For the Fourth of July, the wife and I took a nice ride across Florida to spend some much needed down-time with family. If you haven't taken a ride from the east coast of Florida over to the Gulf coast yet...I highly recommend it! It's an easy 3-4 hour trip with nice scenic views and (the best part) hardly any traffic lights! 

On the way back, we stopped like we usually do, to fuel up and rest for a minute. More times than I can count, we meet fellow bikers out and about on our journeys. This is one of the many great perks that comes with the love of Motorcycles and riding. On this particular journey - we met Sunny. An old school biker straight out of North Carolina. Sunny was heading out on his own adventure to the Florida Keys, when he happened across us at the gas station. At first, he was just looking for tips on a more scenic route.

We told him about the beauty of riding along the A1A coastline and how much we enjoy the ride. Since we were heading in that direction anyway - we invited him to ride along and off we went! Before pulling out of the gas station, he asked us if we knew of a motorcycle repair shop in the area - apparently he was having some minor issues and wanted to take care of them before heading further south.

Well, YEAH - Yankee Dave's Motorsports of course! 

Here at Yankee Dave's, we go out of our way to insure customer satisfaction and quality service. We are bike lovers ourselves and treat your bike as good, if not better than our own while it is in our care!

Don't just take our word for it - you can see it for yourself on these smiling faces of our past and present customers!

With this holiday weekend approaching quickly, and every one thinking and daydreaming about beer, bbqs, and partying with friends and family.

Be safe this weekend as you ride from place to place. I'm sure you've heard it a million times by now, and I'm also sure the road texters will be out in full force.keep a watchful eye open so you all can enjoy the festivities safely.

But lets not forget about the reasons behind this holiday. All those brave men and women who have given their all so we can continue to enjoy the freedoms that we all have. We here at Yankee Dave's are proud of and salute our veterans, ALL OF THEM, and wish to thank them for their service!! Have a great weekend folks, and keep the shiny side up!

With another rainy week ahead we have been working at the shop and at the house trying to clear up some of those projects that have been kicked to the curb for too long, in theory this should open up some time for much needed wind therepy in the near future. I have also been checking our scoots over and making any needed adjustments or repairs that are due in prep for some clear sailing weather. We had a plan of riding up to myrtle beach bike week for the past weekend in order to catch up with some good friends, however we've put that off until early october so that we would'nt drown while heading up and back. So a few jobs got finished instead, and a better plan has been hatched for our fall run up the coast. Until then we will just have to plan some summer runs here....maybe the keys. hmmm

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Hey there! We hope you are having a wonderful springtime! To our Northern friends - hopefully it won't be much longer before you are back on your bikes and enjoying the beautiful landscape that us "flatlanders" don't get to see as much!

Well, sort of...Well, not really actually! 
Wipe your tears (and the winter riding blues) and let Yankee Dave tell you a story of a fellow rider who's winter lasted wayyyy to long!

I scheduled a time to come look at it, plugged his address into my GPS and headed out right away. I pulled up next to a pretty good looking Ninja that was parked next to what seemed to be another bike, covered with a brown tarp...I'm thinking to myself, he said he had a ZX600 and the bike I'm looking at here is a 250.
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So I begin to peek under the tarp and as I'm snooping (yep - ZX600 in there!) Dan comes out and we pull the tarp all the way off - it was the great unveiling! I'm not gonna lie here - the bike was in dire need of more than just a carb rebuild and as Dan is telling me his story....from 3 years ago to now. His not willing to give up on it and his determination to get her back on the road...After hauling it 1500 miles, from yankee-ville (just made that up...it means new England!) to his new home in FL, I decided to help him bring his dream to fruition and made arrangements to come back with a trailer and get started!

(Below are some before pictures from Dan - to help you get a better understanding of my starting point)

As I said before, this bike needed wayyy more than just a carb rebuild. So I got the bike to the shop and put her up on the lift to get a closer look...21 point inspection time!

What I discovered was:

• The bike had been put together (by someone other than Dan btw), with a mish mash of odd parts - coming from various different models.
• The Carbs did in fact require rebuilding of....
• Many critical parts were also missing.
• There were some wiring problems (no directionals/tail light)
• The brake fluid looked more like mud than brake fluid. 
• It needed a new chain and sprockets.

But the bare bones were there and

It took some time to completely get through the bike and we did quite a bit of "on the fly" repairs, dealing with each challenge as it presented itself.

As we head out on the road, wether it is a short hop , or a long day trip being prepared for what mother nature has in store for you can be vital to your health and saftey. For instance what happened to my wife and i last weekend.. Hmmm. Let me reflect on a few of the details, well, it starteout os a beautiful sunny day with a few puffy clouds in the sky. After finishing some morning chores and picking up some much neede supplies for the shop we decided to hop on our bikes and take a short jaunt to the local watering hole for lunch. Well the ride out was great!! Just what we needed to get our heads functioning properly, and lunch hit the spot nicely.but once we left mother nature unleashed her wrath upon us!! And being ill prepared for the deluge of rain that followed, and nowhere to hide we wede forced to ride thru it till we could find safe harbor. Now if we only had some assemblance of rain gear, some gloves, and some other essentials it might not have been as uncomfortable. I think we will be keeping extra gear in the bags for the next time.

If you've been to the shop, you've most likely seen this face hanging around! Michelle is the techie geek, always working behind the scenes to make sure that the Yankee (Dave) can spend as much time doing what he loves - and for those unsure of what exactly that is.....it's Working on Bikes of course!

Michelle is the Gal to talk to! whether you're wanting to schedule an appointment, pay your bill or in search of that special part online. 

When not in the shop - you'll most likely find her riding alongside Yankee Dave on her cute little Pink bike!

We all know we should check our rides before we head out with the crew saturday morning, but how about after the ride is over... Doing so will buy you some time to find and order the needed parts or materials ahead of time so nobody is disappointed come time for the next cruise. Check you brakes for wear limits, top off the fluids, look over the wheels and tires,check out the lights, check for loose bolts.look for that irritating "rattle" you heard on the last ride. It's better to find it now than be stuck on the side of the road waiting to get hauled home. Most of the minor problems can easily be fixed at home. Checking things out before hand will help prevent the last minute rush, or trip cancellations that can be caused by last minute repairs. DONT BE THAT GUY!! LOOK IT OVER AHEAD OF TIME!

These ABS systems have small diameter ports and seals that can be clogged or deteriorate easily cause failure due to contaminates in the fluid. These ports & seals are internal, making it impossible to see any clogs or deterioration before it's too late.

The types of failures that you can expect to encounter by overlooking this routine service, include Seizures (Brake hand control feeling hard, or seized up) and Flow By (Deterioration of the rubber components) 

I've unfortunately seen this first hand with a customer recently. He called on me to check on his brakes because his hand control felt locked up on the first pump, but after the second pump - it worked. I changed his brake fluid, but it was too late and within a couple of days, he had lost all use of brakes and ended up needing to replace the ABS module...A costly replacement for sure! Fortunately for him though, he did not have an accident.