Home Is Where The Wrench Is

It must’ve been an old dude who said it — “Artifacts are the starting fluid of memory.”

Eight feet from my gear closet, just across from the work bench, stands a Chinese rollaway tool chest, Craftsman vintage 1990. It replaced my dented-in and rusty red Craftsman box that I’d been toting around since visiting a Sears & Roebuck store back in the day, and outgrew.

Vintage 1980’s Craftsman Tool Box

The big, black beast was a minimalist purchase as my tools started ending up in various cardboard boxes.

I imagine your Chinese “steel box” holds a million memories. I know mine does!  An early photo of my son standing next to our Red ’65 Vette project, which is taped up in its permanently opened lid next to cross-cut saw blades clinging to rare-earth magnets. There is an assortment of bailing wire and zip-ties, nails and screws along with wire cutters, crescent wrenches, utility blades, socket sets, wrenches, Hex (Allen) wrenches, Torx bits, pliers, hammers and one-off speciality tools.

Motorcycle maintenance is a true art form and if you’re like me, working on motorcycles can be as much fun as riding them.  In addition, there are lots and I mean a lot of stickers from the vendors who awarded them during my many event wanderings which cover the paint scratches, along with a dinged-up motorcycle license plate from a distant state. Some days, I wonder whether that ‘ol work chest is mostly a repository for artifacts, but sliding open its ball-bearing drawers reveals row upon gleaming row of repair tools.

1990’s Craftsman Tool Chest

Some of those stickers on the “steel box” are memories. Like the Bananen Bar sticker from Amsterdam which was certainly a unique travel experience.  The tools are memories too. That whittled wooden stick—a fork-seal tool for an unlamented Yamaha YZ—is as likely to be used again in my row of sockets. My level—a nearly unusable, Victorian-age contraption that is nonetheless lovely to look at—sits alongside a Fluke 77 meter from my electronic days.

Although I’m the only guy on earth who knows where everything is in that rollaway, I couldn’t tell you on a bet. At this point it’s a matter of feel, like dead reckoning through a place you’ve been before but don’t entirely recall. My memory is fading just like my left ear hearing, but when I get close to my tool chest, I just rely on my sense of how I do things. Reach in and…oh. There it is.

No matter what area of your Harley needs working on––from the wheels to the clutch to the brakes to the drivetrain––it almost always requires a special tool.

Honestly, I never was a great wrench. I can hold my own with many items, but when I CAN do it, turns to I CAN’T, without some expensive zinc-coated factory wrench or proprietary type tool, I roll the old-girl toward a dealer stat, hoping to leave as few “Harley $$ Units” as possible. Did I tell you that Duct tape and a multi-tool is my best friend?!

Although order drives any repair process, for me it relies not some much on tech charts, but on rhythm and flow. With a wrench in one hand and a couple of sockets in my other, I just reach in…oh. There it is.

Photos taken by the author.

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The Changing Landscape

Out Of Busines

Harley-Davidson has undergone a grueling restructuring over the last year to better compete amid less demand.

The economy and housing bubble depleted consumers’ wealth and left a lot of folks unwilling to spend on Harley’s high-end bikes.  I anticipate that Harley will remain at least three quarters away from achieving positive retail sales trends in the U.S., especially given the companies lapse of a successful promotion in the first quarter.

I’m genuinely concerned.   More so about the decay of prosperity in the local motorcycle shops, parts suppliers, and dealers.  Be it routine service or customization, the local shops most often operate on their ability to make sure YOU are happy. They know if you leave satisfied, you will tell your friends about your experience with the shop.  Word of mouth is an integral part of a shops reputation in the local area and carries a lot of weight in generating new business.  “Giving” local shops rebuild, repair, or service work on your bike, while appreciated, is not going to keep a shop in business.   The industry at large will need sales to rebound or the local motorcycle businesses will lay-off their skilled workers or worse – close down operations.

Unless you own or work in a local shop, you have no idea of what it takes to stay in business.  Facility overhead, staff salaries, phones, heat/electricity and advertising are things everybody thinks of.  But what about insurance, hazmat costs, licensing fees and money paid to local city and state governments for all the TAXES they require?

And speaking of taxes, I’m very skeptical of government spending our way to prosperity.  Increasing the tax liability on small business owners does nothing to encourage businesses to take care of their employees.  In fact, in Oregon there is a special ballot measure on personal and corporate tax increases.  In my opinion this one-size-fits-all legislation may well force motorcycle shops to shut down.  You’ve heard of Measures 66 and 67 and read more about net profits and corporate structures to last a life time so I’ll avoid explaining the details.  Instead, let me ask a simple question.  Did you get a raise last year?  I know I didn’t.  And if you’re lucky enough to still have a job, I’m willing to bet that you didn’t either.  Most likely you took a pay cut.  Or had your hours reduced.  Or were required to pay a larger share of your health insurance coverage.

At the same time you and I were taking cuts the Oregon Legislature voted to increase the tax burden on higher incomes and businesses by $750 million dollars, it also authorized $248 million in pay raises for state employees.  Yep, that’s right.  State workers got raises during the worst economy we’ve been through since the Great Depression.

Still don’t care?  Then how about this.  The legislature approved a budget that increased state spending by 9%.  If I was operating a motorcycle shop I can assure you that if my business increased 9% over the past two years I’d be most happy.  The legislature increase is about $4.7 billion more than the previous two years.  Time for another question.  Do you think state services have improved as spending has increased?  Are the schools better? Is our infrastructure better?  At a time when Oregon has lost over 120,000 private-sector jobs in the past 18 months the state has added 10,000.  It would seem that in Oregon, government has become the ONLY growth industry!

I’m not sure about where you live, but in Oregon during the winter many think about what customization you can do to your bike in the off-season.  Before long you’ll be sitting at your MacBook, surfing the web looking to make some modification dreams come true.  You’ll likely have questions and find yourself on the phone calling the local motorcycle shop trying to get all those questions answered.  Before long you’ll have spent most of an hour discussing scenarios, getting advice and prices from the local shop expert.

What if they don’t answer your call because the parts expert is no longer employed?  What if they’ve gone out of business?

We’re told by the “spinsters” in Salem that the state is making “budget cuts.” Huh?  In fact it means simply they can’t have as much of an increase as legislators would like.  A 9% increase is NOT a cut!  It’s my opinion that the private sector creates wealth.  Government does not.  I hope you’ll join me in voting NO on Measures 66 and 67 to send a clear message to the Oregon legislators that a CUT means CUT.   

Increasing taxes on motorcycle shop owners means more will go out of business.

Source: Statistics from The Oregonian

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

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