Time to think about winter storage.  The weather is turning wetter and colder.  This year, I am not going to cluck over my bikes like a broody hen.

So time to get into gear and do the deed.

1. Drained the fuel tank and dumped the contents straight into the car.
2. Dumped in a couple of litres of Alkylate fuel, ready mixed with fully synthetic two stroke oil at 50:1 ( cost the same as straight alkylate fuel, so why waste my expensive Bel Ray Si7)?

3.  Gave the bike a good shaking to ensure the fuel splashed over the entitety of the inside of the tank and thereby leave a slightly oily residue from the two stroke fuel.

4. Ensure the carb was empty of straight fuel before turning on the fuel tap and starting the engine.  Ran her for a couple of minutes to get the oily fuel up around the slide ect before switching off the fuel.  Ran her another 20 seconds or so to empty the fuel line, but leave some fuel in the float bowl to avoid seals ect drying out and the concentration of oil to fuel will get greater as the fuel evaporates.

5.  Sprayed her liberally with silicone spray and gave her paintwork a good waxing with carnauba wax to combat any moisture in the conservatory.  And thats it.

30 minutes from unlocking the shed, finding the equipment to putting it all away again and putting her in back in her winter resting place.  Fuel system and  externals protected from the dreaded corrosion and no problems with stale fuel next spring.  I will.check the battery voltage every couple of months, but last year, the battery did not require a charge.  That AGM battery has a very impressively low self discharge rate.

Done and dusted.  Time to put her back in her display case.  She just changed from a motorcycle to a pretty and very expensive ornament.
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Editor is acting a bit goofy.  I should have mentioned that I drained the alkylate fuel back out into its container.  Total cost in alkylate fuel I would estimate 100ml.  I will do the VFR next and that will cost maybe a half a litre.

So I have enough Alkylate fuel to winterise all my bikes for several seasons.  

VFR will be done in the same manner.  Already changed her engine oil and made a solar charger and battery monitor from an old 40w solar panel, storage battery and charge controller we used on our long since gone boat.  It is doing a great job.  She will be winterised, put under her sheet and as far as she is concerned, the shed door remain locked all winter till next spring.

Bike battery monitor readout is independent of the solar charger and storage battery readout.  I have wired it with a blocking diode, so that the bike battery voltage always remains higher or the same as the storage battery at times of poor charging current.  It cannot discharge back into the system.  If the bike battery discharges ovdrnight due to running its portion of the system and the always switched on bike systems, it can draw current from the storage battery but not the other way round.
It is remaining nicely balanced and is working well.  Never seen the resting voltage drop below 12.7v.

Charge controller is getting 0.9A from the panel on a cloudy day and is sending 0.7A to the 70ah storage battery and 0.2A to the bike battery.  This is usually enough to bring both batteries back to charge maintenance mode at 13.5v in a couple of hours, having being discharging slightly overnight.  In full sun, the panel generally puts out 2.5A and you can stand and watch the voltages rising rapidly.  First storage hits maintenance volts and more power is directed to the bike battery,  Usually 1amp.

Bike battery readout is easily visible through the shed window.
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Back in her "display case".  A fair prospect from any enduro fans living room sofa.

Wow! My barn bikes would be jealous.

TK looks like a good place to hibernate for the Winter  

Imagine, after a couple pints of Ale, go sit on one, close yer eyes and pretend yer going for a ride! Very nice set up!

Missus did not want me to mothball little yeller, she has very little fuel left in the tank and I ran her with fuel off to drain the carb.  If the missus ( or I) want to ride her sometime over the winter, all I need to do is add fresh fuel to the tank.

I doubt she will be used, but hey; little yeller belongs to the missus now.  I gave it to her when she showed interest in riding it.

Big Red has also been winterised and tucked up in bed this afternoon.  Quite a sad time of year.