How to keep 'em silky.

Lubing your controls.

Controls are important. How important? Well, how important is not getting arm pump? If you have a smooth-pulling clutch and an easy-twisting throttle, your bike is going to feel new and your arm pump will be significantly reduced. The question is, how do you keep your cables smooth as butter? Do you have to buy a new cable to make it smooth again? The answer is both YES and NO.

If your cables aren't lubed regularly, they get dry, which causes them to drag. Sometimes they'll get so bad that they'll stick, which can cause them to bind up and make your clutch slip or your throttle stick WAO and that aint good. Cables can also start fraying on the ends, which leads to cable breakage.

If your cables are dry, but they don't have any frays you can just lube the cable. The way I lube my cable is I remove them from the bike and hold them straight up. I then squirt some penetrant oil down in them. WD40 works great; don't use dry-slide it has graphite in it which tends to gum up the cable. Spray the lube in the cable then grab the cable and push it in and out of the housing. Spray again and continue to work the cable back and forth. keep repeating these steps until you see the penetrant running smoothly out the other end of the cable. Re-attach the cable and your done. I do this after every ride. You can get by with doing it once a month, but it is so easy to do why not do it every ride.If your cable is frayed replace it and do the steps mentioned above. Thats all there is to it. Now your controls will feel factory and operate smoothly.