Warm up first?

[Kalessin]

The SV manual says

Allow enough idling time after warm or cold engine start up before revving the engine or placing the transmission in gear. This allows time for the lubricating oil to reach all critical engine components.

but Sid Squid says

Don't leave your bike to warm up - start it, ride it. Warming up is all deficit, no benefit.

When I bought my bike, Midlands Superbikes said

Let the temperature gauge reach 50° before you ride off.

I tried to find a happy medium. I tend to let the bike warm up to 20° and ride away, but avoid hard acceleration until 50°.

What do you think is best?

your thinking too much i just start put my gloves and helmet on then sod off i guess the way suzuki say would be the one to trust.

[Lissa]

Warm it up a bit. Start it, then put helmet and gloves on. Zip up any fleece pockets that may contain wallets

Then ride it gently until it hits about 50/60 IMO. Gives you a chance to warm the tyres up then too.

[fizzwheel]

Originally Posted by Kalessin

I tried to find a happy medium. I tend to let the bike warm up to 20° and ride away, but avoid hard acceleration until 50°.

What do you think is best?

what you're doing is reasonable, I tend to do as Lissa says, Start bike, put on gloves and Lid, then ride away and dont cane it till its nice and warm.

[ogden]

I always let my bikes warm up before riding but a lot of that is down to what I ride. I tend to be the same with my car, but that's mostly because of the turbo.

With the thou, I start it in the garage, then unlock it and wheel it out, kit up and by then the temp gauge is already around 60 degrees (even at this time of year) so it's ready to ride.

With the RGV, I spend about 20 minutes getting the damn thing to start and then about as long again waiting for the temp gauge to even hint at moving. But that's special so I don't mind. The alternative is an engine rebuild.

A modern 4-stroke bike engine takes, what, five minutes of idling to get up to 50 degrees or so? By the end of the road it'll be at 60 and then you're into operating temperature. I know time is money but c'mon.

[embee]

You really don't do it any favours by leaving it idling for prolonged periods from a cold start, it's contaminating the oil film on the cylinder bores with fuel and condensation, which reduces the service life of the oil and increases wear rates on the rings and bores. Also idle is about the worst condition for valve train wear.

Start it, let it settle for a short time for the afterstart enrichment to ramp down or just long enough to get the choke off, typically no more than 30sec is needed, then ride off gently.

As said, gradually ease the revs and load up while it warms up fully before using high power/revs.

Wow, 50 degrees! That must take a while - I always leave mine ticking over till the temp gauge starts to register which is usually 20 degrees, then I'll ride off, this is what the dealler suggested.
50 degrees does seem like a long time tbh - as long as the oil has had a few minutes to circulate then it should be fine as long as you don't overload the engine until it's decently warm.

Ogden, what's the issue with your RGV? I always used to start mine and leave it ticking over for a few minutes then gently start to increase the revs until the engine started to warm - leaving a stroker to idle for too long without revving it can cause coking up which wont do the exhaust valves any good in an RGV...

Just my 2p

D

[ogden]

Originally Posted by daveb

Ogden, what's the issue with your RGV? I always used to start mine and leave it ticking over for a few minutes then gently start to increase the revs until the engine started to warm - leaving a stroker to idle for too long without revving it can cause coking up which wont do the exhaust valves any good in an RGV...

Damn thing won't start without a squirt of Easy Start. I suspect a choke problem but investigation so far has turned nothing up. Once it's warm it's an absolute peach, 55 at the wheel.

A 250 stroker doesn't generate a lot of heat at the best of times (luxury for commuting to work through London in the summer, mind) so it's not going to warm up quickly and you know how badly strokers react to being revved before they're warm enough, that throaty stuttering.

I take a sanguine view to warming up - it takes ages, but I manually take the revs up to 3k or so to help it along. There's revving and there's revving, but if the choke was doing its job that's where it'd be anyway so it suits me. It was at Dave Cooper's a couple of years ago, if I can find a cheap set of Arrows I may throw it his way again to sort out the fuelling and the starting but until then I'll make do.

[ogden]

Oh, PS, the 20 minutes getting it to start it something of an exaggeration. After all this time I've got the whole seat-off tank-off squirt-in-the-airbox thing down to under 5 minutes but in full winter kit it feels like more than 20. Grumble grumble grumble.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by embee

You really don't do it any favours by leaving it idling for prolonged periods from a cold start, it's contaminating the oil film on the cylinder bores with fuel and condensation, which reduces the service life of the oil and increases wear rates on the rings and bores. Also idle is about the worst condition for valve train wear.

Start it, let it settle for a short time for the afterstart enrichment to ramp down or just long enough to get the choke off, typically no more than 30sec is needed, then ride off gently.

As said, gradually ease the revs and load up while it warms up fully before using high power/revs.

Thanks
I get fully ready before starting, then pull away once settled in 5 secs then switch off choke as soon as I'm riding.
Try not to use many revs until it's warm is the only concession I make