should I still "winterize" my bike if it's in a garage and I start it say...twice a week?

If your gonna start AND ride it up to full operating temp once every two weeks I would say don't winterize.  If your not willing to do that I would fully winterize it and NOT run it until your ready to start riding again.  Just starting it and letting it idle for a while is not real good for the motor.  Most wear is during a "cold" startup and then you have to worry about the condensation and such and rusty cylinders/rings etc.

Winterizing is not real difficult anyway.

Add stabilizer and fill tank
Run engine 4 or 5 minutes to be sure carbs get stabilized fuel
Drain oil
While draining oil drain carb bowls using the little screws
Fill with fresh oil
When cool remove plugs and spray some WD-40 into each spark plug hole.  Just want a little coating to prevent rust.  Or you can buy some cylinder fogging spray and do the same if you want.
Reinstall plugs
Stuff an oily rag in the air cleaner intake and rubberband a ziplock bag or something around the exhaust outlet.
Put on center stand and put some wood scraps or somthing under exhaust  to get the weight off the front wheel...or you can just rotate the wheel every so often so not to get a flat spot.

Easily done in an hour or so...

good to know. gotta do this this week. today was really the last nice riding day in this 'hood until Spring '09.

QuoteRun engine 4 or 5 minutes to be sure carbs get stabilized fuel

SHOOT I just realized when I was winterizing my 07 CBR125 and 07 GS500F on the weekend....I left the petcock on Pri instead on On (on the bottom)....does this mean the carbs did not get stabilized fuel!??

I don't want to end up with dirty carbs etc, which will cause problems...........do they need to be cleaned at the beggining of the season with that $10 carb cleaner can? (which I really don't know hwo to use....anyone know how to clean carbs with those?)
thanks

Quote from: vorBH on November 17, 2008, 01:24:20 PM

QuoteRun engine 4 or 5 minutes to be sure carbs get stabilized fuel

SHOOT I just realized when I was winterizing my 07 CBR125 and 07 GS500F on the weekend....I left the petcock on Pri instead on On (on the bottom)....does this mean the carbs did not get stabilized fuel!??

PRI and ON take gas from the same tank - the stabilized fuel got to the carbs either way. You probably want to store the bike with the petcock set to ON because if the float valves leak, you will flood the engine with gas.

Quote from: vorBH on November 17, 2008, 01:30:09 PM
I don't want to end up with dirty carbs etc, which will cause problems...........do they need to be cleaned at the beggining of the season with that $10 carb cleaner can? (which I really don't know hwo to use....anyone know how to clean carbs with those?)
thanks

If you stored the bike properly, you should not need to clean the carbs in the spring.

Shouldn't you pull the battery out and put on a float charger/battery tender as well?

I think Lead acid Batteries don't like to be left for extended periods.

CliffHanger

Quote from: CliffHanger on November 17, 2008, 01:54:17 PM
Shouldn't you pull the battery out and put on a float charger/battery tender as well?

I think Lead acid Batteries don't like to be left for extended periods.

CliffHanger

yeah, pulled mine out. wiped it down. topped up the fluid levels in each cell. hook it up to a battery tender and wait for spring '09.

Ok thanks for the heads up
BUT I stored the bikes on Saturday, now it Tuesday 1am...so lets say 50 hours after leaving it on PRI and finally just tujing it to ON....should I run the engine b/c of flooding of the carbs? The fuel is stabilized...but 50 hours set to PRI, they will be flooded, no?

Quote from: vorBH on November 17, 2008, 10:59:52 PM
Ok thanks for the heads up
BUT I stored the bikes on Saturday, now it Tuesday 1am...so lets say 50 hours after leaving it on PRI and finally just tujing it to ON....should I run the engine b/c of flooding of the carbs? The fuel is stabilized...but 50 hours set to PRI, they will be flooded, no?

Not necessarily - the carbs would only have flooded if the float valves leaked. If that had happened, you'd know it because gas would likely have made it into the airbox and the bike would smell strongly of gasoline. You should be okay to leave the bike as-is.

thanks, everything is fine after checking...cant wait approx 133 days to go!