Bike Maintainence Course
 

Hello,

I'm planning an Africa trip next year and I am keen to have some bike maintainence training in preparation. I'm also moving to London (North East) later this week so I was wondering does anyone know of any courses offered/recommended? I enquired at some local colleges in Lancaster a while back for anything, but to no avail. I will be working Mon-Fri 9-5 so I would be looking to do this at evenings or weekends.

Any suggestions would be welcome.

Cheers,

Chris

Merton college
 

Chris,

I can definitely recommend Merton college (south London). They have various courses on motorcycle mechanics.
If you can, I would suggest to enrole for their 1 yr "City & Guild MC Mechanics Practical skills" (C & G 3991). It started last week and they may have some space left.

The course in now on wednesday evenings from 7 to 9pm. I did it last year and it is very good. I enjoyed it so much I am now doing the advanced one!
They also have various 1 term courses, (part time, generally evenings).

http://www.merton.ac.uk/courses.asp

A Suggestion
 

Find a friend or really good mechanic who knows your bike, ply him/her with food and booze (maybe $ too), tear the bike down (most of it), put it back together, and do all maintenances.

I think you are referring to a 1 to 2 week course rather than a 1 year qualification yes?

Well I know a guy (Heino) who did one so you could email and ask him - namsa at hotmail dot co dot uk

But my recommendation (and this is what I did) is teach yourself by working on your own bike. I bought the Haynes Motorcycle basics Techbook for learning theory, principles how things work etc and my bikes workshop manual (was a Honda Transalp at the time) for working on my specific bike.

I started from knowing nothing about engines, bikes etc etc to completely stripping my whole engine top end down and putting it together again.

I didn't do this as a learning exercise it was actually to check the pistons/rings etc but it taught me a lot. Start by doing all your own maintenance, take everything apart that you can grease/oil/clean yourself. Do your own valve clearance adjustments etc etc. Unless you have a BMW or some such spaceship it's all common sense once you get the hang of it..and fun too!