Is your bike ready for the spring riding season? You know that most of the maintenance items you have your dealer perform in the spring you can easily do at home and with the toolkit your bike came with....
Sparkplugs : if you have a carburetor bike these need to be checked and cleaned. carefully remove each one and inspect them, if BLACK then your bike is running rich and needs the carbs adjusted or even the air filter cleaned or replaced. you want them to be slightly rust colored with clean spots probably the electrode will be clean. some light soot is OK.
Gas : you did put in a fuel stabilizer or "seafoam" before you stored the bike last fall right? also how old is your bike, have you checked the fuel filter? it should be replaced every 2-3 years.
Tires : inspect for cracks, make sure they are aired up properly. move the bike to keep from getting flat spots.. I park on carpets to help eliminate the flat spot problem.
Battery: you put a good quality battery tender on it right? if not get one now and get it on the battery, you might be able to save it if it's not went completely dead.
I would NOT start the bike until spring unless you crank it a bit with the gas off to build oil pressure first. you dont want to start a dry engine. If you do start it, then you need to run it for 20 minutes or more until it's up to full temperature, you dont need to fill your mufflers with water from the exhaust and a cold muffler... that makes for rust. If you start it, then let it idle until the engine is hot and at normal running temps, keep going until you no longer see moisture out of the mufflers...
