Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Ron is a master at figuring out how things work. While I struggle with tools, study the repair manual and fight with the parts, Ron calmly repairs my carburetor WITH HIS MIND.

Ron's new shop

Ron has built this great shop behind his house and there's lots of room for motorbikes, scooters, cycles and other junk. It's like a great big blank canvas, just waiting to be filled with crap.

My first project was to get my little blue Honda C70 Passport running. My wife Barbara bought this bike at a garage sale about 15 years ago and apart from occasional mistreatment from my sons, has stood in storage, neglected for all those years.

The carburetor was full of varnish, and had to be disassembled and cleaned. After installing the carb and checking for spark, we still had trouble getting it started. Finally, Ron brings around a garden tractor and ties one end of a short rope to the tractor, and the other end to the handlebar column on the bike, and pulls me down the alley and into the street. I hammered the shifter into gear and about 1/2 a block later, she fired and bolted on me, very nearly ramming into the back of the tractor before I remembered how to slow it down.

After a lot of smoke, backfiring and laughter, the little bike finally leaned out and idled more or less. Next time we should use a longer rope. It was great to get the bike running again. I felt like a twelve year old with a new toy.

ST-90

Ron and I were talking one day about some little motorbikes to use while camping in our newly built teardrop trailers, and we got the idea to find us a couple of old Honda trail bikes. Ron found this one on EBay and we made a road trip to Poteau, Oklahoma where we picked it up. It's a Honda ST90.

While passing through Okfuskee County, we stopped at the old Morse Cemetery and paid respects to my dad, enjoyed a Natural Light in his memory, and tried to remember the lyrics to Merle Haggard's "Working Man Blues".