in... more

	Chain Lube 101 It's a query almost as old as the Bard himself: When it comes to lubricating your chain, what is the right stuff? more

	15 Riding-In-Traffic Tips Close your eyes and recall your last ride in heavy traffic. Imagine the vehicles surrounding you, crowding you, cutting you off. Imagine... more

	Mc Garage: Tips, Tweaks, Fixes And Facts more

	Technique: Riding Downhill What goes up must come down, and that goes for roads and motorcycles, too. Lots of riders feel nervous or have trouble riding their... more

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Latest News

	Andretti and Hayden Swap Rides As certified velocity junkies, most of us would probably donate a kidney to dance with Nicky Hayden's AMA Superbike Champion Honda RC51, or bounce Michael Andretti's 900-horsepower, 245-mph Champ Car... more
	2002 Triumph TT600 Motorcycle Test The only non-Japanese entrant in the world 600-class sportbike sales derby would've had the most inauspicious start of any bike in memory were it not for the amazingly awful V-Due, which bankrupted... more
	2002 Ducati 998 How many trips have we made to the thesaurus over the years in the search for apt descriptors for Ducati's 851/996 family of L-twin desmo engines? Thousands: Lusty, sensual, throbbing, delicious,... more
	2002 Honda Interceptor Way back in 1998, we initiated a shitestorm of biblical proportions by decreeing the Honda Interceptor as the Motorcycle of the Year. Why the fuss? Because that year the Yamaha YZF-R1 debuted, also.... more
	How-to: Shock replacement Sooner or later, you'll want to remove your sportbike's stock shock--maybe to replace it with an often superior aftermarket item or to send it to a tuner for a rebuild and revalve job. Either way,... more
	2003 Aprilia Tuono R Motorcycle Preview We've ridden Aprilia's new Tuono R a lot these last few weeks, and let us say right here and now that we officially love it. It's wild, it's nasty, it's fun.... more
	The Apollo When Ducati's new 990cc desmosedici MotoGP racer competed for the first time at Suzuka this April in the hands of Troy Bayliss and Loris Capirossi, it represented the end of a 40-year odyssey for the... more
	2004 Victory Kingpin Like a busload of errant conventioneers pulling up at the Palomino Club, we absolutely love Vegas--the Victory Vegas V-twin cruiser, that is. We raved about the thing after our first ride last fall,... more
	Motorcyclist Message Boards Hey Surfers.... We've finally gotten with the program, and have just installed our very own Motorcyclist Message Boards on the site. (You'll see them about halfway down the menu at the left.) We... more
	Multistrada vs.The World! WE'VE SEEN THAT FACE BEFORE. You're looking at this curious red motorcycle like a dog that smells bacon but sees an empty frying pan. Don't worry. The Multistrada gets a lot of that. OK, so what is a... more

	Act Your Age There are three words I'm training my doctor not to use, but they still lead off most of his monologs on caffeine, porterhouse steak, dirt bikes and dragging one knee on the ground. "At your age..."... more
	Dust Never Sleeps There's always something else. Especially around this joint, where everyone wants everything yesterday. It's all singing, all dancing, all the time. Redline seems to be the requisite engine speed.... more
	Don't Ask, Don't Tell I rode a scooter home last night. Emphasis on night, as in dark, as in nobody saw me. You can't prove it. ... more
	INTERMOT HOTTIES The most beautiful young women this side of a Paris catwalk ... more
	BMW F 800 GS delayed due to sibling popularity Woodcliff Lake, NJ - January 24, 2008... Motorcycle enthusiasts eagerly awaiting the arrival of BMW's new F 800 GS will need to be a bit more patient, as production of the middleweight dual-purpose... more
	BMW Motorcycles: The Name equals Change. Part V So what about the numerous model codes that we have also become acquainted with over the years, such as R, RS, S, CS, C, CL, GS, RT, RS, GT and LT? ... more
	BMW Motorcycles: The Name equals Change. Part IV The decision of BMW to produce motorcycles with in-line engines saw the bikes in these model series receive a totally separate designation. ... more
	BMW Motorcycles: The Name equals Change. Part III BMW took the new instructions as the signal to introduce a new internal naming system. ... more
	BMW Motorcycles: The Name equals Change. Part II BMW acted to simplify the system in the mid-1920s. The references to the number of cylinders and model series were abandoned. Now the only entry in front of the project number was to denote an... more
	BMW Motorcycles: The Name equals Change. Part I Ever wondered how BMW motorcycles get their names? The history of the nomenclature for aero engines, motorcycles and cars is marked on the one hand by enduring lines, and on the other by surprising... more

	Motorcyclist Retro I heard this new magazine was coming out the end of April. Has anybody seen it yet? I was just down at Barnes & Noble and saw no signs of it.... more
	bad writing in Motorcyclist I have been subscribing to Motorcyclist for probably 10 years. I also get the AMA mag, Rider, & Cycle World. I initially liked the direction Catterson was going but now...I am seriously thinking of... more
	Andrew Trevitt Hi, Signed up today because I've been looking all over for information concerning any possible updates on the status of Andrew Trevitt. Please post any updates available or PM. Please also let me... more
	05 gsxr 600 electrical problems hey. i have a 2005 suzuki gsxr 600. i just rolled over 30,000 miles the other day and the gremlins came with it. i was riding down the highway the other night and my headlight cut out. i pulled... more