This the inside of Denny's garage, the place where oil changing magic happens.

Every rider should learn to change oil in his or her motorcycle. Only slackers take it the dealership. So, if you have to do it, you might as well enjoy yourself.

My buddy Denny Villhauer and I have a tradition. A few days before leaving for a trip, or just whenever it’s time, we gather in Denny Villhauer’s garage, crack open a few beers and get dirty, greasy and oily. Our wives wisely find somewhere else to be.

Changing oil in the VTX should be really simple. Two drain plugs. A spin-on filter. Drain and fill. Clean up afterwards. But, like I said, we have a tradition. Here’s the procedure we performed early this week:

1.) First things first: We pop open a couple of beers and mentally prepare ourselves.

2.) Denny lays down cardboard to absorb any stray oil.

3.) I roll the bike into the garage and over the cardboard.

4.) We take a five-minute break. We’ve worked hard. We sip some more beer.

5.) We review our strategy. Denny is the plug remover. I will serve as the “filter and dipstick” guy (insert your own joke here).

6.) Denny crawls under the bike and loosens the front drain plug. I pull the dipstick.

7.) Denny moves to the back drain plug. Oil pours out the bottom of my bike. I spin off the filter and drop it in the paint tray we’re using as a waste container.

8.) Break time! We sip some beer and watch oil fill the tray.

9.) The oil flow has slowed to a trickle, but this is a time for patience. During the lull, Denny skillfully notices we’re both getting low on beer. He leaves me in charge and goes to the basement to grab a couple more beers from his “beer fridge.”

10.) Denny returns. We celebrate his safe arrival by cracking open our second beer.

11.) The bike is void of oil. We replace both drain plugs. Rub a bit of oil on the filter gasket and spin it on the bike. Using the one-handed wrench method (‘cause we’re holding beer in our other hand) we tighten everything down.

12.) We’re ready to add new oil. I open the quart containers and we take turns pouring. Here’s an important safety tip: Stay focused on which hand is pouring and which hand is holding your beer. Some suds in your bike may not be a disaster, but shot-gunning a quart of 10w40 is a horrible mishap.

13.) We add 3.9 quarts of oil exactly, replace the dipstick, back the bike out of the garage and start it up. If we have been successful, the red oil light will glow red, then switch off after a few seconds.

14.) We wait for what seems like an eternity. Will the light go off? Have we done everything right? Did we forget something? We stare at the light and nervously sip our beers.

15.) The light goes off!

16.) Knuckle bumps and high-fives!

17.) We toast our success with a few swigs of, that’s right, beer.

Those legs belong to Denny, who has crawled underneath my bike to remove the drain plugs. I'm out of the picture, holding his beer.