Motorcycles on the beach

Salty sea air and motorcycles do not mix!    I was quite shocked at how quickly the rust appeared all over my spokes and my braided stainless cables the last time we were spent some time on the Gulf  coast.  Since I had bought the bike new it had never seen the inside of a garage and had been left out in the elements for 5 years and even ridden on salty roads in the winter with only a few small spots of rust appearing in that time.  5 days near the beach in Texas, however, and rust everywhere!!!  I swear the thing looked like it aged 15 years in 5 days.    I couldn’t even ride with my visor down on my helmet, it’d get a coating of salt over it in 10 miles that only smears trying to wipe off.

This time I came prepared, before we left I’d lightly coated every surface I could think of with a light coat of wax.  I’m not one of those clean freaks and have better things to do than sit and polish a bike for hours thats just going to get covered in dust 2 hours later whether I ride it or not so by waxing everything what I mean is rub a bit of hard carnauba wax into a cloth and rub everything chrome down with it and quickly wipe off,  15 mins max.

This is why!

One of the Dolphin Dock employees rode this Shadow.  It’s not very old and was in pretty good shape before he started riding it a year or two ago and leaving it yards from the docks every day.

Look at all the rust and aluminum corrosion that can happen in just a short time near the ocean. Wow!

If you lived near the ocean full time I’m not sure what one would do to stop this, maybe dunk your bike in a vat of WD-40 every week.

So if you are riding to the ocean from some place where rust does not exist like the desert South West be sure to take appropriate measures or your bike will turn to dust before you get home.  Seriously you’d be shocked at how fast it will start to rust, I’m talking hours.