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Planning Your Parts Purchases

Planning Your Parts Purchases

Preparation is Key!

By: Keith Gardner

 

Did your trip to the AiMExpo this year give you some motivation to install the latest and greatest DENALI or SW MOTECH mods for your bike? Or did you accidentally bring a pen to test ride this years new bikes, and next thing you know you signed your name thirteen times and have this unplanned beast of a ride in the garage? Good problems to have but still here you are, finding  yourself in the need to prep that dream maker for those bucket list rides.That’s where The Experts at Twisted Throttle can help plan those purchases so you don’t end up, well, up this creek with the wrong gear or waiting for parts to arrive last minute.

Plan to Plan

Now that you have thrown a leg over it for a month or so, it’s time to start thinking about what tweaks are needed to get the bike setup for what you and your adventures have in store.

Part of planning your purchases is allowing yourself time in the saddle before any changes are made. Applying patience here will give you a true feeling of the bikes ergonomics and discover any other changes needed. Without this “time and grade” discovery process, you may not have realized you need to lower the footpegs. Maybe that 2 hour ride back from getting your over-hyped coffee drink made you realize it’s also going to be Bar Risers you need instead, to aid and quel those screaming shoulders.

Also keep aware of an often overlooked part of the planning process – allowing lead times for those specialty items like the ever elusive blinker fluid and often out of stock muffler bearings that come from our niche manufactures. Often times several weeks or even months are needed for those production runs and freight times. So if your Wailin’ Wayne Weekend rally heads out in the morning, or you and your Iron Butt are chasing Long Haul Paul, that special order windscreen may not get fitted in time to keep the bugs out of your teeth. 

However, if the motorcycle genie just dropped a bike on you, and you must outfit it today, trust our decades of rider experience to steer your purchase path. 

 

Plan to save money where you can

With proper planning and timing of your ordering, it’s not unusual to get free, yes, free parts. How in the wide world of adventure sports is that possible? Utilizing the Twisted Throttle Rewards Program allows you to earn points for every purchase you make on our website. We are often seeing customers with several hundred dollars in point accruals. 

A good planning trick here is to group and place an order for the in-stock items by themselves, allowing those points to be added to your account upon shipment. Then place a separate order for the special order items and apply those fresh points to your new special order. Those reward points do add up fast. 

We know shipping is expensive, but sometimes it’s best to pay for expedited delivery if you are needing to time a delivery to a hotel or shop within a day or two window while you are traveling. 

For our overseas two-wheeled friends who are pumping the brakes on ordering due to international shipping fees, it may be a good idea to tag some mates for a group buy and share the shipping and customs costs. Be sure to check for a local distributor before ordering anything overseas. 

If you serve, you save. We are proud to offer a discount path for veterans as well as those actively serving. 

* US ARMY vets beware, we have a US Marine on staff that may want to charge you double unless you do a max set of pushups while placing your order.* 

 

Planning for the proper accessories. 

While putting together your packing list, if you found your canvas gym bag from 1984 is not holding your two weeks worth of essential beard oil, it’s time for larger luggage solutions. Let’s think about those capacities…If you are rolling from Alaska to Argentina, a small D28 is not going to hold all your vinyl LP’s, plain and simple. In this case, one would want to plan for more capacity; something like locking hard cases. 

If you do not need to be as hard core as the WTRE crew, perhaps plan for a lighter daily load using the DRYSPEC H35 top case. Proper gear makes a huge difference. 

Another item to keep in mind when planning those purchases for luggage is fitment compatibility between brands. Often there are strict fitment guidelines on the side and rear luggage racks that are bike specific and some kits may not play Legos well with multiple manufactures other bits. It’s often best to stick with a single manufacturer on the rear racks, side racks and the hard cases to avoid round peg, square hole pitfalls. When in doubt, give us a call and get the confirmations. We love talking shop.

Pro-Tip, use the non-exhaust side for the ice cooler.

If you caught Twisted’s own, Captain Ron and his blog entry on the CANsmart, you would have seen another means to save money by planning the purchase of the DENALI CANsmart controller…it includes four complete wiring harnesses, two harnesses for (4) DENALI auxiliary driving light pods, one harness for a DENALI Soundbomb horn, and one for the DENALI B6 brake light. Planning this purchase correctly would save you from buying 2 unnecessary light harnesses, horn power wiring, and BMW specific horn adapters. Using similar pre-made kits can save you time and money!

GO RIDE!

With all this talk of planning, we do realize stuff happens.Should some stuff happen on the road, feel free to call our shop. We have sent tires, parts, and tools to riders broken down on the road all over the world…Just don’t call for bail money – there’s no part number for that in our system. 

 

We appreciate your time and business… Thanks for reading and as always, keep that side stand up. 

KG – Beard

855-255-5550 ext: 8420

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