There are two motorcycles in my shop right now that typify the evils of form over function. One of them my customer purchased as a "restored" motorcycle. It is just one more machine in a countless string that has solidified my decades-long conviction that no one should ever buy a restored vehicle. Every area I look at shows the choice of form over function in the evidence of improper assembly, parts and adjustment. Restorers, virtually none of whom understand mechanics, really do more harm than good. Believe it. Flash deceives. It distracts. It bows to form over function. The other project before me is an equally sad commentary on the cosmetic obsession ethos that has come to prevail in the vintage Honda world. In talking over the work with this second bike's owner I am dispirited at his inability to appreciate the bike's fifty years of mechanical and electrical neglect and abuse and his unreasonable obsession with paint, polish and powdercoat.
When did this happen? How has it happened? Chrome worship was once almost a unique characteristic of the Harley crowd. We never saw this ethos in mainstream motorcycling. Today however, superficiality seems to have taken over. Roadworthiness is no longer a thing. Don't adjust your clutch properly or observe correct electrical repair technique or use the highest quality carburetor parts, control cables, hoses, clamps and fasteners. Don't pursue correct timing or good compression or a clean fuel system. There are parts to shine, powdercoat to apply, chrome to buy. The picture of the machine sporting a brand new loud aftermarket exhaust yet with steering bearings dangerously loose is now almost classic and in some ways universal. One of my customers has a stable of 70s Hondas and none of them get their drive chains regularly lubricated because that might get dirt specks on the wheel (never mind that only incorrect lubing technique does that). Ack! What is wrong with these people?!
A few years ago I did a "super tune" on an iconic Honda, a model that is nearly the posterboy for misguided motorcycle affection. Naturally, predictably and inevitably the work extended beyond making the engine run its best to addressing issues with brakes, steering, electrical and more. But for me the usual emjoyment in doing this work was lost. The whole time I fettled this machine I had to steadily combat the owner's insistence on using the cheapest possible Internet-sourced aftermarket repair parts. In many cases he would without consulting me buy things and send them to me, only to have me throw them in a box or suggest he return them, so utterly unsuitable and grossly inferior were they. And he never caught on. He never figured out that your bike's operational excellence is where motorcycling joy comes from, not how many pennies you save.
I am mystified. I just can't understand what these people are thinking. Maybe the answer is they don't own motorcycles for the joy of riding but rather as angst objects. That is, objects to which they can direct their insecurities, their control anxieties, their life frustrations. I have observed that on some level this is true about possessions in general with most of us. Our emotional needs often get worked out on the things around us, the things (and people) we love. In another lifetime I had a customer who every few months was adding some new "trick" part, some promise of heightened excitement, to his motorcycle. I intuited early on that I was watching some unspoken and indefinable need being exercised, and it was both fascinating and sad at the same time. But never in my more than fifty years in the motorcycle trade has this tableu been more widespread than it is now.
