How to Kick-Start a Motorcycle

Kick starting a motorcycle is a pretty standard affair for dirt bikes and scooters, and is a nice thing to have on older street bikes when the battery or starter kicks the bucket. There are only a few things to consider when doing it, and I'll cover what I know about them in this instructable. Feel free to suggest any other foot-bruising insights below.

There are a few things you may need to do before trying to kick start your bike. These include:

1: Open pressure release if your bike has one. This will make it easier to kick over and less likely to kick the pedal back at you. This could either be located as a small lever on the handlebars or on the engine somewhere.

2: Turn on the key. This is pretty self-explainatory.

3: If you're starting a scooter, put it on the center stand and hold the brake. Many scooters won't start without a brake being held down.

4: Put on shoes. While not an absolute requirement, flip-flops, heels, and bare-feet don't tend to get along well with kick starting motorbikes. I've personally gotten stone bruises from kick starting a quad in flip-flops before. You should have decent shoes on if you're going to be riding a two-wheeled vehicle of any sort anyway.

Now you're ready to start stomping the kick start pedal. You may have to mess around some to find the best starting position, but for motorcycles it's usually straddling the bike, kicking the start pedal with your right leg in fast, downward motions. You may need to play with the choke or give the bike a little gas to coax it out of it's slumber, but unless you've got other problems the bike should start with a few swift kicks. Scooters are generally kick started standing to the side, holding the brake. If you have a manual compression release you may need to re-engage it every couple kicks.

If you find yourself kicking 'til you're blue in the face you might have another problem and need to refer to this fine instructable.