Turning Wrenches to Fight the Winter Blues!

“You love what you serve, and you serve what you love.”

Jerry Hoeye

I’ve learned a lot about myself the last several years. One of the most important discoveries is that while I really like living in the Chicago area, winter can be extraordinarily cruel. It’s not the cold or the snow that defeats me; it’s the endless dark days. You see, winter is easily the cloudiest season in Chicago due to, as I have been told, a “combination of astronomical and meteorological factors that minimize sunlight while maximizing cloud cover.” In the winter, Lake Michigan moisture combined with cold air gets trapped closer to the ground under a layer of warmer air, creating a blanket of cloud for days, weeks, and months on end as far as the eye can see. It’s just gray. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a real thing, my doctor tells me. It’s a type of depression related to reduced sunlight that results in, check this out, low energy and carbohydrate cravings. HAHAHA… hahaha…. Heh. Um… Hmmmm.

To shake off the winter blues and fight back against SAD, I jumped at the chance to dive into a full-on motorcycle maintenance project with my new ride recently. Getting my hands greasy and tackling a stack of tasks was exactly what I needed to keep my spirits high and my energy up during those long, gloomy months. Not only did it give me a real sense of accomplishment, but it was the perfect distraction to steer me clear of those relentless carb cravings. Turning wrenches beats snacking.

My new-to-me bike is a 2012 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic LT. I love her. She’s a mid-sized cruiser that’s perfect for running around town and commuting into the city for work but also sports a decent amount of get-on-down-the-road attitude and enthusiasm. I’ve named her Vega. When Vega rolled into my life, she was already seasoned with nearly 22,000 miles on the odometer and not a single maintenance record to her name. Maybe her previous caretakers had been diligent, or maybe not—we’ll never know. Faced with this mystery, I dove headfirst into a rabbit hole of Google searches and poured over every page of my maintenance manual. Armed with newfound knowledge and a bit of garage bravado, I put together a checklist of maintenance tasks that I knew would both give Vega the care she deserved and push me further down the road as a hands-on, aspiring motorcycle gearhead.

I started by clearing out, organizing, and cleaning one of the bays in our garage to make room for the winter project. I picked up a few tools that I didn’t already have, including a motorcycle lift (YES!!!) and a shop stool (who knew?!). Being able to keep your motorcycle straight and get it high enough to get both under and into it, as it turns out, is important and necessary. The lift was a brilliant investment. As you’d imagine, it gets cold in Chicago over the winter, so I also invested in a space heater, which was easily one of the best additions to the makeshift shop. I had good lighting, an organized workspace, all the right gadgets, a touch of warmth, and a game plan ready to roll. Time to grab those tools and turn some wrenches!

The holidays are busy around my home and knowing January and February are the most challenging Seasonal Depression months for me, I targeted the turn of the year for my one-man shop project. Here is the list of Vega maintenance I planned and pulled off in these dark months:

• Changed the oil and oil filter

• Flushed out the radiator and replaced with new coolant

• Replaced the air filter

• Replaced the battery

• Replaced the brake fluid (front and back)

• Replaced the spark plugs

• Inspected the belt drive, front and rear brakes, air pressure in front and rear tires, and fuses (all of which were fine!)

After replacing the battery, Vega was still having some trouble with dimming lights and the new battery seemed to run down quickly. I checked with a few online forums and the general consensus was that I needed to replace the stator and voltage regulator (sorta like your car’s alternator system – the thing that regulates electricity). So, I also swapped the old out for new. Boy, was that an experience! Glad I did it, though. This involved draining the oil again and taking apart more of Vega’s guts than initially planned, but it all worked out in the end. Seems to hold a charge just fine now and I certainly learned a thing or two in the process. =)

Vega was pretty much in pieces for a bit over two months during the start of 2026, and my garage became my grease-stained hangout. Nearly every evening and most weekends found me elbow-deep in oil, dirt, and mechanic mayhem. I got to break out some tools handed down from my dad plus a bunch of shiny new one’s courtesy of Amazon.com and my beloved Harbor Freight (seriously, that store is the DIY mothership!). My hands paid the price, with more than a few bloody knuckles, and I might’ve let slip a couple of colorful words in the heat of battle. At one point, my ever-supportive wife looked at me and asked, “Are you sure you should be doing this?” I was absolutely, positively not sure, but  I went for it anyway. I didn’t have much to lose and I learned long ago that I was more afraid of not doing a thing than I was of not knowing how to do a thing.

I learned a lot. I feel more confident as a motorcycle enthusiast and, frankly, as a human. Perhaps most importantly, I found a way to beat the winter blues. Seriously, this is not a small thing. Ultimately, I fell even more in love with my bike and with the state of bike ownership. I have a maintenance list ready for next winter and I can’t wait. I’m going to dive a little deeper into the inside of Vega and do a few things such as a valve clearance inspection and adjustment that’ll mean taking the engine apart, and I’ll likely swap out the brake pads, front and back, among other things. Until then, I’m going to ride. Every day the weather allows and several that won’t, I’m going to ride.

Dad was certainly right. You fall in love with those things you serve, and end up serving them more, and better, in the end. Funny how that circle of cause and effect works. Who knows, I may have totally messed up my bike by taking the maintenance on myself. Don’t get me wrong, I would hate that… but I’d hate sitting on the couch all winter more. I’m not going to allow the fear or lack of knowing how to do a thing hold me back. Bloody knuckles, dirty hands and all. Life is so rich.