8 inspired things to do with your motorcycle this weekend

THE WEEKEND is looming and if you're anything like us, the prospect of a couple of decent days out on the bike is one that you'll be savoring.

To help you make the most of your time off with your pride and joy, we’ve come up with eight inspired things to do with your motorcycle this weekend.

Enjoy!

And for even more inspiration find out where our readers are riding this weekend in our latest forum topic, and share your favourite routes to return the favour.

Where are you riding this weekend? Join the forum HERE.

Service your bike

YOU DON'T have to possess the know-how of a MotoGP mechanic to perform basic bike maintenance tasks. With some decent tools, a little common sense and a guide to keep you on the right track, maintianing your bike is a pretty straightforward job, so whether you need to stick in some new brake pads, change your oil and filter, clean your air filter or simply adjsut your chain, the weekend is a good time to do it.

There's plenty of walk-through help knocking about online and YouTube can be a gold mine for bike maintenance tasks, but it's always useeful to have workshop manual to hand. Find yours HERE.

Tools are like knives to a chef; using good ones is half the battle. Save the under-seat tool-kit for roadside emergencies and invest in quality for home maintenance.

If you're lacking mechanical confidence, ask someone more experienced to help.

Take a look at our guide to 10 maintenance tasks to do yourself.

Organise your next tour

ONE OF the most exciting elements of being a motorcyclist is being able to head out whenever and wherever your like. But why not take this to the next step by venturing abroad?

Going abroad is a great, but if the idea of doing it by bike is a daunting one, complicating matters with a scheduled itinerary may be even less appealing. Even if it’s just dipping a toe in the water with a weekend in Normandy, get over there, find ace roads, have a ball. You’ll wish you did it years ago.

Take a look at our simple guide to touring and the five best roads for motorcycles.

Explore the UK

IT'S A pain when you wake up and really fancy a ride but stuff like work gets in the way.

But that's not going to happen this weekend. Oh no - this Saturday or Sunday, you're going to wake up, get your kit on, start you bike, and get out on to some roads you've never been on before. You deserve it.

Leave the urban sprawl behind and blow out the cobwebs. Hell, add in an overnight stop somewhere nice if you you feel like a proper ride, and take in the Peak Distrcit, Devon, Dorset, North Wales or Yorkshire.

Take a look at our what reader's voted as the Five favourite roads in the UK.

Break out the cleaning kit

DO YOU find cleaning your bike time consuming and dull? Well, it doesn't have to be such a tedious task.

I was terrible at cleaning mine and so I hated doing it. But then I watched a professional outfit valet a friend's car and after questioning him on his methods and preferred products, I adopted some of his techniques and my own results improved dramatically.

It's not difficult but with a few simple products and techniques, you will be able to give your bike that just-valeted look.

Unfortunately most of us don't have thousands of pounds to buy a full valet setup. In which case, we've created a cleaning and polish guide to get your beast back to it's best and you can find it HERE.

Organise some track time

IF YOU want to push your bike and your own riding abilities to the limit, there's only one real place to do it - the track.

There's no excuse to not take your pride and joy out for a day and we guarantee you'll have an awesome time.

It may have only once been intimidating to go head-to-head with experienced club racers when you had just passed your test, but there are now so many track days that cater for every level of experience it's not scary anymore.

Whether you want to take part in a novice day, get tuition from a top racer or zap round with a group of mates, there's a track day out there with your name on it.

And you can find our full guide to it HERE.

Improve your riding skills

WE ALL know that riding a bike is a risk, but it's a risk that can be greatly reduced by how talented we are as motorcyclists.

The quickest way to improve your riding skills is to listen to advice from more experienced bike users and implement this into your riding. Here's a look at the mistakes motorcyclists are commonly making today.

A trip to Wales

HEADING ABROAD can be pricey and time consuming, but Wales can offer an alternative. Plus if you live in Scotland or England, Wales technically counts as 'abroad'. More importantly, it's the home of quite possibly the best concentration of great riding roads our isle can offer as well as drastically reducing cost and time.

This comes at a moment when the number of motorcycle casualties on Welsh roads has reduced for the first time in five years. Could it be the perfect destination for you and your motorcycle this weekend?

Take a look at the best routes in Wales HERE.

Sit back and watch the best biking movies ever

IF YOU'VE looked at this list and thought "that all seems like a little too much effort for my weekend off", then maybe it's an idea to scrap it all, tuck your bike away and watch the best motorcycle related movies ever made.

Here's the ten of our favourites.