Having the front fork of your dirt bike properly set up and maintained is one of the most crucial parts to ensure your bike will handle and perform as it was designed. Having the correct fork oil weight in your dirt bike fork helps to reduce the occurrence of bottoming out from big hits, and does a lot towards your front wheel behaving as it should across the rest of the obstacles on the motocross track or enduro trail that you elect to ride. Much like the engine oil of your motorcycle, the fork oil and oil level in your fork legs need to be kept at an appropriate level, as well as feature an occasional oil change to keep things fresh. That's where any similarity to motor oil comes to an end, as fork oil is a very specialized and precise type of oil developed solely for it's role. There are many other parts to your forks that need to be maintained and kept in good order, including your fork seals, fork caps and of course your fork springs. One item that you need to to ensure you have in place when riding is that of fork guards. These guys protect the lower tube of most modern USD forks or the exposed area of a conventional fork and help to ensure that impacts to this fragile inner fork leg are kept to a minimum. Even the slightest knick and minor scratch to your fork tube can hasten the wear of your dust seal and increase the frequency that you will need to undertake seal replacements.