Robert Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Motorcycle Stuff. A standard tool kit comes with the cycle and is stored under the seat. This is supplemented with the following:

A large, adjustable open-end wrench. A machinist’s hammer. A cold chisel. A taper punch. A pair of tire irons. A tire-patching kit. A bicycle pump. A can of molybdenum disulfide spray for the chain. (This has tremendous penetrating ability into the inside of each roller where it really counts, and the lubricating superiority of molybdenum disulfide is well known. Once it has dried off, however, it ought to be supplemented with good old SAE-30 engine oil.) Impact driver. A point file. Feeler gauge. Test lamp.

Spare parts include:

Plugs. Throttle, clutch and brake cables. Points, fuses, headlight and taillight bulbs, chain-coupling link with keeper, cotter pins, baling wire. Spare chain (this is just an old one that was about shot when I replaced it, enough to get to a cycle shop if the present one goes).

And that’s about it. No shoelaces.

It would probably be normal about this time to wonder what sort of U-Haul trailer all this is in. But it’s not as bulky, really, as it sounds.

I’m afraid these other characters will sleep all day if I let them. The sky outside is sparkling and clear, it’s a shame to waste it like this.

I go over finally and give Chris a shake. His eyes pop open, then he sits bolt upright uncomprehending.

“Shower time”, I say.

I go outside. The air is invigorating. In fact… Christ!… it is cold out. I pound on the Sutherlands’ door.

“Yahp”, comes John’s sleepy voice through the door. “Umhmmmm. Yahp.”

It feels like autumn. The cycles are wet with dew. No rain today. But cold! It must be in the forties.

While waiting I check the engine oil level and tires, and bolts, and chain tension. A little slack there, and I get out the tool kit and tighten it up. I’m really getting anxious to get going.

I see that Chris dresses warmly and we are packed and on the road, and it is definitely cold. Within minutes all the heat of the warm clothing is drained out by the wind and I am shivering with big shivers. Bracing.

It ought to warm up as soon as the sun gets higher in the sky. About half an hour of this and we’ll be in Ellendale for breakfast. We should cover a lot of miles today on these straight roads.

If it weren’t so damn cold this would be just gorgeous riding. Low-angled dawn sun striking what looks almost like frost covering those fields, but I guess it’s just dew, sparkling and kind of misty. Dawn shadows everywhere make it look less flat than yesterday. All to ourselves. Nobody’s even up yet, it looks like. My watch says six-thirty. The old glove above it looks like it’s got frost on it, but I guess it’s just residues from the soaking last night. Good old beat-up gloves. They are so stiff now from the cold I can hardly straighten my hand out.

I talked yesterday about caring, I care about these moldy old riding gloves. I smile at them flying through the breeze beside me because they have been there for so many years and are so old and so tired and so rotten there is something kind of humorous about them. They have become filled with oil and sweat and dirt and spattered bugs and now when I set them down flat on a table, even when they are not cold, they won’t stay flat. They’ve got a memory of their own. They cost only three dollars and have been restitched so many times it is getting impossible to repair them, yet I take a lot of time and pains to do it anyway because I can’t imagine any new pair taking their place. That is impractical, but practicality isn’t the whole thing with gloves or with anything else.

The machine itself receives some of the same feelings. With over 27,000 on it it’s getting to be something of a high-miler, an old-timer, although there are plenty of older ones running. But over the miles, and I think most cyclists will agree with this, you pick up certain feelings about an individual machine that are unique for that one individual machine and no other. A friend who owns a cycle of the same make, model and even same year brought it over for repair, and when I test rode it afterward it was hard to believe it had come from the same factory years ago. You could see that long ago it had settled into its own kind of feel and ride and sound, completely different from mine. No worse, but different.

I suppose you could call that a personality. Each machine has its own, unique personality which probably could be defined as the intuitive sum total of everything you know and feel about it. This personality constantly changes, usually for the worse, but sometimes surprisingly for the better, and it is this personality that is the real object of motorcycle maintenance. The new ones start out as good-looking strangers and, depending on how they are treated, degenerate rapidly into bad-acting grouches or even cripples, or else turn into healthy, good-natured, long-lasting friends. This one, despite the murderous treatment it got at the hands of those alleged mechanics, seems to have recovered and has been requiring fewer and fewer repairs as time goes on.

There it is! Ellendale!

A water tower, groves of trees and buildings among them in the morning sunlight. I’ve just given in to the shivering which has been almost continuous the whole trip. The watch says seven-fifteen.

A few minutes later we park by some old brick buildings. I turn to John and Sylvia who have pulled up behind us. “That was cold!” I say.

They just stare at me fish-eyed.

“Bracing, what?” I say. No answer.

I wait until they are completely off, then see that John is trying to untie all their luggage. He is having trouble with the knot. He gives up and we all move toward the restaurant.

I try again. I’m walking backward in front of them toward the restaurant, feeling a little manic from the ride, wringing my hands and laughing. “Sylvia! Speak to me!” Not a smile.

I guess they really were cold.

They order breakfast without looking up.

Breakfast ends, and I say finally, “What next?”

John says slowly and deliberately, “We’re not leaving here until it warms up.” He has a sheriff-at-sundown tone in his voice, which I suppose makes it final.

So John and Sylvia and Chris sit and stay warm in the lobby of the hotel adjoining the restaurant, while I go out for a walk.

I guess they’re kind of mad at me for getting them up so early to ride through that kind of stuff. When you’re stuck together like this, I figure small differences in temperament are bound to show up. I remember, now that I think of it, I’ve never been cycling with them before one or two o’clock in the afternoon, although for me dawn and early morning is always the greatest time for riding.

The town is clean and fresh and unlike the one we woke up in this morning. Some people are on the street and are opening stores and saying, “Good morning” and talking and commenting about how cold it is. Two thermometers on the shady side of the street read 42 and 46 degrees. One in the sun reads 65 degrees.

After a few blocks the main street goes onto two hard, muddy tracks into a field, past a quonset hut full of farm machinery and repair tools, and then ends in a field. A man standing in the field is looking at me suspiciously, wondering what I am doing, probably, as I look into the quonset hut. I return down the street, find a chilly bench and stare at the motorcycle. Nothing to do.

It was cold all right, but not that cold. How do John and Sylvia ever get through Minnesota winters? I wonder. There’s kind of a glaring inconsistency here, that’s almost too obvious to dwell on. If they can’t stand physical discomfort and they can’t stand technology, they’ve got a little compromising to do. They depend on technology and condemn it at the same time. I’m sure they know that and that just contributes to their dislike of the whole situation. They’re not presenting a logical thesis, they’re just reporting how it is. But three farmers are coming into town now, rounding the corner in that brand-new pickup truck. I’ll bet with them it’s just the other way around. They’re going to show off that truck and their tractor and that new washing machine and they’ll have the tools to fix them if they go wrong, and know how to use the tools. They value technology. And they’re the ones who need it the least. If all technology stopped, tomorrow, these people would know how to make out. It would be rough, but they’d survive. John and Sylvia and Chris and I would be dead in a week. This condemnation of technology is ingratitude, that’s what it is.