Riding in the Heat
Aug 4th, 2009 by Leo
Just a reminder for those of you who ride hotter-running liquid cooled bikes… Not only do you want to stay cool, but you want to make sure the cooling system on your bike has what it needs: Liquid tends to evaporate from hot running systems so you want to check that before your next long ride. Just a few minutes of city riding can bring your engine to its max operating temperature so you want to check this frequently… On sport bikes this usually means removing some plastic making this simple task a 20 minute job – but it’s worth it if it saves you from frying your engine…
Water actually cools better than anti-freeze, so if you’re planning to drain the fluids and put the bike in storage before winter you can top it off with distilled water from the supermarket, or Rite Aid and Duane Reade (but you already knew that). Anyone have any tips for keeping cool on hot running bikes? Cheers!
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Hi,
City bikers out there I have a liquid cooled bike, but I do not know what type of anti-freeze should I use. I will appreciate if I get any pointers.
Thanks,
Keeping on Riding
I use whatever brand of antifreeze I find at the local auto shop. They’re all pretty much the same from what I can tell. The only difference is some brands are ‘concentrate’ and need to be mixed 50/50 with distilled water (those are the better buy); but these days most of the bottles you’ll find around gas stations are pre-mixed – you can just pour it straight in (it should say on the directions).
Draining and flushing the anti-freeze is also not hard once you find the coolant drain plug (easier than changing oil, and it’s okay if you spill some on the ground). Doing that every year or couple of years is probably a good idea…
Anyone know if there’s a “premium” brand of anti-freeze?
Many of the people who have the Italian brands of machines that tend to overheat in the city traffic (MV Agusta & Ducati to be specific) use Engine Ice and have had significant improvements. Search mvagusta.net for many rider reports about this product.