Why Does My Motorcycle Tick After a Long Ride?

So you’ve been on a great ride, and now you’re rolling back up into the garage. You shut down your motorcycle and you hear it: the tick, tick, tick. 

Why Motorcycles Tick After Rides

It’s simple. Motorcycles are made up of hundreds of parts, and they’re not all made of the same material: steel, aluminum, chrome, plastic, carbon fiber, fiberglass, etc. 

They’re also subjected to lots of heat, particularly the metal parts that make up the engine. Depending on the material and thickness, they absorb heat and expand at different rates. And then when the bike is turned off, they shed heat and contract at different rates.

Once those parts start to cool, it’s the points where those parts interact with one another that cause the ticks. When one part cools and contracts a little slower than the other, it causes a shift between the parts and a ticking noise. It’s just a perfectly normal part of a bike with lots of parts made of different materials shedding heat at different rates.