New Or Used Dirt Bike Setup Tips BEFORE YOU RIDE

so you just got a new bike and it might even be ready to race but is it ready to ride I'm Kyle with dirt bike channel stick around we're going to talk about [Music] so over the course of the last several years I've bought a lot of dirt bikes and one thing that I've found out is that they're not all put together equally whether you've just got a brand new bike or you bought a used bike there are some things that you're going to want to stop and check and make sure things are torqued make sure things are greased make sure things are set up and make sure things are protected and it's going to take you some time just because it's a new bike doesn't mean it's ready to ride straight out of the box so I bought over the last eight years I've bought about thirty or so big bikes and probably ten or twelve of the little bikes so I'm talking about 42 or 40 or so 45 different bikes that I've purchased and I've noticed that we have to do some things to them before they're really ready to go out and ride so this list applies for brand new bikes and for used bikes and just because you bought a brand new bike does not mean that these things have been done properly so I'm gonna show you some of the setup things that I do on the bikes from everything from levers to skid place to protection and some of these things won't cost you a single dime because they're just set up you're just checking to make sure things are you know installed properly or or that we have the correct amount of free play in certain places and some of these things are you know some extra of protective parts that I put on the bikes but this is what happens when I get a brand new bike so when I get a brand new bike I'm like this is a lot of work this bike is gonna be yours though because I'm giving probably this bike away 20 20 300k teen 300 XC TPI I'm giving this way for somebody for Christmas so I'm gonna go through and show you some of the things that we've done to get this thing set up starting out with an easy one here just because it's a brand new bike does not mean that there's enough oil in that air filter every one of these bikes that I bought over the last several years does not have enough oil in the air filter take that thing out and apply more oil knead it up and you want to make sure you got tons of oil in that air filter because this is a bike that you want to have for a long time so let's actually oil our air filter we need to check where the clickers are for a suspension just because this new bike doesn't mean it was set up properly the guy who was doing your suspension at the factory that day might have just been having a bad in miscounted something or didn't even count so you'll have you there compression or rebound at the top and you might have compression or rebound on the bottom depending on your bike go through turn all those things in find out from the manual where they're supposed to be turn them all the way in and then back them out the appropriate number of clicks same thing goes with the shock on the back the high-speed compression and the low-speed compression make sure that those are adjusted properly and then the rebound adjustment down on the bottom very important let's get the proper amount of sag set for your weight if you're in the 150 to 190 pound range then the bike probably has a spring on it that will allow you to get enough sag but if you don't have if you're not in that weight range then you're gonna have to get a new at least a new spring back here and you might need new springs in the front forks as well to hold up your waist so set your sag let's get your lever set up so that they're not gonna get broken off you'll notice how far this lever is pushed in how far I've adjusted that in from the bar that way I don't break it off straightaway and then I will put teflon tape underneath my under a minute underneath my clutch and brake perch that allows them this to get tight enough so it won't fall off but loose enough to where it will it will move up and down so I can move that thing up and down that way my levers or adjustable so they'll come up and down if I take a digger and then it's adjusted in so it's not going to be the first thing that hits the ground so adjust your levers you want to adjust your head bearing tension that that is right here so you don't want your bars to be able to just you don't want them to be super loose but you don't also want them to be super tight I kind of like this if you got the wheel suspended I kind of like it so that it'll hold its own for for most of the travel here but then if I bump it like this whoops I got my footing away by bump it like that it will fall over just very so gently to to one side or the other if the bar is mostly over if this is too light a too light or too too tight or too loose or too tight then you'll loosen loosen your triple clamps up here these to loosen the pinch bolt down here on a KTM and then you'll be able to put more tension on this pinch the the head bearing boat up here to get correct amount attention on these handlebars these ones these ones are just about perfect how I like them and check that after you've ridden it a little bit because it may loosen up so you want to get the correct amount of tension here on your head bearing it's a new bike but we're gonna check our chain tension so figure out where you need to measure which is probably gonna be right here and figure out how many inches or how many millimeters of chain tension you want and check it in multiple places because the chain might be slightly different through throughout and then after you've ridden it for five or ten hours check that thing again and make sure you're still within spec you've got a torque your spokes so get yourself a spoke torque wrench and then go through and torque these things anywhere from 45 to 50 inch pounds go through and check every single one of these spokes because you will have spokes that are completely loose I haven't had a more they're falling out of the bike but every time I get a new bike I've got multiple spokes that are way way looser than they should be so get yourself a torque wrench and go through and check all of your spokes let's go through and torque some bolts that bolts that I specifically want to torque are gonna be right here on the triple clamps and right here on the triple clamps in fact these ones have even printed 17 Newton meters up here and twelve Newton meters down here so you're gonna want to torque wrench to do this to make your suspension work properly there are other places on the bike that you should probably be torquing as well but you can just kind of go through and check them to make sure things are not loose but here you definitely want to torque these down with a decent torque wrench to make it work properly I call this one running in the brakes your brakes will not work properly until you run them up and down the street and get them hot so I'm talking front brake and rear brake there is residue on on your count on your brake disc and there are there's some residue on the brake pads themselves that needs to be burned off before these things will actually start grabbing and start working so before you take this out on the trail and go pinned in sixth gear just take it up and down the road or up and down the trail and just drag the brakes get them hot and wear them in this will take you about two minutes hopefully and that way your brakes will have full stopping power because they do not stop you when they're brand new you got to running in for just a little bit you can do that by dragging the brakes and just driving up and down and getting him heated up we want to see if our front tire has been installed in such a way that it puts it puts our forks on a bind so this fork is basically supposed to be in perfect alignment over here and these pinch bolts on the axle on this side might have that kind of bound up so what you can do is loosen the pinch bolts on this side get the bike up get weight up off the bike on a stand loosen these pinch bolts and make sure that this side over here can free float on that acts a little bit and get it install properly you can loosen these up and then and then take the bike and just put take it off the stand and push it forward you know a few feet and then cramp down on the brake that will probably free this up and then you can tighten you can tighten these down to make sure it's not bound up because you do not want these Forks to be low - either too compressed in or too far out you want that to be in perfect alignment so check that lets check the position of the bars on some bikes you'll have multiple holes here in the triple clamps so you can move the bars either there forward or back you know closer to you or further away if you're a taller rider like me you usually want to move that further away from yourself if you're shorter you can sometimes move it back so on this particular bike you can just take your take these top bolts off and then there's a Torx bolt down here where you can just kind of flip the mount around and that will move the move the bars a little bit forward so check to see if your bars or move forward or back and adjust them accordingly for your riding style and then also the rotation of the bar so you'll loosen these pinch bolts here and you can rotate the bars forward or back for your liking I like the bars to be in a neutral position as far as forward and back but I like to move them forward you may be different based on your riding style but that's what I want to do and you want to check that this bike has a steering stop bolt this bolt is in there so you can adjust that in or out I remove those if you're gonna do hard enduro type stuff you might want a little bit you want might want your handlebars to turn a little bit more so I've been taking these bolts out some of you might not have this option but if you do have the option I'm taking these bolts out and some guys are like well that's meant to keep you from swapping out if you're if your bar is already if your handlebar is already over to the stop with the boat in you're going down anyway regardless of whether you have these in so I take those out so I can turn my handlebars a little bit more helps me on switchbacks and some of those tighter areas I know what you're thinking guys you're thinking that's a lot well those are just the things that I do to set up the bikes that don't cost any money here are some of the things that you may want to look into that are going to have some cost first and foremost a skid plate your bike might have come with the skid plate but if it didn't go out there and purchase one because you should not do any of this type of riding without a skid plate if you're just a motocross racer maybe you can get away with it but if you're riding off-road got to have a skid plate on the bike another thing that I do to all my bikes at least almost all my bikes is I put tubeless on them because I'm such a huge proponent of tubeless but if you if you're not a tubeless guy maybe you're gonna need to go put moose bibs in the bike or maybe you're gonna put heavy-duty tubes in there so you don't easily get flats not something to think about I don't love the tires that mote that come on these bikes most of the time like the eight Dunlop 88 e ones it's an okay tire but it's not a great tire for what I'm doing so I'll go through and I'll put a new front and rear tire on the bike at the same time I'm installing tubeless a tire that I'm more comfortable with because when it's a brand new bike I want it to perform to its utmost potential and I know that if I put a different tire front and rear I can get it to perform a little better and then I go back and I use those eighty eighty ones later on after the new bike shine has worn off so I'm not just wasting and throwing the tires away but I'm putting a brand new set of tires on as I'm doing either you know some moose that you want or or tubeless that you want something like that so tires or tubeless or moose maybe something that you want to install on the bike straight away rear disc guard I can't get away with riding a dirt bike like this in the Rocky Mountains without putting a rear disc guard on the bike I will bend the brake rotor like that I've shown I've proven it multiple times so I'll put a rear disc guard on the bike at the very minimum and and you might want to run a front some sort of a disc guard on the front to protect that I've also started running the fork chute so what chair B's makes these things are about 21 bucks or something that they install on the bottom of the forks and they keep the force from getting beat to crap if you're pushing it through rocks and technical things like we are a lot of the time keeps you from rounding off your axle nuts on the front as well so for shoes are nice I've been putting on an extended rear brake tip it just sticks out just just a little bit more maybe about a half inch more than the stock and yes it can get bent more easily but I like being able to just get that a little bit easier with my toe get you know reach my brake lever so I've been putting those on bar ends soccer makes these grip arm or bar ends and I've been putting these on here they save my grips a lot of guys will run full wrap hand guards and if that's you that's totally cool I've been running the stock guards until I break them off which these have been these ones have been actually flimsy enough or flexible enough that they haven't been breaking them but I'll put these grip arm or bar ends on there to save my to save my grips on some of the KTM two-strokes I'll be adjusting the auxilary power valve spring over on this side down here but you don't have to do that on all the bikes just everyone's a little bit different so you may have to adjust that I've been putting a grab handle on here so the these actually these handles on these KTM these 2020 bikes and the 2019 bikes this is just a fly racing strap for a KTM 50 so that's what I've been putting on here and it just gives me some place to grab and then you might want to put some sort of a grab handle up on the front up on you're up on your force or your offender if you're doing the hard enduro stuff that's pretty much it so as you can see when I get a new bio another thing is you just want to check levels you want to check fluid levels up here like check your coolant level make sure that you've got enough oil in the bike all these things you just kind of want to double check everything go through all of it and make sure that you've got everything you need if you've if you need to put a for service of proof spark a restaurant because I didn't even talk about that you may need to you you do need to do do that if you're gonna be doing desert races or anything like that you got to put a spark arrestor on the bike or if you're gonna be riding in the national forest you should put a spark arrestor on the bike and make the government happy that way so there's a lot of things that you're doing on whether your bike is brand new or it's just new to you there's a lot of things that you need to go through and make sure it's seaworthy because you might be 50 miles from nowhere which a lot of times we are and you want to make sure the bike is in top-notch condition so oils fluids things are grease things are tight things are torque things are checked this is your lifeline out there so you want to make sure that this thing is good to go so spend some hours before you go go out there in the backcountry spend some hours on this bike going through every little detail and making sure it's all good to go if you like these videos please remember to support me by using the links down in the description if I have earned your subscription go ahead and subscribe and click that bell the ringing Bell icon to make sure you're notified when I put out videos this is how I'm supporting my family now so use the links down in the description if I added value to your life go ahead and support me on patreon and keep in mind that this bike and more than likely it's a bike that I will be giving away to someone for Christmas I'm going to give away two dirt bikes for Christmas in 2019 that's the year we're in it this is a 2020 bike I'll be giving that away and also a 2019 bike so stay tuned in October November timeframe for more details on that ok I have talked way too much and you've watched way too long you better get out there and ride or get out there and do some of these things to your bike take care guys

Channel: Dirt Bike Channel

Views: 1,071,913

Keywords: enduro, motocross, dirtbike, ktm 2016, ktm motorcycles, shootout, ktm, range, erzberg, graham jarvis, johnny walker, best dirtbike, 125, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, 525, exc, sx, how to, 2 stroke, 4 stroke, video, review, husqvarna

Id: cHfYEDy9PrA

Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 14 2019