We are in the era of electronics and Internet where things are expected to happen quickly or instantly – in fact it has taken over us. The general human tendency is to expect a response as instantly or quickly as possible. Be it the web search results which we get on Google, time taken to book a cab through Ola/Uber, instant messengers, instant water heaters, micro-wave ovens and in any part of the life – the philosophy is to do things fast / move fast.
When it comes to motorcycles and scooters – “Self-Start” technology is a great invention as it gets your motorcycle to motion with just a click-of-a-button. Motorcycles of the past decade relied mostly on kick start where your motorcycle engine gets to work when it is manually kick started.
Although most 2 wheelers of this generation comes with “Self-start” button by default, it is always a good thing to update your knowledge and learn how to manually kickstart the bike – just in case if self-start fails because of situations like poor/low battery or due to some electrical failure.
In this article, I will teach how to kickstart a motorcycle. I am writing this in reference to TVS Sport motorcycle and I believe the method is same for all the other motorcycles.
Step 1: Make sure you have turned on the bike/ Turn the Key to point the Ignition/ON position.
Step 2: Make sure you have enough fuel in the tank and also make sure you have not filled the fuel tank above the lid level.
Step 3: Turn the fuel knob to ON or Reserve position, (UP position or DOWN position). You will usually find the fuel lever on the left side of the bike. Make sure fuel lever is pointing to ON position and not OFF.
Step 4: Use the Gear lever and bring it to neutral. You will notice the green “N” indicator in the front dashboard when the bike is in neutral mode.
Step 5: DO NOT hold CLUTCH – (Many make this mistake) – If you are holding the clutch, you will not feel the toughness while pedling the kickstart pedal. There is no point in Kicking your bike out of frustration holding the clutch – because it never starts.
Step 6: KICK START MOMENT – Gently place your foot on the Kickstart pedal and you are all set to GO. Apply a gentle pressure downwards and your bike’s engine should fire in with sound. Bring the pedal back to normal position.
I hope the above tips were useful for you to turn on your bike using the kickstart. While the world is turning towards getting smart with the help of electronics, we should respect the core principles of how a machine/mechanism works – Kickstarting is an art and it gets the job done.
Do drop in your comments below for your feedback and suggestions about this topic.
