Lemmy's alternative tips for what to do when your bike won't start

It's all a bunch of theoretical flim-flam. See what color the sparks are? Use a special meter-gauge to see if the motor has depression? Yeah, let me get right on that, Henning. This guy can't be for real.

Look, he gave you bad advice. I'm gonna lay out the real steps you should be taking in this unfortunate event.

Own a piece of shit motorcycle

Or, more accurately, have at least one other piece of shit. This step is an incredible way to sidestep a starting issue, but it is prescriptive, not diagnostic.

Look, this is single-handedly the best preventative measure you can take against non-starting motorcycles ruining a ride. One motorcycle might not start. The odds of four not starting are a lot slimmer. Having a few hunks of junk allows you to do a few things:

• Talk about how you have less money wrapped up in seven old bikes than you would in simply one modern bike that functioned correctly, while failing to mention the massive amount of headache and labor they suckle from your body.
• Tell everyone how reliable your old bikes are since they're still running at times.
• Scoff at people who own one sensible bike because they value their time.
• Learn to be a mechanic from the comfort of your own garage.
• Ignore a very real mechanical problem one of your other unreliable motorcycles may have.

Having a bunch of crappy bikes to counteract a recalcitrant starter is so obvious it's not even mentioned in most service manuals under the Troubleshooting section. However, examine anyone who has a real turd bike. Odds are great he has multiples. Do you think that's a coincidence?

Swear

There's a chance you might be on the side of the road when your bike won't start, and in that case my advice to buy more bikes isn't pragmatic. Don’t distress — we're going to get through this. Henning may say this is the step where you need to check your spark-o-lators or your whirlytubes or whatever, but that's a bunch of bunk.

First thing you want to do is say some bad words. Now, the machine may just need one little curse that barely purses your lips, quieter than a mouse fart. Or it might require something a bit more complex and nuanced: a great big string of swear words, bellowed into the stand of trees by the side of whatever road your bike has chosen to quit traversing. I can't tell you that; it’s situational. But start there — and explore the space; it does help. I have yet to have a bike restart that I haven't sworn at. Due to this success rate, I swear at all of them immediately should they not start.

Unpack your tool roll

No, dummy, you’re not going to use them. You're going to slowly unpack that tool roll in the hopes that a rider who's better at roadside diagnosis will ride up before you're forced into figuring out why this bucket of bolts has decided not to burn gas. You'll look like you're getting after a repair, which is the part that counts. Protip: If someone else gets a picture, it can do wonders for your cred on social media channels.

Google. Frantically.

Now, if that rider doesn't actually show up, you might get pressed into service following Henning's advice. There's a little something called "the diagnostic process" and ol' Ari has no idea how to follow it. You don't go taking things apart and hooking up wire meters and yanking fuel lines like you know what you're doing. What you do is Google the year and model and problem and hope someone else had to deal with the issue and decided to serve you up the solution on a silver platter. Someone somewhere probably put together a compendium with photos and detailed steps documenting the problem. The goodness some folks have in their hearts, amirite?

If your phone service is good, you'll watch a YouTube video of a model that seems vaguely related to yours and shows a fix that's unbelievably easy to perform, but won't actually work on your bike.

Blame the timing

This step is critical if you have broken down with friends. You need them to know you and your machine are one. (If you followed my first step, they know all of your pieces of shit are basically an extension of you. You are the piece of shit. The piece of shit is you.) You want to look like a dialed-in mechanic and not some hacked-off chump who's too cheap to buy a bike that runs or pay someone knowledgeable to repair it.

What you need to do is blame the timing.

See, nobody really understands timing. And thank God, you don't have to, either! You need to look like you understand timing. Your buddies won't; I guarantee it. Here's an industry secret: Not even Big Motorcycle understands it. It's why they use all those made-up words and jargon in that part of the manual. "Top dead center?" Come on, you know they just made that up.

This stuff is intentionally confusing: They don't want you to know it's all smoke and mirrors. Dealers need to charge for something in the service department, and timing is the way to do it. It’s like collateralized debt obligations: You don't need to know and if you do you're just going to get burned. Don't be touching anything in there, just fiddle around for a bit and announce that the timing is a bit too advanced.

Call a friend with a truck

Get him coming, just in case. Bonus points for a trailer.

Try to pop-start it

Trying to push-start the motorcycle helps you burn some time until the guy with the truck gets there, and every now and again, pop-starting actually works. But usually not. The key is this looks like you're doing something, which feels good even if it's pointless.

By this point, you'll be sweaty, the guy with the truck rolls up, and he sees your tools everywhere, gear strewn about, and he realizes you've tried everything. You can tell him about the timing and then help him load up, and when he asks you where you want to go, you'll have a look of satisfaction on your face as you lock eyes and say, "Take this piece of shit to the shop, buddy!"

That’s what you do when your bike won't start.