As riding season is upon us, many of us are getting ready by prepping our bikes. Among all of the basic items to attend to – new oil, fresh gas, and other details – we want to highlight four services that get overlooked.

Switching to Summer Air

The easiest things to correct are often the most overlooked. Switching to summer air in your tires provides you with quicker warm-up and improve tire life. Plus, it’s easy to do! Just let out the old winter air and pump in new summer air. Always check and monitor your tire pressure with a quality digital tire gauge.

This month's Featured Rider is John Fairrington, who is based in Southern Oregon. John runs a company called I Ride Rogue, which organizes backcountry excursion (BXR) events for dual sport riders.

Our customers often ask us about the difference between chain lubes and chain waxes. Both products perform the same function of reducing wear on your drivetrain, but the most important difference between the two is how and when you apply each.

It doesn’t matter how much power your bike has, how great the brakes are, or even how awesome the suspension is, if your tires can’t transmit those forces to the ground, it’s useless. We explain tire basics in two parts: selection and sizing.

This past April, one of our faithful XR650L customers made a solo adventure riding from Elko, Nevada all the way to Lake Havasu, Arizona. Paul's 750-mile journey consisted of 600+ miles of dirt tracks  and took him 4 days to complete.

One of the most common desires we see from our customers is to go further on a tank of gas. While many of you install a larger fuel tank on your bike, improving your MPG will also help extend your range.

There are a few simple maintenance items that can make a big difference in getting better MPG.

#1 is a clean air filter. A good, clean air filter will allow your engine to breathe more easily, improving its operating efficiency.

We wanted to improve our support for a long time favorite in the dual sport market,the Yamaha TW200, so we started a project bike! The TW200 is a motorcycle that first saw light back in 1987 and has undergone minimal changes through the years. You can still pick one up brand new at your local Yamaha dealership. We picked up our 2021 TW200 pre-loved from a ProCycle customer here in Oregon. We bought it in great shape, with the only modification being a different front tire. We will start from scratch and create a video series on building out the bike with different stages of modification.

Today, we look at the brake fluid in your bike. What types there are and which one is best for you.

The four most common grades of brake fluid are DOT 3, DOT 4, DOT 5, and DOT 5.1. Each grade is manufactured to a specific performance standard. DOT 3, 4, and 5.1 are glycol-ether based, and DOT 5 is silicone based. In general, the higher the number, the boiling point of the fluid (more on this later). Fresh and clean brake fluid will have a higher boiling point than old and dirty fluid.

Today, we look at the benefits of the over-size aluminum handlebars.

Most new motorcycles come standard with steel handlebars that are ⅞” in diameter. This has been used for decades, and all after-market products (accessory mounts, hand-guards, etc.) are made to fit this.

The steel bars have proven to be rugged and relatively low-cost to produce.

More recently, aluminum over-size bars that are 1⅛” in diameter began showing up in the aftermarket. At first, these were used for MX & off-road racing only, but these have big benefits all types of riders.

We want to extend a HUGE thank you for all of the amazing photos that were submitted for this years chance to be in the ProCycle Calendar.  You have all been to some amazing places and have beautiful motorcycles, we're so grateful you shared them with us.

This years voting for the top 3 favorites are in, and the winners are:

Dustin in 1st place taking home $100 in ProCycle Store Credit, with his Yamaha T7 at sunset on the Beaver Rim, section 4 of the WYBDR