I’ve been a part of car and motorcycle clubs my entire adult life. I remember growing up as a kid riding jet skis out on the lake. Whenever anything came up, I gave it the best my 15-year-old self could. I knew flooding engines was bad. Batteries always went out on the other side of the lake when you least expected it. Mix the gas with oil. And finally, engines always like to be run – hard. Carbureted engines on the water in those days weren’t exactly the pinnacle of reliability. Eventually, we’d see Dyno Dave as he was the one on the water everyone knew for small engine repair and service.

I transitioned into motorcycles and wanted to learn more. Dealership maintenance is prohibitively expensive for the long-distance rider. The way I learned the trade is by making friends with true car and motorcycle people – often through various clubs. With the Vulcan, I quickly learned that carbureted engines were not for me anymore. I’m a software guy and fuel injection makes way more sense to me. The V-Strom was way easier to work on as there was a much larger body of people that rode sporty Japanese motorcycles that share a huge overlap in DNA.

By the time the GS rolled into my garage, YouTube was already popular. Anything you needed to learn was available in a video somewhere. You just had to find three other videos that said the same thing. There are definitely great YouTube videos but sometimes people are just dead wrong. Being published doesn’t mean you’re safe, right, or accurate. That’s why I try to find the same answer a few different times on YouTube.

This summer I quickly ran up the odometer with La Costa Perdida, Range of Light, Rydthr, and Pashnit and it was time for the minor maintenance. The GS requires maintenance every 6000 miles. 6000, 18,000, and 30,000 are the easy maintenance intervals – it’s just an oil change. The other interval at 12,000, 24,000, and 36,000 requires changing the oil, servicing the final drive, and inspecting the valve clearances. It is significantly more work and technical expertise required. Tangentially, one has to flush the brake fluid every two years.

So here my bike was sitting at 30,000 miles needing the easy maintenance interval. I saw a tech day come across the Central California BMW Club’s calendar and instantly thought, “I’m going to that!” Working on bikes is always more fun with others. It is even better if there are more experienced mechanics in the mix. Today’s crowd was full of BMW mechanics that have done all sorts of things to their bikes. Two of us had our bikes in the garage: the club vice president and I. The VP was swapping his cable actuated clutch to a fully hydraulic clutch. Me? Changing the oil, filter, and bleeding the brakes.

I’m not going to go all Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – but I will say there is a discipline that comes from maintaining your own bike and a confidence that then results from learning the practice. Plus, when riding or driving – there is very little social interaction as we are all confined to our helmets. Working on bikes there’s conversation throughout the garage and spilling into the driveway.

I think the practice of having tech days is so important. I’m pushing the practice to be integrated into the fabric of the new Rivian club of which I am on the board. As people start to customize their trucks, they learn new skills. As the trucks age, even simple services are needed. These include wipers, cabin air filter, and tires. These skills can develop and spread throughout the owner community. The good news is, the board agreed and our first Bay Area tech day is in December!

So how did this tech day go? The weather cooperated with a strong island of sun amongst 10 days of rain. We had the barbecue fired up cooking up club-provided bratwursts amongst all of the different riders and their bikes.

I definitely had fun. I think I also saved about 500 bucks by doing the 30,000 mile service and both brake services. This time we even hooked up the GS 911 to open up the ABS Servos to flush the fluid inside of them as well! The reality is, I think taking the bike to the dealer, dropping it off, waiting for the work to be done, going back to the dealer to pick it up, and riding home wasn’t necessarily any more time efficient either. As the major service interval – it is way more time efficient. But today, I’ll take that 500 bucks and put it into a new pair of tires somewhere down the line!

Hopefully, there is another maintenance day in the spring (and I put another 6000 miles on the bike)!