Don't understand that... How can any relatively loosely woven fabric not be breathable? Surely it would have to be an impervious membrane like PVC to be non-breathable and actually cause condensation. These things are a lot like towels but not actually cotton. They are very lightweight and it takes 4 of them to cover the bike. They were described as throws I think and only about a fiver each.
I`m generalising as I have not seen the particular items you are using . Most fleece throws are polyester microfibre and are made with fairly tightly woven fibres and can even be waterproof. Yours may not be but to check try very gently trickling 2 or 3 drops of water on to the fleece and see if the water just sits there or is absorbed. If the fleece is reversible with a different finish to each side try the same thing on both sides. If the water just sits there then condensation forming on the bike will have no escape through the fabric. You can get microfibre towels which are made very differently and are extremely absorbent and should be fine on the bike. I use cotton towels, works nicely.
Just to endorse some of those later posts [re starting the bike], every mechanic I've ever asked has advised that starting and idling a bike over winter does far more harm than good.
Scuse lack of knowledge. Is it that essential to move belts over winter. I try and ride my bike occasionally in winter if the roads are not salty even if just for half hour or so. If not poss does / would wheeling the bike around in garage sort this (assuming I can move in when in (high) gear?) Cheers, Andrew.
No it is not necessary to move the belts over winter. If you were leaving it for a year then maybe so but they wont degrade or get deformed in a few months . Mine haven't anyway .
I always leave my bike on paddock stands with an old bed sheet over it, winter and summer alike. Over the winter I do turn the back wheel, when I remember, to move the belts. Probably doesn`t need doing but it`s a 2 second job so why not. If I had my way the bike would be in the house. My other half reckons it`s oily and smelly so, to keep domestic bliss, the bike stays in the garage. The battery does spend the winter on top of a cupboard in the kitchen though.
"bike would be in the house" Agree here mate - ask your other half to spend a couple of nights out in the garage in winter - see how she likes it
(Though as has been warned in other (security etc) threads, check your house insurance, which may well thus be invalidated.)
It's because a mechanic said so. I'm hoping someone will ask the question, "Why do mechanics think it's a bad idea?".
So does that mean you can't ride them in winter either?! The only thing I can sensibly think about is oil viscosity and its slightly harder to start due to the extra weight in the starter. But surly moving the oil around once warm is a good thing? I wouldn't rev it until its all warm but that's about it.
I believe it's the same principle as "long journeys are better than short journeys for the engine". You could argue that an engine has a limited number of cold starts in it before wear and tear means a major re-build (or junking it). It makes sense therefore to limit yourself in the number of times you start an engine. If you only go for long trips when you start the engine, you will get the maximum number of miles from it before the trouble starts. I'm guessing. Someone will come along and shoot me full of holes, and hopefully answer properly.
It is certainly a commonly accepted belief that starting from cold is when most of the wear to an engine occurs. I guess that the colder the start, the worse the wear, due to the viscosity of the oil because it takes that much longer before the oil gets warm enough, so thin enough to circulate properly through the engine. Maybe the answer is to prewarm the engine somehow in order to reduce the viscosity of the oil. In the sixties, you could buy pancake shaped paraffin heaters to put under the sumps of engines for just that purpose.
Maybe it's to do with the mapping but I'd like to investigate that. Ie the fuel to air graph. Dense air (cold) would give more for a given quality and would therefore require more fuel and run at higher rpm.
