Motorcycle Maintenance
Posted on | June 25, 2009 |
Perhaps this is not the first thing that springs to your mind when you read this blog - so let me explain. A dear friend of mine, a fellow motorcyclist, has spent many years now restoring a splendid vintage bike. It is now close to being perfect - with some discrete modern updates - and one of the plans was to take it on a long road tour.
Last week his back ‘went out’. He’s been diagnosed with various disc ailments - all of which translate into two main categories: (1) painful, and (2) not likely to get better.
Over the past few years I’ve been enthusiastically discussing his restoration project with him, and all that time the sands of eternity have been trickling through the hour glass.
Is there a lesson here? Undoubtedly. It seems we spent so long talking, getting caught in the details of this upcoming adventure, that the adventure itself didn’t happen. And now it may be a lot harder to make it happen without severe pain - and where’s the sense in that?
Of course, skeptic that I am, I rarely accept right away the grim diagnoses that the medical establishment throws at me or anyone else. I’ve managed to get better from enough ‘incurable’ ailments over the years to let me realize that one should never, ever, give in to hopelessness. Perhaps this one of one the lessons that has to be revisited. And perhaps there’s a bigger one.
Cherish each moment. And don’t postpone paradise.
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June 25th, 2009 @ 8:50 pm
I so hope your friend is able to enjoy the bike he poured so much love and time into.
If, it turns out, he never has that rewarding long road trip, he might think like some of us knitwear designers do. The creation of the, piece, the details in the project, the process of building the final functional item can be rewarding even if one never uses it him or herself. For us, we often do no more than slip the finished piece on ourselves or a dress form, snap a picture and then send the finished piece to someone else to publish or use. Knowing others can appreciate your craftsmanship can be very rewarding. It is as much a journey as using the item itself.
Of course, knitting has no wind in the hair, fresh smells of the open air, and that little twinge of adrenalin, so perhaps my analogy fails a bit.
June 25th, 2009 @ 9:31 pm
Dear Marnie,
Yes indeed - he has enjoyed every part of making it a live motorcycle again, so your analogy does hold rather well. It’s just that it took him, well, years and years of devoted effort. Still I’m confident that with his usual good humor we’ll manage to have a few noisy blasts around the neighborhood lanes. It’s a 60 year old Vincent Shadow, so it should raise the pulse rate a little….
With a smile, Allan