Greasy Hands Preachers

I got a copy of The Greasy Hands Preachers through Vimeo the other day.  I enjoyed Long Live The Kings, though the hipster meter got pegged a couple of times, TGHP was similar.

The Greasy Hands Preachers interviews builders in the current custom motorcycle scene under the pretext of emphasizing the value of skilled manual labour.  The movie is nicely shot (though sometimes gratuitously hand held and pull zoomed).  By using off-the-cuff interviews you get glimpses into the deeper motivations of these custom builders, most of whom have more in common with sculptures than mechanics.

I've spent most of my life in an orbit back to valuing my smart hands.  In my late teens I was apprenticing as a millwright and struggling with the idea that I was undervaluing my mind.  The thought of decades of repetitive, menial work drove me to eventually quit and go to university where I could finally prove to myself that I'm smarter than people told me I was.

But smart hands don't like inactivity.  The intimate act of dismantling, understanding and healing a machine stays with you, and your hands itch to make things work again.  Cars had devolved from a special interest to a utilitarian necessity for me.  Working on them was menial rather than scratching an infatuation.  It wasn't until I started riding a couple of years ago that I found a machine that fostered a sufficiently intimate relationship to warrant infatuation.  The ability to express my smart hands on a motorbike and heal the machine is half the thrill of riding.

The Greasy Hands Preachers are preaching to the converted with me.  The

arc from white to blue collar work experienced by several of the people in the film is one familiar to me.  But rather than pierce the veil and coherently express the underlying urges behind the resurging DIY ethos, GHP only hints at it.  I think this is a result of their unscripted interview approach.  Asking an artist to spontaneously and coherently express their process is unlikely to produce a clear view of what they do.  Expecting them to be able to do so while on camera isn't going to lead the viewer to a deep, nuanced understanding of how a mechanical artist values their hands.

Were it me, I would have started with the interviews and then had a scripted followup that clarified and deepened the narrative.  I can't help but think GHP is an opportunity lost.

If you want to look right into the heart of the DIY resurgence pick up Shopclass As Soulcraft and discover an intelligent explanation of the value of skilled labour.  I was hoping that Greasy Hands Preachers would approach Crawford's brilliant little book in terms of realizing the value of hands-on work, but instead it's a pretty, sometimes banal film that hints at deeper ideas.

Would I recommend The Greasy Hands Preachers?  Certainly.  It's a beautifully filmed opportunity to consider an important part of being human.  If you read Shopclass As Soulcraft first (as I'm guessing the makers of GHP didn't) you'd be ready to create your own meaning, which is probably better than being spoon fed anyway.

Space Limitations

At 12x20ft, I'm feeling the pinch...

I wish I had a bigger bike cave.  With only a one car garage I'm having to pick and choose my next steps.  In a perfect world I'd have room for active bikes and a workshop at the back with longer term projects on the go.

The 2 ½ car option at 24x30ft would feel cavernous by comparison to my cramped 9x20ft space, but a garage that big would mean I'd probably have to keep cars in it.  A safer bet would be an outbuilding workshop, like this Canadian made prefab kit.

They have an A style 20x30 footer for just over $12 grand.  That would be wider than my current space is long.  Instead of my meagre 180 ft², I'd have a whopping 600ft².  That kind of space would let me chase down all the loose ends I'm considering right now.

My current urges run toward a couple of dirt bikes for my son and I, a distance capable road bike and something more intimate for short blasts and track days.  While the working bikes get their occasional maintenance, I'd also like space for a project bike.

Roughly to scale, that 20x30 workshop would fit the bill nicely.

Out On Me Mota!

The Connie at the covered bridge in West Montrose

Finally got out for an hour today.  Only about 5°C, but sunny.  With a sweater and my swish new jacket I was comfortable behind the Concours' fairing.  At speed on back roads you only get a bit of wind around the head.  Your hands are protected by the wing mirrors and the rest of you is behind fairing.  The Connie is comfy in the cold.

The bike feels very light once it's in motion, very flickable.  I'm coming off a Ninja 650r, so I'm riding 350 more ccs, two more cylinders and one hundred more pounds of bike, but the Concours feels quick.  It doesn't spring forward with a banshee's wail in the upper rev range in the startling way that the NInja did, but it's not nearly so peaky either.  It also has suspension more than up the task of dealing with Canadian roads.  Where the Ninja used to rattle my teeth over a pothole, the Connie manages to swallow the worst of it while still feeling very connected to the pavement.

The Concours pulls with urgency off idle, but that urgency becomes an avalanche of torque as the revs rise.  I gave it the mustard off one stop light and was shocked with how quickly 100km/h appeared.  Both bikes are quick, but I always assumed the bullet shaped, lighter, sportier Ninja would have been the quicker of the two, that stop light torque avalanche made me doubt that.  I ended up looking up the stats on both bikes.

The bikes are coming out of hibernation in Canada - like this
little jewel of a Honda with not a spot of rust on it.

The Ninja 650r does a 12.06s quarter mile at 108.79mph, the Connie edges it the quarter with a 12 flat at 109mph!

While almost identical, how they do it isn't.  The Ninja needs a lot of throttle and a glib clutch to hook it up in the top half of the rev range, and then judicious gear changes to keep you in the top four thousand RPM through many gears.  It's a thrilling, high tension rush up through the gears.  With the Concours you drop the clutch at about four thousand RPM and the motor just picks up the bike with no wallow and storms to the redline.  A single gear change gets you up to legal limits.  Where the Ninja had that intoxicating banshee wail, the Concours has a baritone bark that becomes a godlike roll of thunder.  I used to think the Concours inline four wasn't as happy a creature as the Ninja's parallel twin, but after hearing the big-four warm and in voice today I'm starting to think she just sings a different tune, but it's no less happy.

The ride was only about an hour, but I went from constantly comparing the experience to my dear, departed Ninja to wondering just what the Concours is capable of.  As a shakedown after a long winter of maintenance, it has begun the process of rebuilding my confidence in this new machine.

Pannier Thoughts: Motorbike Repair Kit Gear

Having never had on-bike storage before, or a bike designed to cover big distances, I'm thinking about what I could leave in the bottom of the panniers to keep us on the road. 

Here's the short list so far:

A bike specific multi-tool, this BikeMaster metric device covers a lot of bases in terms of general usefulness.

$16.18 from canadasmotorcycle.ca
300g

Puncture Repair Kit.  Many moons ago I used to do this at Canadian Tire, so plugging a tire is nothing new, and if I've got the bits I need on the road I'll be able to get us going again in short order.

$~20 from Canadian Tire
200g

Yukon Steel Multitool.  I use a generic one at work all the time.  They work well and I don't need a fancy brand to somehow validate my handiness.

$30 from Canadian Tire
325g



I'm also going to grab a lightweight nylon tarp.  You can get tough, camping ready ones that only weigh about 500 grams and fold up into the size of an envelope.  Along with a little roll of duct tape, small hand pump, some nylon string and a mini wd40 can, I'd have a very light and small collection of handy bits and pieces that would keep us moving if we ran into a problem.

Creating Paint Decals For a Motorcycle

With weather like this,
who needs enemies?

I've been floored with a wicked stomach flu the past couple of days, but I had enough in me today to get the last of the painting done and finish assembling the Concours.  It's safetied, insured and ready to launch.

As expected, Canada isn't cooperating.  I'm hoping I can go for a short jaunt on Monday, but otherwise the week is looking pretty dismal for riding.

The finishing touch was my first go at a stencil on a bike.  I tried paper, then plastic film with no luck (it lifted off the compound curves of the fairing), but eventually created a sticky template using printable stickers.  Some research suggested that frisket film would have been ideal, but it's expensive and hard to find.  Another alternative is transfer tape.  Having said all that, printing your design on sticker worked well and what it did leave behind was easy to clean off.

After printing a design, I exacto-knifed the text out and then put the stickers on the bike.  A few light coats of spray and the sticker came off with no problems.  Now that I've got the hang of it, creating layered decals should be a pretty straight forward process.  Finishing them with my preferred clear coat seals the whole thing up and gives it an even surface.

The Concours came to me with all sorts of cracks on the right side fairing (it had obviously been tipped over at some point).  The previous owner had done a pretty good job of reattaching everything with plastic weld, but it would never be perfect.

Rather than trying to hide those imperfections, I remembered a kind of Japanese pottery I once saw in Tokyo.  Kintsugi (金継ぎ) literally translates as 'golden joinery'.  It's a form of pottery that, rather than hiding the blemishes caused by age, emphasizes them by using gold to seal the cracks.

What I've done with my old Kawasaki is highlight those cracks in gold and put the kanji for kintsugi on there.  She should be proud of those cracks.  Twenty years of living in Canada will give you wrinkles, they should be celebrated.