Starting a Cold Bike

This is a simple procedure that everyone does, but I’m going to shed some light on the method I prefer in starting a Victory the way I do.

This applies to all Victory’s. Throughout the course of a year while I was on the road traveling I would tune between 300-450 Victory’s a year, add in the shop work and that would add another 100 to the total. So it’s a fairly simple procedure, you hit the button and wait for it to come to life. With starting so many different bikes they do have their own characteristics but they all respond well to this procedure. Before hitting the button I roll the throttle slightly (about an 1/8 rotation) than I hit the button, once to life I like to hold the rpm’s between 1500-1800 Rpm’s for approx 30-40 seconds if the bike is really cold (50 degrees and below) and 15-30 seconds if above those temps.

Here’s some benefits of starting a bike the way I like too. When a bike is cold, so is everything else. Oil is super thick and the oil pump is loaded heavy trying to push the oil through small clearances to lubricate your motor internals. When the motor first fires up, it is straining just to maintain an idle, and the computer is throwing a lot of fuel (choke Mode) to the injectors to aide in the ease of running cold. This also wants to make things lumber and run slightly slower in engine speed. By using an 1/8 throttle rotation we help the engine overcome these conditions and supply oil to critical parts quicker. We all know that a warm motor starts easier than a cold one as there is less drag and frictional losses to keep it running with less effort. Yes, the bikes are fuel injected, and some people assume there might be damage or that its just not correct to use throttle while starting a fuel injected bike. B.S. – that’s not the case, not in these years but maybe the future of fuel injection may lead to different results as fly by wire becomes more common and wide band monitoring enters the motorcycle world.

Give it a shot, your motor just might thank you.