SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT by Matthew B. Crawford
Why do we devalue manual work when it’s so satisfying?
The Dallas Morning News, Sunday, September 24, 2006

Anyone in the market for a good, used machine tool should talk to Noel Dempsey, a dealer in Richmond, Va. Noel’s bustling warehouse is full of metal lathes, milling machines and table saws, and it turns out that most of it is from schools. EBay is awash in such equipment, also from schools. It appears shop class is becoming a thing of the past, as educators prepare students to become “knowledge workers.”

A decline in tool use would seem to betoken a shift in our mode of inhabiting the world: more passive and more dependent. And indeed, there are fewer occasions for the kind of spiritedness that is called forth when we take things in hand for ourselves, whether to fix them or to make them. What ordinary people once made, they buy; and what they once fixed for themselves, they replace entirely or hire an expert to repair, whose expert fix often involves installing a pre-made replacement part.

So perhaps the time is ripe for reconsideration of an ideal that has fallen out of favor: manual competence and the stance it entails toward the built, material world.

Neither as workers nor as consumers are we much called upon to exercise such competence – most of us, anyway – and merely to recommend its cultivation is to risk the scorn of those who take themselves to be the most hard-headed. The hard-headed economist will point out the opportunity costs of making what can be bought, and the hard-headed educator will say that it is irresponsible to educate the young for the trades, which are somehow identified as the jobs of the past. But we might pause to consider just how hard-headed these presumptions are and whether they don’t, on the contrary, issue from a peculiar sort of idealism, one that insistently steers young people toward the most ghostly kinds of work.

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In this months segment of the one question interview we asked all our favorite greasebags the following question:

When it comes to building or customizing bikes, what’s the most important lesson you’ve learned:

Lot’s of great answers, tips and tricks to grab from all the answers, a great extended answer at the end by Ian Barry of Falcon, so make sure to get to that.

As always, I love to hear you guys (yes YOU) answer the question as well, so use the comments section to drop some knowledge/sarcasm/humor/wit/etc…With that said, onto the show. (Make sure to click read more to check out all the answers). Now, onto the show:

Wes • Four Aces Cycle Supply • www.fouracescycle.com
The most important esoteric lesson I have learned building bikes is that the bike will tell you what it needs and what it wants you to do if you listen to it. The perfect bike builds itself. If you offer up parts to the bike it will either accept or reject those parts based on your eye’s interpretation of the package. Forced bikes look forced.

The most important concrete lesson I have learned is that building a bike, for yourself or for someone else, costs money. At some point you are gonna have to spend some dough. If you grind your builder he is going to have to fudge the quality and that is going to bite both customer and builder down the road. Pick the right builder and pay him well. On your own build, don’t be afraid to buy quality materials and quality parts.

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My latest editorial segment for Biker Radio Magazine went live last Friday, this month I tackle the subject of files (with a nod and a thank you to the guys on the JJ). It’s at the end of the latest show, check out the whole thing here: http://www.bikerradiomagazine.com/shows.html

Here’s the second installment of our one question interview feature, if you missed the first, check it out here: One Question Interview P1. Everyone stepped up their game this week; your gonna dig what you read.

As always, I love to hear you guys (yes YOU) answer the question as well, so use the comments section to drop some knowledge/sarcasm/humor/wit/etc…With that said, onto the show. (Make sure to click read more to check out all the answers)

Question: What is the earliest memory you have surrounding motorcycles and how did it influence you?

Trent | Atomic Customs | atomiccustom.com
The earliest memory I have of motorcycles…
Well, I was 4 years old and my Dad took me out the Elks Lodge parking lot in Billings, Montana to teach me to ride my own. Now the Elks parking lot was nice and smooth EXCEPT for the back way into the property, which consisted of a gnarly, rutted out hillclimb! Of course this is where my Dad took me to learn. He took me to the top of the hill and told me to stay there while he walked down that rocky, rutted out, two track road. A few minutes later he yells up, “come on down!” I was scared and yelled back “I cant do it!” He yelled back “come on, you can do it”. Well, after several minutes of this back and forth I finally went for it. I actually made it about half way down this hill, gaining quite a bit of speed in the process before crashing the rest of the way. Years later, Dad and I were talking about those old days and I was giving him shit for traumatizing the fuck out of me (that memory is burned in my brain to this day) He replied “you learned to respect motorcycles didn’t you??”

Yes, I did.

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Biker cartoons rule. Nuff said. As a side note, if anyone has a copy of Hal Robinsons book “Trash” they want to sell, drop me a line. More ‘toons coming your way soon.

Technorati Tags: scans

Last week I introduced you to the new one question interview feature I’ll be runnin’ on the site (check it out here if you missed it), and I also mentioned that my favorite response to the question came from Jason McElroy. Jason has some serious skills when it comes to putting pen to paper, and he weaved together a brilliant and detailed portrait, not only of his workshop, but the wrench-head community he is a part of. Seriously, there were parts where the words intertwined together so well it raised the hair on my arms

Don’t believe me? check out this excerpt from the full article….

If it were a warm day, although those lately seem long past, you might walk in by the ramp constructed of scrap wood and expanded metal and fiberglass cast offs. It’d buckle and sway underfoot, feeling a bit sketchy if this were your first visit. . . your eyes irretrievably drawn and locked on the motorcycles hanging from the ceiling. From I-beams. By chains. By safety straps. In every corner. On shelves. In lofts, on cars, in trucks, in racks, on blocks, under trash, over parts, near buckets, under foot. over head. With a six foot disco ball in the middle. Sun rays coming in through roof skylights and under the lintel throwing heavenly beams through the metal and paint dusty room like you’d died and gone to central booking for the heaven you believe in. Rust. Grease. Cracked vinyl. Crumbled seat foam. Cloudy lens glass. Dented paint. Sour gas. Musty oil. Hard metal.

Fuck. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Brilliant, and so is the rest of the article, so click on the read more link below to dig into it.

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Here’s a new bit to sink your chompers into like one of those gigantic turkey legs at the state fair - the one question interview. “What the hell is that?” Well here’s the skinny broham. Once or twice a month I email a single question to a bunch of dudes and ask them all to answer it. Who ever gets their answer back to me before the deadline will have it published on the site. Simple. Some of these dudes you may know because of the work they do, some of them you’re going to have no idea who the fuck they are, they’re just your everyday wrench head.

A lot of great responses in the mix, some long, some short - all good. On Monday, I’m going to post my favorite one - the answer I got back from Jason McElroy (www.jasonmcelroy.com). Jason didn’t just send me back an answer to the question, he wrote a killer article that had me gripped from the start. It really deserved it’s own separate post, so make sure to check back on Monday for that one.

One last thing, I’d love to hear you guys (yes YOU) answer the question as well, so use the comments section to drop some knowledge/sarcasm/humor/wit/etc…With that said, onto the show. (Make sure to click read more to check out all the answers)

Question: If I was to walk into your garage / shop while you’re working on a
bike, what would be the most likely sound I would hear… and why?

Truth | Choppahead | www.choppahead.com
You’d hear the sound of glory. That is, of course, if glory to you sounds like midget strippers dressed like clowns throwing 40’s of Olde English at our shop apprentice to a soundtrack of early 80’s hardcore punk. Oh yeah, and hammers to metal, grinders to metal, and welding arc’s to metal for ambience.

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So you want a bobber

By Josh “2_Wheel_Nation” Calvi
Originally posted on the Jockey Journal,reprinted with permission.

chapter 1:
so, it’s official, you want a bobber. let me guess… you were sitting at the tattoo parlor waiting for your turn to get something deeply meaningful drilled into your flesh when this guy rides up on the sickest bike you’ve ever seen. you go out to ogle it and you say to the owner “bro that’s the sickest bike i’ve ever seen!”. he looks at you, hesitating to smile as he removes his goggles and says “thanks bro, that’s my bobber.” you thought it was a yamaha, mainly because that’s what the engine says on it but you didn’t want to sound like a fool. all you know is that bike made you hornier than the latest sailor jerry flash catalog. ever since then you’ve been thinking about that killer scoot; the red rims, the white walls, the flat black paint job, the PBR tap handle shifter. the thing just oozed class. finally you decide to punch the words “bobber” and “motorcycle” into a search engine. then lo and behold, you find yourself here, the jockey journal. you’ve found it, the holy grail. shangri la. xanadu. you start reading threads, the bike pics are driving you wild but all these words like “pan”, “trump” and “magneto” are makin your head spin like a fist full of crosstops. you don’t care. you’re determined. you want a bobber, but where to start? you’ve never ridden a bike before. you don’t know which way to turn a wrench. all you know is that sportsters are girls bikes and bobbers are the shit. you’re about to start a new thread asking everyone how to make a bobber when you find this post: “TECH: so you want a bobber”. no freaking way! your ship has just come in my friend. crack open a fresh high life and crank up the cash, let’s get to building you a bike mr 666chopperbobberratrod666 or whoever you are.

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A bit of remembrance for the man, the myth, the legend - Hunter S. Thompson. Easily one of my favorite writers of all time. Went out on his own dime 3 years ago today - can’t say I agree with his methods, but it was part of the madness that made him who he was. Here is a reprint of one of the greatest motorcycle reviews ever penned.

Song of the Sausage Creature
by Hunter S. Thompson

There are some things nobody needs in this world, and a bright-red, hunch-back, warp-speed 900cc cafe racer is one of them - but I want one anyway, and on some days I actually believe I need one. That is why they are dangerous.

Everybody has fast motorcycles these days. Some people go 150 miles an hour on two-lane blacktop roads, but not often. There are too many oncoming trucks and too many radar cops and too many stupid animals in the way. You have to be a little crazy to ride these super-torque high-speed crotch rockets anywhere except a racetrack - and even there, they will scare the whimpering shit out of you… There is, after all, not a pig’s eye worth of difference between going head-on into a Peterbilt or sideways into the bleachers. On some days you get what you want, and on others, you get what you need.

When Cycle World called me to ask if I would road-test the new Harley Road King, I got uppity and said I’d rather have a Ducati superbike. It seemed like a chic decision at the time, and my friends on the superbike circuit got very excited. “Hot damn,” they said. “We will take it to the track and blow the bastards away.”

“Balls,” I said. “Never mind the track. The track is for punks. We are Road People. We are Cafe Racers.”

The Cafe Racer is a different breed, and we have our own situations. Pure speed in sixth gear on a 5000-foot straightaway is one thing, but pure speed in third gear on a gravel-strewn downhill ess-turn is quite another.

But we like it. A thoroughbred Cafe Racer will ride all night through a fog storm in freeway traffic to put himself into what somebody told him was the ugliest and tightest decreasing-radius turn since Genghis Khan invented the corkscrew.
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