11 ms·

What motorcycles teach about maintenance

109 points by ericwaller 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
taeric 3y ago
I find the root premise flawed. I have known many people that loved working on cars. The plethora of very old vehicles where I live kind of holds that up, as well. My truck is 23 years old, and I'm positive it isn't even close to the oldest around here. Even closer to the general idea, the radio show "Car Talk" was less about cars than the name would have implied. Would love to see it revived in spirit. That said, still a fun read. Not entirely sure there are general learnings that can't be found anywhere. Such that I would push for the takeaway of "don't stop looking for lessons when out of the job or classroom."
- korse 3y ago
  I think the key is that motorcycle riding hooks you into the machine in a way that few car builds can replicate. Motorcycle maintenance and riding is a tighter loop, with far higher stakes if simple procedures are not followed. Troubleshooting may be similar across all machines, but the best troubleshooting is not having to do it at all. If nothing else, the tight loop created by the motorcycle teaches preventative maintenance schedules in a way that is tough to replicate outside aviation. Or you die/stop riding. For example, I've blown a front tire in my car at speed on the highway with no adverse consequences except having to steer off center for a moment and swap the wheel in 5 degree weather. No biggie. My bikes get routine chain, tire, fluid and electrical checks however, as a similar failure could end me.
  - taeric 3y ago
    This feels largely like a post-hoc justification for what is clearly more of a hobby. That is, the miles you have put into a car "at speed" is almost certainly far greater than what you put your motorcycle through. For reasons of the car giving much more utility of use. And the fact that you still have a motorcycle is clearly a choice. One that you have to put effort into keeping up. That you would also choose to see something special about that choice is not at all surprising.
    - WheatMillington 3y ago
      What a weird comment to make towards someone you know virtually nothing about. I'm not the person you responded to, but I put about the same number of k's on my motorcycle as on my car, more in summer. I consider my bike just as indispensible as my car, and don't at all consider it just a hobby.
      - taeric 3y ago
        I said it sounds like it. Meaning that, on my priors of every other experience I have with folks that have a motorcycle, it sounds like this. If you are putting the same number of miles on a motorcycle as a car, you either don't have to drive much, or are in some other very fringe situation. Pretty much period. Yes, it can and does happen. It is in a minority of cases though. Happy to be shown data that this is not the case, of course. Edit: I got mixed on some other posts, I didn't say this one "sounds like it." Apologies for the odd rephrasing in this post. I stand by everyone that has every pushed this idea forward to me does so in what feels like a post-hoc justification.
        OkayPhysicist 3y ago
        I use my motorcycle as my main commuter vehicle. It's safe to say I drive it 3-4 times as much as my car, which only leaves home for grocery shopping and long (2+ hour) drives at this point. If you live alone, or even with just a significant other, it's a really convenient way to get around. Plus it's more fun. What are you doing so much driving for that requires a car?
        taeric 3y ago
        Personally, I don't drive much. Bicycle as much as I can, largely for commuting at a personal level. At a family level, we build miles on our car because kids and groceries. But getting at a "how much do you personally drive" is silly. My point wasn't that some folks don't exist. It was that the norm is very very different. A google search claims: "The average annual mileage of a motorcycle is about 3,000 miles." Compared to: "The FHWA states that the average person drives around 13,500 miles per year. It equates to well over 1,000 miles every month." Not quite an order of magnitude, but still highly skewed. Even in "commuting" miles driven, you lose the utility of merging your commute with a grocery run. Or dropping kids off at school. Very real limits for many.
  - detourdog 3y ago
    There is a similar type loop between old "British" racing cars I spent a fair amount of time driving cars from the 50 and 60s. The driving experience was a combination of boat/biplane/tractor. The little British cars had a certain sound that was correct and any variation from that sound was heart stopping. The best example from my experience happened on the Taconic Parkway. The sound shifted as the fan blades started to detach and fly off. I had no idea of the cause until I opened the hood. Here is additional reading about mechanical things from a different era. https://mossmotoring.com/manhattan-mechanic/ https://mossmotoring.com/manhattan-mechanic/ https://mossmotoring.com/souvenirs-and-socket-sets/ https://mossmotoring.com/souvenirs-and-socket-sets/ I'm sure non-british cars of that era are similar.
  - smileysteve 3y ago
    I think this can be felt in cars; without the extreme life and death situation. My father taught me the skill of listening to the car, I can diagnose many problems with a motor with barely any description, but I can get really far with a screwdriver as a stethoscope. Thanks to understanding how they work, even rough descriptions of symptoms or noises 20 yards away and I'll remark about what's wrong with the engine or accessories. (Granted, as a kid, we had the sounds of Sebring on reel to reel) Luckily, ICE knowledge is also transferrable to fun things like boat engines. Boats, then have their own set of physics to try fun things with (like trim tabs, outboard hydrofoils) As it turns out, a 20 year old car, a 20 year old boat, hobbies like track days and slalom skiing lead to many busy weekends.
- ben7799 3y ago
  Lots of jobs you can do on a motorcycle yourself in a garage are like 100x harder on a car so it's nowhere near as accessible. Stuff like needing a lift, or needing a hoist to lift heavy parts like the engine or transmission. And even almost new motorcycles have minimal computer/electronic issues where the manufacturer is hiding how to do things. Get the Service manual and it tells you basically everything except how to hack the ECU.
  - taeric 3y ago
    Certainly. But the premise was 'Nobody proclaims “Live to ride! Ride to live!” about cars.' Obviously, the bit about there being popular philosophy written around motorcycles is true, but I'm not sure that proves much? I'm surprised you would say modern motorcycles aren't harder, honestly. Even modern bicycles are getting into the "you really can't do this without a dedicated shop" for a lot of things. Regular maintenance is easy enough. But that is true of cars. I'm always surprised when I hear folks have never changed brake pads. Drum brakes are a pain, sure, but most folks don't have drum brakes.
    - ben7799 3y ago
      I didn't mean modern motorcycles weren't more complicated than older motorcycles. It's just nowhere near as severe as cars where the manufacturers are ultra hostile to the owner working on the car and even do their best to make it hard for independent mechanics & shops to work on it. If cars were like motorcycles I doubt we'd have movements for right to repair.
      - taeric 3y ago
        Right, I'm still surprised that motorcycles aren't just as hostile. Even tractors have gotten notorious for how user hostile they are.
        red-iron-pine 3y ago
        > Even tractors have gotten notorious for how user hostile they are Stock prices have to go up, and that means subscription models and pay-to-fix
1970-01-01 3y ago
>One time, when a customer asked him to help revive a beloved 1983 Honda Magma V45 that hadn’t been driven for two years, Crawford responded harshly: “Assuming it’s got all the usual problems from sitting, you’re looking at a thousand dollars to get it back on the road. First, it is the Honda Magna. Second, this mechanic took him to the cleaners. The Magna isn't nearly as complex as a Goldwing. $1000 for cleaning the carbs and a new battery simply isn't honest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7txrxM-NCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7txrxM-NCc
- mikestew 3y ago
  You obviously RTFA, but it's intellectually dishonest to state that all it needs is a new battery and a little carb cleaner. Sure, you get it running, and take it down the road. Now the forks seals demonstrate that they're dried out and cracked, and leaking oil. I don't know how old the bike was at the time of writing, but let's assume 30 years old. Odds are really good that the brake lines have never been replaced. Hell, it's possible that it's riding on original tires. As one who has made the mistake of buying a bike that had been sitting a few years, if someone asked me to ball-park an estimate, $1000 might begin to cover it. One might very well get away with less, but I wouldn't count on it for my estimate. (And I've owned several Honda V4s over the years: those carbs do NOT come out easily, and they go back in even harder.)
  - 1970-01-01 3y ago
    No, "all the problems from sitting" for 2 years should not include new brake lines, forks, etc. It does need just a carb clean and battery. Over-estimates are just as bad, if not worse, for a mechanic's reputation. He either did work that did not need doing, or simply said $1000 because he didn't want that shitty job.
    - bityard 3y ago
      I restore and wrench on vintage motorcycles. I also balked at first when I read this, but I think it comes down to bad storytelling rather than a shady mechanic. A motorcycle that has been sitting for 2 years does NOT need a complete overhaul, as you point out. But there is much-better-than-even chance that the 1983 motorcycle hadn't had ANY major maintenance done to it up to the point it stopped being ridden. It was probably parked in the first place because it stopped running due to lack of maintenance. And everything the mechanic listed that needed to be done likely hadn't been done in decades.
kube-system 3y ago
What Motorcycles Teach About Maintenance: fuel injection is great.
- marssaxman 3y ago
  ...and shaft drives are the way to ride.
  - bityard 3y ago
    As the happy rider of a 1979 Suzuki GS850G, can confirm.
  - kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
    Or at least insist on a centerstand which so many modern bikes unfortunately can't fit because of their complex exhaust configurations.
  - throwaway5d097 3y ago
    I abuse O-ring/X-ring chains on my dirt bikes, haven't had any failures besides a mangled master link clip I caught
- mox1 3y ago
  As a long time gear-head with lots of various engines around (cars, motorcycles, snowmobiles, etc. etc.) I would second this. Never buying a carburated thingy again. Its electric motor or fuel injection.
- pibechorro 3y ago
  Carbs are also great. My xr650r can sit in a shed for 300 years and if it was clean when stored will start up in 2 kicks or at worst in 15min after opening the bowl with one screwdriver and cleaning the jets. There is no fuel pump to break (or weight the bike down), I could run the carb with a soda bottle if I had to. There are no complex computers to break and brick the bike. Beyond the reliability, the real value of the carbs is the FEEL. This bike is analog, the rumbling sounds, the brilliant popping and gurgle on deceleration. Its a motorcycle, mechanical gear changes, cable operated throttle, controlled explosions. We loose something with tft displays, riding modes, non analog throttles, and every granny safety algorithm in between our brains and the rear tire.
luckystarr 3y ago
I've read ZATAOMM some time ago and remember it highlighting my bias in perception. Mostly you look at things for what "they are" or "how they look" but not "how they work" or "their potential uses". I found that quite insightful and thought it was applicable in my work as well. I can't tell if it actually was though. :)
- jgust 3y ago
  > Mostly you look at things for what "they are" or "how they look" but not "how they work" or "their potential uses" Say more. I feel I'm the exact opposite if I understand you correctly.
  - KineticLensman 3y ago
    The actual quote, from the OP, is "Pirsig proposes that to become expert at keeping anything in good repair, you need to understand it in two ways—how it works and how it’s made" This seems intuitively sensible for mechanical / physical objects, although I'm not sure how well it applies where the broken thing is software, with deep complexity and multiple layers of abstraction.
    - squalo 3y ago
      I read the book long before I went to work in tech. In my mind, it really helps with troubleshooting software issues as I feel better qualified to "fix the thing that's wrong" if I have a complete understanding of all the moving parts. So many people i work with freeze if a restart doesn't work. They don't consider at all the overall design of "the thing"
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    I think the more macro point is that these are all different, equally valid, and differentially useful ways to slice the world. It's good to have a lot of different ways to slice the universe and to use them consciously and explicitly for what they're each good at. I.e. ontologies exist in consciousnesses, not in the universe, and they're really powerful tools
raintrees 3y ago
I use metaphors like this when talking about programming: Any system of systems complex enough can easily be anthropomorphized... But they both come back to basics: What is the overall model of how it should work? What are the symptoms? What do we know about the possible underlying causes of those symptoms? How do we design a test to see if the hypothesis is right? When we run the test, do we get confirmation, denial, or something else entirely? Did the test properly test the right thing? And so on... And at some point, is it worth fixing?
- dclowd9901 3y ago
  The biggest part for me is the “reducing complexity” part. What are the intended bounds of operation for this piece of the system. What upstream effects can hit it or what downstream effects can it create. A lot of analogies here with fuel systems in cars. When a car isn’t “running right” we generally start with the basics: is it getting air, fuel and spark, and go from there.
chayesfss 3y ago
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Kapura 3y ago
I've been watching mechanic channels on YouTube recently when I need some background noise, and It's very interesting to see them do their once overs on the car, and hear their initial theories get confirmed or disconfirmed as they move through the vehicle. You can feel their experience for the sorts of issues that are likely or unlikely, and the focus on root cause (whether a botched repair job or something broken from the factory) is very... motivational? Difficult to describe, but it's uplifting. One channel is mostly teardowns of different busted car engines, and as those are essentially all postmortem operations, they play out like murder mysteries as different parts of the engine face varying degrees of damage from whatever went wrong (oil starvation/clogging typically, sometimes hydrolock or more exotic combustion failures). Apart from absorbing some small amount of understanding of how internal combustion engines work, the need for regular oil changes and inspections has been impressed on me about 20x.
- dclowd9901 3y ago
  If you enjoy these, I highly recommend the show Wheeler Dealers, especially the seasons where Ant Anstead and Mark Priestly are acting as shop mechanics. Their systematic approach to diagnosis and clever problem solving are incredibly cathartic. And they’re also very good at what they do.
  - StayTrue 3y ago
    Agree the shop parts of WD are very cathartic. That contrasts with the buying/selling aspect of the show. I use the ffwd function liberally to edit episodes to half their length.
    - dclowd9901 3y ago
      Same, though I have to say Mike Brewer has impeccable taste in cars and despite how cynical it is to flip cars, he does seem to genuinely love cars and car culture.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  If we're talking about the same channel it also shows the fallacy of having a small engine. A 1L 3cyl Ecoboost w/ 120hp has the same highway MPG as my 3L 6cyl w/ 340hp. Smaller engines push in extra fuel to cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aO2vC_iMTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aO2vC_iMTI
artisanspam 3y ago
I’m curious to hear the perspective of someone who is both into motorcycles and bicycles, as I’ve only ridden on a motorcycle a handful of times, while I cycle nearly daily. Bicycle maintenance can be annoying, but it doesn’t seem nearly as time-intensive as motorcycle maintenance. On the other hand, the process of cycling feels better to me compared to being on a motor bike. It’s quieter, slower, and great exercise. I can talk with others. I feel as though I can get into a state of peace on lower effort rides, as well as a state of flow while racing.
- jethro_tell 3y ago
  Sometimes going fast is the point, there's a certain peace of being so fast the world can't touch you. Sometimes going slow is the point, and there's a certain peace of be able to view and interact with the world in that way.
- f001 3y ago
  Motorcycle: - long distance trips through N America led me close to a ton of wildlife I would not have seen or dared come close to on bicycle. Mama bears with curious cubs, moose drinking water by the roadside, wolves in one case - allowed me to tackle trails in a day I would not be able to do on a mountain bike (eg. the trails around Moab) - ability to go on roads Bikes are not legal (crossing the confederation bridge to get to PEI; don’t think bikes are allowed) - ability to traverse distances equivalent to a car, but while feeling much more connected to your surroundings. Helps when you only have so much vacation time you can take. Bicycle: - much more enjoyable trips through Toronto via routes not possible on motorcycle (parks, ravines, etc.) - many trails do not allow motorcycles but allow mountain bikes - allowed a limited freedom at a young age to explore the city around me - the wonderful post exercise feeling
- xkcd-sucks 3y ago
  Maybe bicycle racers / crazy downhill mountain bikers will disagree, but half-assed YOLO cowboy maintenance, and deferring of maintenance, feels much less risky on a bicycle than on a motorcycle. Of course the powertrain and packing of components is orders of magnitide more complicated too, it's more similar to car maintenance that doesn't require a lift
StayTrue 3y ago
The author also cites sailors Knox-Johnston and Moitessier. I learned about both here on HN and found their respective books bingeworthy.
dmckeon 3y ago
I expected the writer's footnote regarding organ donation to be anecdotal, but was surprised to find studies confirming a small, but significant basis in fact: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2798550 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33334475/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33334475/ https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/motorcycle-rallies-and-organ-donation-a-curious-connection-202301042870 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/motorcycle-rallies-and-o...
- bityard 3y ago
  People in the medical field refer to motorcycle riders pejoratively as "organ donors". Which is fair, given how most riders I see out on the road have zero concern for their own safety, let alone others.
  - BluePen7 3y ago
    Even as a rider myself, just seeing how others ride I'd agree. If you're going to go twice the speed people are expecting a vehicle to go, in a space nobody expected a vehicle to fit, in a vehicle that offers none of the usual protections, your luck may run out sooner than average. It's frustrating because everyone wanted to cite the statistics at me when I started riding, but I just wished I could get those stats filtered by people who ride in a civilized manner.
    - cand0r 3y ago
      [flagged]
bertil 3y ago
The motocycle maintenance metaphor was very popular at Facebook. Talking loudly about your accomplishment too, on the dedicated Workspace/Facebook @ Work—too much to the taste of several of my colleagues. Someone once connected the two. They did so using a metaphor that compared the sound at the end of the digestive tube with the exhaust. I won’t repeat it here, but thought it was clever.
intrasight 3y ago
>In Pirsig’s book there is never a mention of the make and model of his motorcycle. This past weekend I was on a road trip to South Carolina. On the way, most every motorcycle that I saw was a BMW. I told my girlfriend after seeing the Nth that it can't be a coincidence, and I went and found out there was a BMW motorcycle rally taking place that weekend. Anyway, seeing some old BMWs made me remember the book, and I mentioned it to my GF. She had read it too but may years ago like myself - like 40 years ago. But one thing that I had remembered was that the bike was a BMW. After reading the above quoted line about Pirsig not mentioning the make, I looked it up, and I had to reset my memory. It's the Sutherland's who are riding a BMW, and they don't have an interest initially in doing any of their own maintenance. Well, at least I remembered that there was a BMW in the story. ;)
- squalo 3y ago
  I wondered why the guy who published chapter 2 didn't talk about the other couple's resistance to maintaining their bike and Pirsig's take on that.
- silisevic 3y ago
  In TFA there is a photo of Pirsig and his son on their motorcycle taken by Sylvia Sutherland, with this legend: "Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a novelized account of a real road trip he took in 1968 with his troubled 11-year-old son Chris. Over the course of a month, they traveled 5,700 miles from Twin Cities, Minnesota, to San Francisco and back. His motorcycle was a 1966 Honda CB77F Super Hawk, Honda’s first sport bike. The model’s speed, power, and reliability made it a standard-setter for modern motorcycles." Also, this: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/cycle-zen-art-and-motorcycle-maintenance-comes-smithsonian-180973836/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/cycle...
tonymet 3y ago
There is a major step change in maintenance difficulty from motorcycles to cars . motorcycles are more exposed and intimate so it’s easier to detect issues earlier . Modern cars have adopted more non-user-serviceable tech. Intermediate procedures like clutch replacement , brake maintenance , tune ups are accessible to beginners on a motorcycle . in general motorcycle maintenance is more accessible due to the open drive train, smaller footprint and user-serviceable technology . For those discouraged to put their life in their own hands – it’s much riskier to put your life into someone else’s . You can mitigate the risks with checklists and solid testing procedures . Trust me , you will develop safety and quality standards that are much more rigorous than a shop .
- taeric 3y ago
  Careful, there. Modern motorcycles are probably beyond many home mechanics, as well. Similarly, if it is for the hobby, older cars are fine. And if you don't trust the shop you are taking your vehicle to for rigorous standards, you should probably look into a different shop. :(
  - tonymet 3y ago
    can you be more specific ? what systems?
    - taeric 3y ago
      Wrong post? I don't think I mentioned systems. That said, I am mainly referring to modern gearing and injection systems. Basic maintenance is probably well within what folks can do. But that is true of cars, as well. No?
      - tonymet 3y ago
        there’s some truth. higher end bikes have electronic throttle and stability control. but still the bulk of bikes and the systems are 80-s tech . abs disk brakes . efi. controls are still mechanical and hydraulic (no software) . engine are traditional cam valves and accessible . transmissions are still 1950s tech 100% of a mid level bike and 80-90% of a premium bike can be self serviced
avmich 3y ago
> Maintainers learn to be causation experts when dealing with repair. They build two narratives, one for finding the problem, and one for solving the problem. I'd prefer to have those narratives delivered as part of the product when maintainer is hired.
unregistereddev 3y ago
Having tried to read Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I struggle to understand the book's popularity. The more I read the more I was convinced it was not the work of a healthy mind. Maybe he was schizophrenic? Wikipedia says yes, he was. As someone who enjoys working on my own car and motorcycle - and as someone who does find a certain zen in maintaining the machines that I own - the book was a profound disappointment. Instead of finding philosophical insight from a relatable perspective, I found the ungrounded ramblings of a man who is seeking to understand a world which only quite exists inside his own mind.
- dole 3y ago
  Zen was published in 1974, and I believe followed [cashed in on] the motorcycle boom from the late-50's to early-70's. Chopper, motorcycle gang, and greaser culture was just starting to fade and by the time it was published, those reformed 50's and 60's hoodlums were coming of age.
- cand0r 3y ago
  What stuck with me (I couldn't finish it either) was the difference between the main character and his friend's attitude to maintenance issues. Specifically the soda can shim situation. His friend had a loose handle bar or something, and the solution was a metal shim. The friend refused to "use trash as a shim" (a piece of aluminum can) and would rather pay someone at a shop to fix it. That sort of world view is something that always really irked me, but I never know how to describe it.
- KerryJones 3y ago
  I think the problem is you didn't finish the book. It pretty directly answers your question and dives deeper into philosophy than many philosophy courses do... it sounds like you quit too early. I agree that the early rambling was a bit hard to deal with.
motohagiography 3y ago
I maintain my motorcycles but the romance around it is just a way to moralize fixing the consequences of my own negligence and incompetence:) That said, there's a life or death gravity to it, as the failure mode of a bike in motion can get a bit runny - and the romance is an instance of the idea that physical competence is fundamentally moral, which goes back to the stoics and Aristotle, and it underpins a lot of the hacker ethic. The shortest summary of it I could describe is from the concept of "trueness," where you have a wheel or a reference point, a straight edge, or even just geometry, so you can physically apprehend what something is supposed to do as an objective ideal, and then you use that reference to reason, refine, and gauge your effort against it. Like the process of truing a wheel. Once you have an idea of what the perfect case is, chosing to align to that case is essentially moral. In the case of a motorcycle, someones life depends on the integrity of your alignment to ensuring the trueness of the moving parts together. The effect of people generally choosing this now-moral alignment to precise measures and ideals produces desirable outcomes. This is what I think makes bike maintenance and other physical competencies philosophical, as their logic translates into metaphors pretty seamlessly. Great article anyway. His comment on the public good of providing live saving organs is funny and accurate: > The supply of organs and tissue from motorcycle riders has gone up in recent decades, especially in the 22 states that still don’t have helmet laws. It's why EMT's call them donor-cycles.
squalo 3y ago
As someone who read Zen the first time many years ago, the book talks about the joy you get from seeing the world on a motorcycle (or bicycle) over being in a tank like car where you don't fully experience your environment. At its heart though, Pirsig used the concept of motorcycle maintenance as an examination of quality, value, and what brings people fulfillment. It takes a meandering path to get there which is probably why so many people don't finish it. The most memorable thing in the book for me was the topic of gumption and how it can so easily be destroyed. In my work in tech, gumption traps are everywhere. Reading this book made me recognize them so that I could logically decide my next action rather than making an emotional decision. I wish I was articulate enough to properly detail how really interesting the book is even for someone who has absolutely zero interest in maintaining a combustion engine
- detourdog 3y ago
  The book was on the recommended list for second year Industrial Design students at my school. The discussion on quality is why it was there.
- apsurd 3y ago
  can you talk more about gumption (inspiration) traps you experienced at work? i take this to mean some powers-that-be destroyed internal motivations you had? also curious to hear your learnings on holding onto inspiration.
  - squalo 3y ago
    I have a lot of examples. I'd love to tell the most recent one but its specific enough to possibly be identified. Instead I'll travel back in time a bit. I was lead infrastructure engineer for middleware at a large retail company. When I started, they were just starting a project to roll out a content management system. Because they didn't have expertise in house at kickoff, they paid the vendor to do the infrastructure design. The visio drawing was delivered to me when I started for review. Despite the guy who drew it supposedly being an expert from the vendor, it was missing two of the most vital components in the drawing. He'd also asked for a total of over 30 physical machines which was way over the capacity that was needed then (or now). I setup a meeting with the Enterprise Architect who was heading the project. He didn't know anything about the solution and was the one who had suggested they hire the vendor to do the design. I explained to him the issues with the design and suggested a different design. I explained how the vendor charged by vcpu so implementing this overkill of a solution would result in millions of unnecessary dollars being spent. His response was "they've already budgeted the money so we should spend it while we've got it." I said ok and that was the end of the meeting. I had already drawn out my corrected design and I assigned my team to build my design. This was 2012 and outside of a hardware refresh and updates/upgrades, that design is still in place and still being used. The company has saved millions in licensing fees and they don't even know it. Most people would have just gone ahead and built it as told. My inspiration was to always do the right thing. It was obvious to me that the EA didn't have that same motivation.
Animats 3y ago
One aspect of maintenance is understanding the mindset of the original designer. This is pleasant for very well designed machinery. Here's a long description of a Teletype restoration I did a decade ago.[1] Mostly this is about the mechanical processes, but sometimes I wrote about the thinking behind the design. Teletypes were originally rented, with maintenance included. So they were intended to be reliable and repairable, and capable of a long life with periodic maintenance. All parts outside the motor are individually replaceable. Parts were treated against corrosion by Parkerizing, a chemical treatment involving hot caustic baths that leaves a rust-resistant coating. Few parts are unreasonably tiny, so you don't need tweezers and magnifiers. This did result in a bulkier machine than really necessary. Most moving parts are powered in one direction and spring return in the other direction. If something sticks, that doesn't cause further damage. Almost every screw has a lock washer. One of the few exceptions was due to a drafting error, as I mention in my writeup. Mechanism design balances size, cost, ease of repair, wear, and lubrication requirements. The number of people really good at that is not large. All the good Teletype machines were designed by two men, Howard Krum and, later, Ed Klienschmidt. There were some other, inferior designs best forgotten. (The Teletype Model 26 was what happened when management wanted a cheaper machine than the classic Model 15. Many Model 15 machines are still running; few Model 26 machines are. And the Model 26 turned out to be no cheaper to make.) Once you can appreciate this, you'll see good and bad mechanical designs more clearly. It's clearer in the mechanical realm than the software realm, because failure is more obvious. [1] http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=43672 http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=43672
- eternityforest 3y ago
  Mechanical design is just orders of magnitude harder than software or electronics. Those are 2D, and largely 1D, and in software there is no concept of tolerance, wear, or yield.
- Fradow 3y ago
  A lot of things have left me a bit flustered, to the point I assume the main reason it has been done like this is that parts where taken from a parts bin from the manufacturer and cobbled together to work. There are a few examples on my car like that that are a bit infuriating (and were corrected on later revisions of the model, which I know because a friend has a later revision).
tylervigen 3y ago
While not the key point of the article, if this made you at all curious about engine maintenance then I would recommend checking out howacarworks.com It was posted here a while back and I’ve been enjoying the detailed build up.
paddy_m 3y ago
I wish I could find a good enduro (KTM, Beta, Sherco) or motocross bike (KTM, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki) with zerk fittings for the suspension. The expectation is that you take apart the whole suspension and grease it every 25-50 hours.
mitchbob 3y ago
By Stewart Brand, editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, author of The Media Lab, co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, one of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, assistant to Douglas Engelbart on The Mother of All Demos, and subject of the recent film We Are as Gods. Glad to see he's still busy!
talldatethrow 3y ago
I'm about as diy shade tree mechanic as it gets. Every car my extended family owns is over 200k miles, and we havent paid for a mechanic in over 25 years. I do it all, from general maintenance to swapping or rebuilding an automatic transmission. A motorcycle actually taught me my main lesson of maintenance: sometimes it's just better to leave a well working system alone instead of servicing it for fun. I once did a task that was 2x behind schedule, and while doing so exposed a problem that almost caused it to fail hard the following weeks commute. If I had done that before a long trip, it would have been a serious problem. I told this story to a prior air force mechanic and he laughed. He told me the military learned long ago that there is a limit to preemptive maintenance such that the likelyhood of problems from human error and just chance overshadows the benefit of the preemptive maintenance. I now no longer do any "might as well!" maintenance at all, and never do major maintenance before a trip without a good chunk of time prior devoted to road testing the vehicle again before the trip.
talldatethrow 3y ago
A seasoned mechanic told me the 3 stages of a mechanics career progress. 1st a mechanic learns to fix things without breaking things along the way. 2nd a mechanic learns to do things quickly. 3rd a mechanic learns to do things without getting dirty.

109 points by ericwaller 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

I find the root premise flawed. I have known many people that loved working on cars. The plethora of very old vehicles where I live kind of holds that up, as well. My truck is 23 years old, and I'm positive it isn't even close to the oldest around here. Even closer to the general idea, the radio show "Car Talk" was less about cars than the name would have implied. Would love to see it revived in spirit. That said, still a fun read. Not entirely sure there are general learnings that can't be found anywhere. Such that I would push for the takeaway of "don't stop looking for lessons when out of the job or classroom."

korse 3y ago
I think the key is that motorcycle riding hooks you into the machine in a way that few car builds can replicate. Motorcycle maintenance and riding is a tighter loop, with far higher stakes if simple procedures are not followed. Troubleshooting may be similar across all machines, but the best troubleshooting is not having to do it at all. If nothing else, the tight loop created by the motorcycle teaches preventative maintenance schedules in a way that is tough to replicate outside aviation. Or you die/stop riding. For example, I've blown a front tire in my car at speed on the highway with no adverse consequences except having to steer off center for a moment and swap the wheel in 5 degree weather. No biggie. My bikes get routine chain, tire, fluid and electrical checks however, as a similar failure could end me.
- taeric 3y ago
  This feels largely like a post-hoc justification for what is clearly more of a hobby. That is, the miles you have put into a car "at speed" is almost certainly far greater than what you put your motorcycle through. For reasons of the car giving much more utility of use. And the fact that you still have a motorcycle is clearly a choice. One that you have to put effort into keeping up. That you would also choose to see something special about that choice is not at all surprising.
  - WheatMillington 3y ago
    What a weird comment to make towards someone you know virtually nothing about. I'm not the person you responded to, but I put about the same number of k's on my motorcycle as on my car, more in summer. I consider my bike just as indispensible as my car, and don't at all consider it just a hobby.
    - taeric 3y ago
      I said it sounds like it. Meaning that, on my priors of every other experience I have with folks that have a motorcycle, it sounds like this. If you are putting the same number of miles on a motorcycle as a car, you either don't have to drive much, or are in some other very fringe situation. Pretty much period. Yes, it can and does happen. It is in a minority of cases though. Happy to be shown data that this is not the case, of course. Edit: I got mixed on some other posts, I didn't say this one "sounds like it." Apologies for the odd rephrasing in this post. I stand by everyone that has every pushed this idea forward to me does so in what feels like a post-hoc justification.
      - OkayPhysicist 3y ago
        I use my motorcycle as my main commuter vehicle. It's safe to say I drive it 3-4 times as much as my car, which only leaves home for grocery shopping and long (2+ hour) drives at this point. If you live alone, or even with just a significant other, it's a really convenient way to get around. Plus it's more fun. What are you doing so much driving for that requires a car?
        taeric 3y ago
        Personally, I don't drive much. Bicycle as much as I can, largely for commuting at a personal level. At a family level, we build miles on our car because kids and groceries. But getting at a "how much do you personally drive" is silly. My point wasn't that some folks don't exist. It was that the norm is very very different. A google search claims: "The average annual mileage of a motorcycle is about 3,000 miles." Compared to: "The FHWA states that the average person drives around 13,500 miles per year. It equates to well over 1,000 miles every month." Not quite an order of magnitude, but still highly skewed. Even in "commuting" miles driven, you lose the utility of merging your commute with a grocery run. Or dropping kids off at school. Very real limits for many.
- detourdog 3y ago
  There is a similar type loop between old "British" racing cars I spent a fair amount of time driving cars from the 50 and 60s. The driving experience was a combination of boat/biplane/tractor. The little British cars had a certain sound that was correct and any variation from that sound was heart stopping. The best example from my experience happened on the Taconic Parkway. The sound shifted as the fan blades started to detach and fly off. I had no idea of the cause until I opened the hood. Here is additional reading about mechanical things from a different era. https://mossmotoring.com/manhattan-mechanic/ https://mossmotoring.com/manhattan-mechanic/ https://mossmotoring.com/souvenirs-and-socket-sets/ https://mossmotoring.com/souvenirs-and-socket-sets/ I'm sure non-british cars of that era are similar.
- smileysteve 3y ago
  I think this can be felt in cars; without the extreme life and death situation. My father taught me the skill of listening to the car, I can diagnose many problems with a motor with barely any description, but I can get really far with a screwdriver as a stethoscope. Thanks to understanding how they work, even rough descriptions of symptoms or noises 20 yards away and I'll remark about what's wrong with the engine or accessories. (Granted, as a kid, we had the sounds of Sebring on reel to reel) Luckily, ICE knowledge is also transferrable to fun things like boat engines. Boats, then have their own set of physics to try fun things with (like trim tabs, outboard hydrofoils) As it turns out, a 20 year old car, a 20 year old boat, hobbies like track days and slalom skiing lead to many busy weekends.
ben7799 3y ago
Lots of jobs you can do on a motorcycle yourself in a garage are like 100x harder on a car so it's nowhere near as accessible. Stuff like needing a lift, or needing a hoist to lift heavy parts like the engine or transmission. And even almost new motorcycles have minimal computer/electronic issues where the manufacturer is hiding how to do things. Get the Service manual and it tells you basically everything except how to hack the ECU.
- taeric 3y ago
  Certainly. But the premise was 'Nobody proclaims “Live to ride! Ride to live!” about cars.' Obviously, the bit about there being popular philosophy written around motorcycles is true, but I'm not sure that proves much? I'm surprised you would say modern motorcycles aren't harder, honestly. Even modern bicycles are getting into the "you really can't do this without a dedicated shop" for a lot of things. Regular maintenance is easy enough. But that is true of cars. I'm always surprised when I hear folks have never changed brake pads. Drum brakes are a pain, sure, but most folks don't have drum brakes.
  - ben7799 3y ago
    I didn't mean modern motorcycles weren't more complicated than older motorcycles. It's just nowhere near as severe as cars where the manufacturers are ultra hostile to the owner working on the car and even do their best to make it hard for independent mechanics & shops to work on it. If cars were like motorcycles I doubt we'd have movements for right to repair.
    - taeric 3y ago
      Right, I'm still surprised that motorcycles aren't just as hostile. Even tractors have gotten notorious for how user hostile they are.
      - red-iron-pine 3y ago
        > Even tractors have gotten notorious for how user hostile they are Stock prices have to go up, and that means subscription models and pay-to-fix

1970-01-01 3y ago

>One time, when a customer asked him to help revive a beloved 1983 Honda Magma V45 that hadn’t been driven for two years, Crawford responded harshly: “Assuming it’s got all the usual problems from sitting, you’re looking at a thousand dollars to get it back on the road. First, it is the Honda Magna. Second, this mechanic took him to the cleaners. The Magna isn't nearly as complex as a Goldwing. $1000 for cleaning the carbs and a new battery simply isn't honest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7txrxM-NCc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7txrxM-NCc

mikestew 3y ago
You obviously RTFA, but it's intellectually dishonest to state that all it needs is a new battery and a little carb cleaner. Sure, you get it running, and take it down the road. Now the forks seals demonstrate that they're dried out and cracked, and leaking oil. I don't know how old the bike was at the time of writing, but let's assume 30 years old. Odds are really good that the brake lines have never been replaced. Hell, it's possible that it's riding on original tires. As one who has made the mistake of buying a bike that had been sitting a few years, if someone asked me to ball-park an estimate, $1000 might begin to cover it. One might very well get away with less, but I wouldn't count on it for my estimate. (And I've owned several Honda V4s over the years: those carbs do NOT come out easily, and they go back in even harder.)
- 1970-01-01 3y ago
  No, "all the problems from sitting" for 2 years should not include new brake lines, forks, etc. It does need just a carb clean and battery. Over-estimates are just as bad, if not worse, for a mechanic's reputation. He either did work that did not need doing, or simply said $1000 because he didn't want that shitty job.
  - bityard 3y ago
    I restore and wrench on vintage motorcycles. I also balked at first when I read this, but I think it comes down to bad storytelling rather than a shady mechanic. A motorcycle that has been sitting for 2 years does NOT need a complete overhaul, as you point out. But there is much-better-than-even chance that the 1983 motorcycle hadn't had ANY major maintenance done to it up to the point it stopped being ridden. It was probably parked in the first place because it stopped running due to lack of maintenance. And everything the mechanic listed that needed to be done likely hadn't been done in decades.

kube-system 3y ago

What Motorcycles Teach About Maintenance: fuel injection is great.

marssaxman 3y ago
...and shaft drives are the way to ride.
- bityard 3y ago
  As the happy rider of a 1979 Suzuki GS850G, can confirm.
- kevin_thibedeau 3y ago
  Or at least insist on a centerstand which so many modern bikes unfortunately can't fit because of their complex exhaust configurations.
- throwaway5d097 3y ago
  I abuse O-ring/X-ring chains on my dirt bikes, haven't had any failures besides a mangled master link clip I caught
mox1 3y ago
As a long time gear-head with lots of various engines around (cars, motorcycles, snowmobiles, etc. etc.) I would second this. Never buying a carburated thingy again. Its electric motor or fuel injection.
pibechorro 3y ago
Carbs are also great. My xr650r can sit in a shed for 300 years and if it was clean when stored will start up in 2 kicks or at worst in 15min after opening the bowl with one screwdriver and cleaning the jets. There is no fuel pump to break (or weight the bike down), I could run the carb with a soda bottle if I had to. There are no complex computers to break and brick the bike. Beyond the reliability, the real value of the carbs is the FEEL. This bike is analog, the rumbling sounds, the brilliant popping and gurgle on deceleration. Its a motorcycle, mechanical gear changes, cable operated throttle, controlled explosions. We loose something with tft displays, riding modes, non analog throttles, and every granny safety algorithm in between our brains and the rear tire.

luckystarr 3y ago

I've read ZATAOMM some time ago and remember it highlighting my bias in perception. Mostly you look at things for what "they are" or "how they look" but not "how they work" or "their potential uses". I found that quite insightful and thought it was applicable in my work as well. I can't tell if it actually was though. :)

jgust 3y ago
> Mostly you look at things for what "they are" or "how they look" but not "how they work" or "their potential uses" Say more. I feel I'm the exact opposite if I understand you correctly.
- KineticLensman 3y ago
  The actual quote, from the OP, is "Pirsig proposes that to become expert at keeping anything in good repair, you need to understand it in two ways—how it works and how it’s made" This seems intuitively sensible for mechanical / physical objects, although I'm not sure how well it applies where the broken thing is software, with deep complexity and multiple layers of abstraction.
  - squalo 3y ago
    I read the book long before I went to work in tech. In my mind, it really helps with troubleshooting software issues as I feel better qualified to "fix the thing that's wrong" if I have a complete understanding of all the moving parts. So many people i work with freeze if a restart doesn't work. They don't consider at all the overall design of "the thing"
- ethanbond 3y ago
  I think the more macro point is that these are all different, equally valid, and differentially useful ways to slice the world. It's good to have a lot of different ways to slice the universe and to use them consciously and explicitly for what they're each good at. I.e. ontologies exist in consciousnesses, not in the universe, and they're really powerful tools

raintrees 3y ago

I use metaphors like this when talking about programming: Any system of systems complex enough can easily be anthropomorphized... But they both come back to basics: What is the overall model of how it should work? What are the symptoms? What do we know about the possible underlying causes of those symptoms? How do we design a test to see if the hypothesis is right? When we run the test, do we get confirmation, denial, or something else entirely? Did the test properly test the right thing? And so on... And at some point, is it worth fixing?

dclowd9901 3y ago
The biggest part for me is the “reducing complexity” part. What are the intended bounds of operation for this piece of the system. What upstream effects can hit it or what downstream effects can it create. A lot of analogies here with fuel systems in cars. When a car isn’t “running right” we generally start with the basics: is it getting air, fuel and spark, and go from there.

chayesfss 3y ago

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Kapura 3y ago

I've been watching mechanic channels on YouTube recently when I need some background noise, and It's very interesting to see them do their once overs on the car, and hear their initial theories get confirmed or disconfirmed as they move through the vehicle. You can feel their experience for the sorts of issues that are likely or unlikely, and the focus on root cause (whether a botched repair job or something broken from the factory) is very... motivational? Difficult to describe, but it's uplifting. One channel is mostly teardowns of different busted car engines, and as those are essentially all postmortem operations, they play out like murder mysteries as different parts of the engine face varying degrees of damage from whatever went wrong (oil starvation/clogging typically, sometimes hydrolock or more exotic combustion failures). Apart from absorbing some small amount of understanding of how internal combustion engines work, the need for regular oil changes and inspections has been impressed on me about 20x.

dclowd9901 3y ago
If you enjoy these, I highly recommend the show Wheeler Dealers, especially the seasons where Ant Anstead and Mark Priestly are acting as shop mechanics. Their systematic approach to diagnosis and clever problem solving are incredibly cathartic. And they’re also very good at what they do.
- StayTrue 3y ago
  Agree the shop parts of WD are very cathartic. That contrasts with the buying/selling aspect of the show. I use the ffwd function liberally to edit episodes to half their length.
  - dclowd9901 3y ago
    Same, though I have to say Mike Brewer has impeccable taste in cars and despite how cynical it is to flip cars, he does seem to genuinely love cars and car culture.
WirelessGigabit 3y ago
If we're talking about the same channel it also shows the fallacy of having a small engine. A 1L 3cyl Ecoboost w/ 120hp has the same highway MPG as my 3L 6cyl w/ 340hp. Smaller engines push in extra fuel to cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aO2vC_iMTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aO2vC_iMTI

artisanspam 3y ago

I’m curious to hear the perspective of someone who is both into motorcycles and bicycles, as I’ve only ridden on a motorcycle a handful of times, while I cycle nearly daily. Bicycle maintenance can be annoying, but it doesn’t seem nearly as time-intensive as motorcycle maintenance. On the other hand, the process of cycling feels better to me compared to being on a motor bike. It’s quieter, slower, and great exercise. I can talk with others. I feel as though I can get into a state of peace on lower effort rides, as well as a state of flow while racing.

jethro_tell 3y ago
Sometimes going fast is the point, there's a certain peace of being so fast the world can't touch you. Sometimes going slow is the point, and there's a certain peace of be able to view and interact with the world in that way.
f001 3y ago
Motorcycle: - long distance trips through N America led me close to a ton of wildlife I would not have seen or dared come close to on bicycle. Mama bears with curious cubs, moose drinking water by the roadside, wolves in one case - allowed me to tackle trails in a day I would not be able to do on a mountain bike (eg. the trails around Moab) - ability to go on roads Bikes are not legal (crossing the confederation bridge to get to PEI; don’t think bikes are allowed) - ability to traverse distances equivalent to a car, but while feeling much more connected to your surroundings. Helps when you only have so much vacation time you can take. Bicycle: - much more enjoyable trips through Toronto via routes not possible on motorcycle (parks, ravines, etc.) - many trails do not allow motorcycles but allow mountain bikes - allowed a limited freedom at a young age to explore the city around me - the wonderful post exercise feeling
xkcd-sucks 3y ago
Maybe bicycle racers / crazy downhill mountain bikers will disagree, but half-assed YOLO cowboy maintenance, and deferring of maintenance, feels much less risky on a bicycle than on a motorcycle. Of course the powertrain and packing of components is orders of magnitide more complicated too, it's more similar to car maintenance that doesn't require a lift

StayTrue 3y ago

The author also cites sailors Knox-Johnston and Moitessier. I learned about both here on HN and found their respective books bingeworthy.

dmckeon 3y ago

I expected the writer's footnote regarding organ donation to be anecdotal, but was surprised to find studies confirming a small, but significant basis in fact: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2798550 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articl... https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33334475/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33334475/ https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/motorcycle-rallies-and-organ-donation-a-curious-connection-202301042870 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/motorcycle-rallies-and-o...

bityard 3y ago
People in the medical field refer to motorcycle riders pejoratively as "organ donors". Which is fair, given how most riders I see out on the road have zero concern for their own safety, let alone others.
- BluePen7 3y ago
  Even as a rider myself, just seeing how others ride I'd agree. If you're going to go twice the speed people are expecting a vehicle to go, in a space nobody expected a vehicle to fit, in a vehicle that offers none of the usual protections, your luck may run out sooner than average. It's frustrating because everyone wanted to cite the statistics at me when I started riding, but I just wished I could get those stats filtered by people who ride in a civilized manner.
  - cand0r 3y ago
    [flagged]

bertil 3y ago

The motocycle maintenance metaphor was very popular at Facebook. Talking loudly about your accomplishment too, on the dedicated Workspace/Facebook @ Work—too much to the taste of several of my colleagues. Someone once connected the two. They did so using a metaphor that compared the sound at the end of the digestive tube with the exhaust. I won’t repeat it here, but thought it was clever.

intrasight 3y ago

>In Pirsig’s book there is never a mention of the make and model of his motorcycle. This past weekend I was on a road trip to South Carolina. On the way, most every motorcycle that I saw was a BMW. I told my girlfriend after seeing the Nth that it can't be a coincidence, and I went and found out there was a BMW motorcycle rally taking place that weekend. Anyway, seeing some old BMWs made me remember the book, and I mentioned it to my GF. She had read it too but may years ago like myself - like 40 years ago. But one thing that I had remembered was that the bike was a BMW. After reading the above quoted line about Pirsig not mentioning the make, I looked it up, and I had to reset my memory. It's the Sutherland's who are riding a BMW, and they don't have an interest initially in doing any of their own maintenance. Well, at least I remembered that there was a BMW in the story. ;)

squalo 3y ago
I wondered why the guy who published chapter 2 didn't talk about the other couple's resistance to maintaining their bike and Pirsig's take on that.
silisevic 3y ago
In TFA there is a photo of Pirsig and his son on their motorcycle taken by Sylvia Sutherland, with this legend: "Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a novelized account of a real road trip he took in 1968 with his troubled 11-year-old son Chris. Over the course of a month, they traveled 5,700 miles from Twin Cities, Minnesota, to San Francisco and back. His motorcycle was a 1966 Honda CB77F Super Hawk, Honda’s first sport bike. The model’s speed, power, and reliability made it a standard-setter for modern motorcycles." Also, this: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/cycle-zen-art-and-motorcycle-maintenance-comes-smithsonian-180973836/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/cycle...

tonymet 3y ago

There is a major step change in maintenance difficulty from motorcycles to cars . motorcycles are more exposed and intimate so it’s easier to detect issues earlier . Modern cars have adopted more non-user-serviceable tech. Intermediate procedures like clutch replacement , brake maintenance , tune ups are accessible to beginners on a motorcycle . in general motorcycle maintenance is more accessible due to the open drive train, smaller footprint and user-serviceable technology . For those discouraged to put their life in their own hands – it’s much riskier to put your life into someone else’s . You can mitigate the risks with checklists and solid testing procedures . Trust me , you will develop safety and quality standards that are much more rigorous than a shop .

taeric 3y ago
Careful, there. Modern motorcycles are probably beyond many home mechanics, as well. Similarly, if it is for the hobby, older cars are fine. And if you don't trust the shop you are taking your vehicle to for rigorous standards, you should probably look into a different shop. :(
- tonymet 3y ago
  can you be more specific ? what systems?
  - taeric 3y ago
    Wrong post? I don't think I mentioned systems. That said, I am mainly referring to modern gearing and injection systems. Basic maintenance is probably well within what folks can do. But that is true of cars, as well. No?
    - tonymet 3y ago
      there’s some truth. higher end bikes have electronic throttle and stability control. but still the bulk of bikes and the systems are 80-s tech . abs disk brakes . efi. controls are still mechanical and hydraulic (no software) . engine are traditional cam valves and accessible . transmissions are still 1950s tech 100% of a mid level bike and 80-90% of a premium bike can be self serviced

avmich 3y ago

> Maintainers learn to be causation experts when dealing with repair. They build two narratives, one for finding the problem, and one for solving the problem. I'd prefer to have those narratives delivered as part of the product when maintainer is hired.

unregistereddev 3y ago

Having tried to read Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I struggle to understand the book's popularity. The more I read the more I was convinced it was not the work of a healthy mind. Maybe he was schizophrenic? Wikipedia says yes, he was. As someone who enjoys working on my own car and motorcycle - and as someone who does find a certain zen in maintaining the machines that I own - the book was a profound disappointment. Instead of finding philosophical insight from a relatable perspective, I found the ungrounded ramblings of a man who is seeking to understand a world which only quite exists inside his own mind.

dole 3y ago
Zen was published in 1974, and I believe followed [cashed in on] the motorcycle boom from the late-50's to early-70's. Chopper, motorcycle gang, and greaser culture was just starting to fade and by the time it was published, those reformed 50's and 60's hoodlums were coming of age.
cand0r 3y ago
What stuck with me (I couldn't finish it either) was the difference between the main character and his friend's attitude to maintenance issues. Specifically the soda can shim situation. His friend had a loose handle bar or something, and the solution was a metal shim. The friend refused to "use trash as a shim" (a piece of aluminum can) and would rather pay someone at a shop to fix it. That sort of world view is something that always really irked me, but I never know how to describe it.
KerryJones 3y ago
I think the problem is you didn't finish the book. It pretty directly answers your question and dives deeper into philosophy than many philosophy courses do... it sounds like you quit too early. I agree that the early rambling was a bit hard to deal with.

motohagiography 3y ago

I maintain my motorcycles but the romance around it is just a way to moralize fixing the consequences of my own negligence and incompetence:) That said, there's a life or death gravity to it, as the failure mode of a bike in motion can get a bit runny - and the romance is an instance of the idea that physical competence is fundamentally moral, which goes back to the stoics and Aristotle, and it underpins a lot of the hacker ethic. The shortest summary of it I could describe is from the concept of "trueness," where you have a wheel or a reference point, a straight edge, or even just geometry, so you can physically apprehend what something is supposed to do as an objective ideal, and then you use that reference to reason, refine, and gauge your effort against it. Like the process of truing a wheel. Once you have an idea of what the perfect case is, chosing to align to that case is essentially moral. In the case of a motorcycle, someones life depends on the integrity of your alignment to ensuring the trueness of the moving parts together. The effect of people generally choosing this now-moral alignment to precise measures and ideals produces desirable outcomes. This is what I think makes bike maintenance and other physical competencies philosophical, as their logic translates into metaphors pretty seamlessly. Great article anyway. His comment on the public good of providing live saving organs is funny and accurate: > The supply of organs and tissue from motorcycle riders has gone up in recent decades, especially in the 22 states that still don’t have helmet laws. It's why EMT's call them donor-cycles.

squalo 3y ago

As someone who read Zen the first time many years ago, the book talks about the joy you get from seeing the world on a motorcycle (or bicycle) over being in a tank like car where you don't fully experience your environment. At its heart though, Pirsig used the concept of motorcycle maintenance as an examination of quality, value, and what brings people fulfillment. It takes a meandering path to get there which is probably why so many people don't finish it. The most memorable thing in the book for me was the topic of gumption and how it can so easily be destroyed. In my work in tech, gumption traps are everywhere. Reading this book made me recognize them so that I could logically decide my next action rather than making an emotional decision. I wish I was articulate enough to properly detail how really interesting the book is even for someone who has absolutely zero interest in maintaining a combustion engine

detourdog 3y ago
The book was on the recommended list for second year Industrial Design students at my school. The discussion on quality is why it was there.
apsurd 3y ago
can you talk more about gumption (inspiration) traps you experienced at work? i take this to mean some powers-that-be destroyed internal motivations you had? also curious to hear your learnings on holding onto inspiration.
- squalo 3y ago
  I have a lot of examples. I'd love to tell the most recent one but its specific enough to possibly be identified. Instead I'll travel back in time a bit. I was lead infrastructure engineer for middleware at a large retail company. When I started, they were just starting a project to roll out a content management system. Because they didn't have expertise in house at kickoff, they paid the vendor to do the infrastructure design. The visio drawing was delivered to me when I started for review. Despite the guy who drew it supposedly being an expert from the vendor, it was missing two of the most vital components in the drawing. He'd also asked for a total of over 30 physical machines which was way over the capacity that was needed then (or now). I setup a meeting with the Enterprise Architect who was heading the project. He didn't know anything about the solution and was the one who had suggested they hire the vendor to do the design. I explained to him the issues with the design and suggested a different design. I explained how the vendor charged by vcpu so implementing this overkill of a solution would result in millions of unnecessary dollars being spent. His response was "they've already budgeted the money so we should spend it while we've got it." I said ok and that was the end of the meeting. I had already drawn out my corrected design and I assigned my team to build my design. This was 2012 and outside of a hardware refresh and updates/upgrades, that design is still in place and still being used. The company has saved millions in licensing fees and they don't even know it. Most people would have just gone ahead and built it as told. My inspiration was to always do the right thing. It was obvious to me that the EA didn't have that same motivation.

Animats 3y ago

One aspect of maintenance is understanding the mindset of the original designer. This is pleasant for very well designed machinery. Here's a long description of a Teletype restoration I did a decade ago.[1] Mostly this is about the mechanical processes, but sometimes I wrote about the thinking behind the design. Teletypes were originally rented, with maintenance included. So they were intended to be reliable and repairable, and capable of a long life with periodic maintenance. All parts outside the motor are individually replaceable. Parts were treated against corrosion by Parkerizing, a chemical treatment involving hot caustic baths that leaves a rust-resistant coating. Few parts are unreasonably tiny, so you don't need tweezers and magnifiers. This did result in a bulkier machine than really necessary. Most moving parts are powered in one direction and spring return in the other direction. If something sticks, that doesn't cause further damage. Almost every screw has a lock washer. One of the few exceptions was due to a drafting error, as I mention in my writeup. Mechanism design balances size, cost, ease of repair, wear, and lubrication requirements. The number of people really good at that is not large. All the good Teletype machines were designed by two men, Howard Krum and, later, Ed Klienschmidt. There were some other, inferior designs best forgotten. (The Teletype Model 26 was what happened when management wanted a cheaper machine than the classic Model 15. Many Model 15 machines are still running; few Model 26 machines are. And the Model 26 turned out to be no cheaper to make.) Once you can appreciate this, you'll see good and bad mechanical designs more clearly. It's clearer in the mechanical realm than the software realm, because failure is more obvious. [1] http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=43672 http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=43672

eternityforest 3y ago
Mechanical design is just orders of magnitude harder than software or electronics. Those are 2D, and largely 1D, and in software there is no concept of tolerance, wear, or yield.
Fradow 3y ago
A lot of things have left me a bit flustered, to the point I assume the main reason it has been done like this is that parts where taken from a parts bin from the manufacturer and cobbled together to work. There are a few examples on my car like that that are a bit infuriating (and were corrected on later revisions of the model, which I know because a friend has a later revision).

tylervigen 3y ago

While not the key point of the article, if this made you at all curious about engine maintenance then I would recommend checking out howacarworks.com It was posted here a while back and I’ve been enjoying the detailed build up.

paddy_m 3y ago

I wish I could find a good enduro (KTM, Beta, Sherco) or motocross bike (KTM, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki) with zerk fittings for the suspension. The expectation is that you take apart the whole suspension and grease it every 25-50 hours.

mitchbob 3y ago

By Stewart Brand, editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, author of The Media Lab, co-founder of the Long Now Foundation, one of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters, assistant to Douglas Engelbart on The Mother of All Demos, and subject of the recent film We Are as Gods. Glad to see he's still busy!

talldatethrow 3y ago

I'm about as diy shade tree mechanic as it gets. Every car my extended family owns is over 200k miles, and we havent paid for a mechanic in over 25 years. I do it all, from general maintenance to swapping or rebuilding an automatic transmission. A motorcycle actually taught me my main lesson of maintenance: sometimes it's just better to leave a well working system alone instead of servicing it for fun. I once did a task that was 2x behind schedule, and while doing so exposed a problem that almost caused it to fail hard the following weeks commute. If I had done that before a long trip, it would have been a serious problem. I told this story to a prior air force mechanic and he laughed. He told me the military learned long ago that there is a limit to preemptive maintenance such that the likelyhood of problems from human error and just chance overshadows the benefit of the preemptive maintenance. I now no longer do any "might as well!" maintenance at all, and never do major maintenance before a trip without a good chunk of time prior devoted to road testing the vehicle again before the trip.

talldatethrow 3y ago

A seasoned mechanic told me the 3 stages of a mechanics career progress. 1st a mechanic learns to fix things without breaking things along the way. 2nd a mechanic learns to do things quickly. 3rd a mechanic learns to do things without getting dirty.