Quick education in Kick Starting

[DaveSwanson]

Best advice I ever got when I first tried kicking a bike I was looking to buy. The owner observed my kicking style and stated "you got to put your ASS into it boy". I still hear those words when starting the drill.

[koanes]

Rob, You'll probably cuss me for reminding you of this incident, but I was impressed with your dogged determination in trying to get your WL to crank up at the Mission on the Angel Fire road run. I think you kicked it at least once for every degree of temp, (around 90F) in full dress, with 50 sets of eyes on you. I had a similar experience on Sunday last. My 46 FL is an easy starter, but on that day, in the heat with my leather on and a large audience, I kicked my brains out. I'm 7 weeks into a recovery from total knee joint replacement and have been kicking gingerly, but the problem was I had a couple of friends next to me that cranked up first and I couldn't hear my motor at all. I even called my sweet old Knuck some bad names, like it was the bikes fault. It was quite a day, I got to watch a friend change out the blown rear head gasket on his 45 Knuckle in the Subway Sandwich parking lot.

[Rubone]

Thanks Kyle, Just when I thought it was gone! That was purely my fault. Bad battery and
I knew it before the ride. If it didn't start on the first couple of kicks it wasn't going to without help. Good luck on the knee recovery .
Robbie

[cheifrider]

methinks the number of kicks it takes to start your bike is relative to the number of people watching

[bodnarjw]

So this thing has about 45 miles on it now and about an hour and a half of total run time. It kicks over 1000 times easier now. I could kick it all day long if I needed to. On top of that, it doesn't kick me back anymore now that I have it retarded enough and rich enough. The final thing was float level. Got it about perfect now so it is a one kick bike! Now we just have to work on the hot starts and the warm starts before I take it out in public. There is a bike night every Thursday about five miles from my house at the Quaker Steak and Lube in Sheffield, Ohio. They average about 2,000 bikes every Thursday. You can bet I'm gonna be very very comfortable starting this bike when it is hot, warm, cold, in the rain, on a full stomach, on warm evenings and cold ones before I take it over there.

[Chris Haynes]

My bikes all start on one kick. The last one.

[HarleyCreation]

Good tips!

Along with retarding the spark some great kick starting advice:

....keep the kicker at bottom dead center till you know if it's going to catch or not. When the arm is all the way down the starter clutch disengages and if it back fires it wont throw you off or destroy your knee. Also remember if it pops in the carb when it misfires it needs more choke, if it pops in the pipes it's on the verge of being flooded.

The all-the-way-down kick lever position is a built-in safety feature if you use it right.

I never thought about diagnosing the spot where the motor "pops" that it makes perfect sense.

I don't like the term "kicking" to describe the action used for starting BT's. I prefer the term "bumping" the kicking arm instead. Weather you straddle the bike or stand to the side is a personal choice, either way all that is required to start a BT engine is a solid “bump” of the pedal not a massive kick. Let those big flywheels do the work for you. Also never start a “bump” with the kicker arm above the eight o’clock position. That also is a waste of your energy.

I also like the term "shoving it" and agree the flywheels should do most of the work. Kicking hard against compression is not really necessary (until you start getting mad at it!) I also find not turning on the key until you are ready to shove (at TDC) also helps.

Most guys seem to first kick straddling the bike, and when that doesn't work and they get tired out and then they switch to side kicking. Frustration factor enters in.

Whoever said the number of kicks is a direct function of how many people are watching you is a scientific FACT.

I have to go outside now and check out that the 8 o'clock lever position and not kicking above that.

Good tips here...

[bodnarjw]

Mr Wagner,
I finished reading your book last week "Harley, 1930-1941" What a great read it was! Thanks for your work.

-Jim

[HarleyCreation]

Mr Wagner, [Herb]
I finished reading your book last week "Harley, 1930-1941" What a great read it was! Thanks for your work.

-Jim

Thanks Jim. Much of the credit has to go to the good old timers who told me everything they knew including guys literally on their death-beds. That was a moment in time when it was still possible to get the final last shreds of first hand accounts of the mighty knucklehead's origin. Hardly a guy I interviewed in that book is still alive today.

[exeric]

Mr Wagner,
I finished reading your book last week "Harley, 1930-1941" What a great read it was! Thanks for your work.

-Jim

Along with Stephen Wright's books that is my favorite motorcycle book. I get lost in that book. Make another one Herb.

[Bob Kelley]

Maybe a couple of years ago in the magazine, Jerry Hatfield wrote an article about how they always kicked bikes from a straddling position in the old days and kicking from the side is wrong and less effective.

I'm sure he got his research right about the historical practice, but I wonder if there really is a right way and a wrong way between these two.

When I got my first 101 Scout, I would kick start it while straddling it. My right inner thigh would foul on the seat, and I quickly developed a horrible, enormous bruise there. First I tried cushioning that area with multiple thick cotton socks under an ace bandage (all under the jeans), and then I realized that if I stood off to the side of the bike and kicked, my leg would not hit the seat. AND I seemed to be able to kick it just as hard this way. So that's how I still do it. (Note: This particular 101 Scout has a non-original full-pan seat that seems to sit lower than stock, so others may not have the same problem).

This method has served me even better since I got my 1966 Sportster. Every once in a while (not that often), the kicker gear will slip off the teeth and collapse under your kick. If you were straddling the bike and coming down hard, the sudden loss of resistance followed by bottoming out on the kicker at 6 o'clock could easily give you the dreaded "Sportster knee" injury. But if you're coming at it from the side, you can use your left leg to break your fall. Even with my technique, I've occasionally gotten a tingly sensation in my right knee from the unexpected strain. Another point: the traditional way of starting a mag XLCH (mine is battery ignition XLH) is to climb on top of the bike, kneeling up high on the seat with your left knee, then lunge down hard on the kicker from the right side. This is really just a variation on my normal kicking from the side.

[dommi7]

When a right-side sidecar is attached, you can't kick from the side, only from a straddle.

[Sargehere]

When a right-side sidecar is attached, you can't kick from the side, only from a straddle.

Beg to disagree, Dommi. Because of an old injury (I broke my r. femur in a bike crash decades ago and it just doesn't 'feel right' to me to straddle-kick), I kick my UL only left-footed. I climb on from the rear and stand on the sidecar frame, a hand on each side of the handlebar.
Anyone sitting in the sidecar has to put up with my butt sort of in their face, but I get no complaints. They're getting a free sidecar ride! But I can kick it through just fine. It's just learned with practice.

[Rubone]

I normally start my '44 UL with sidecar from the right side. I do as I always do with all my bikes, stand on the footboard or passenger peg with my left foot and kick with my right. No problems. I learned to kick that way working in shops where Sportsters and magneto equipped big twins, especially with extended front ends, kept me from comfortably straddling the bike and prevented (or at least diminished!) the dreaded "Sportster knee.
Robbie

[Bob Kelley]

So I guess everyone except a couple of guys with sidecar-specific issues agrees that it's a bad idea to kick-start a bike from the side.

Well, I'll keep on doing what's worked best for me anyway.