Do you warm your bike up before heading off?

[fergie]

I always start my bike while im getting ready, it raises the excitement levels, sounds bloody awesome,fills the shed with fumes,and pisses off the missus! yeehaa!

[Deano]

Maybe tommorrow morning you could try a 10,000rpm take off from cold and see what happens...

I know someone who did rev their bike hard when it was cold - the motor developed a nasty knocking sound.

[dipshit]

Easy, load is the difference. Loading it is what makes it wear....
Even riding carefully you put load on it...OK?

Some load is good though. Why? Because bike excessively idling with chock on/rich mix, no load on the rings, allows petrol to contaminate the oil. Benzene is good at breaking down your engine oil... particularly mineral based oils. Idling also results in lower oil pressure, so less oil getting to the top-end.

Quite a few late 80's bikes could suffer from pitted and scored cams if excessively idled to warmup. Low oil pressure while idling and the oil getting broken down by fuel contamination.

15 seconds of fast idle and then gently ridden until fully warmed up to normal operating temperature is all that is really needed.

[PrincessBandit]

Let it warm up till its off choke...

What's a choke? Only kidding!!!

Kick it in the guts....
Helmet on ,tuck my shirt in ,close the garage,feed the cat,kick the dog,put my boots on,find some socks,breakfast an by then its sitting round 50-60 deg an off to work...

And you do this every morning? In that order?

Fuel injection helps of course...

Absolutely!

Used to let the ginny warm up for a decent few minutes otherwise she'd throw a hissy and conk out before I got up the street. The bandit i must admit to basically only starting once im sitting on it, so only probably gets 20 seconds or so before i move. Ever since the GN jiggled off it's side stand by my letter box (in my very early days of riding) while clearing the mail I've had an aversion to leaving a bike idling while I'm not on it.

[Deano]

Because bike excessively idling with chock on/rich mix, no load on the rings, allows petrol to contaminate the oil.

Excessive idling is silly. Why would anyone do that ?

I let mine idle until the temp guage kicks in at 35 degrees, (about when the choke cuts out) then ride it nicely until it hits normal operating temp.

[Mikkel]

When the 250 starts on full choke it goes to ~5,000 RPM after 10 secs. I gradually take the choke off until it's idling 'smoothly' with the choke completely off. Then I go in and put my jacket and helmet on. Grab my backpack and my gloves. Set the alarm and lock the door. Put on my backpack and my gloves and then I ride off.

As to the why - I think that has been covered.

[CookMySock]

My bike pulls about 2000rpm in 4th at 50kph. The choke will take it to 2500. Whats the difference?

There aint bugger all difference. Once the engine has oil around the load-bearing parts (2-3 seconds) it can be partially loaded, which will warm it up quicker.

Two strokes I would say are a completely different kettle of fish. I would suggest they are best not warmed up whatsoever. Start 'em and go! Ride it in a reasonable fashion until it is warm though.

I ride with guys who start their bikes up, hit the road and progressively ride their chokes out. All good. Whatever cooks your mince.

And this summarises it nicely. It makes little or no difference as far as the bike is concerned, provided its not caned. The most important part is how the rider feels. If it feels good baby, do it!

DB

[dipshit]

Excessive idling is silly. Why would anyone do that ?

Did you read this thread..???

[imdying]

Only the 2 strokes... 4 strokes I could care less about.

[young1]

I also push the bike out of the garage, start it up and then alarm the house and close the garage, normally while putting my helmet on. I then sit on the bike and do the gloves before riding off slowly down my residential street.

[Blossom]

Ok so I am one of the yes I do but I dont know why. My brothers always told me too, husband always does and it says to in the instruction manual and whilst I am normally the first person to fight authority, well I love my bike and if it loves me back just a wee bit longer cause I warm her up first then bring on the conformity....

[portokiwi]

I allways let my bike warm up....... Just like a lady warm her up treat her gently, Thats just a good cover that I am slow first thing in the morning.
Nothing better then a dawn breaker

[HornetBoy]

I let my bike warm up for about 5-10 mins (its a oil boiler remember ) and once the idle revs settle i get going and take it easy up to 100kph and let it sit at that for a bit ...then were off

I certainly notice the differece when i ride the bike without warming up -have to pull alot more throttle to get it going and feels incredibly slow and un responsive.

[_Shrek_]

start her up put helmit & groves on gently till operating temp then....

[Brett]

With either cars or bikes that I have owned, I always let them warm up before putting them under any significant load. The bike, I normally wheel out of garage and start, head inside and put on helmet and gloves and by the time I am back outside, it is sitting at around 35 degrees. I then ride it like a nana untill temp gets to between 65 and 70 degrees. On cold days, during open road riding, it may not actually get any warmer than 68 or 69 degrees, and on a hot summer day, it will often run at about 82 degrees. With cars, I take the attitude that I will drive it from cold, but only low revs and low load untill the engine has warmed.

Interesting story, when I was a teenager, my weekend and after school job was working in a panel beaters. We had a couple of Toyota Starlets as courtesy cars. I worked there for 4 years and for almost every day of those years, they were started cold and them minute they hit the road, they were thrashed. They had nearly 300,000kms on them by the time I left and were still running mint.