Topic: Liberty Vintage short video

[RedDawn]

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Came across this video today, thought some of you might enjoy it. About 4 minutes long, about a guy that restores bikes for a living talking about the loss of industrial capability of the US. His shop has about 200 bikes in it

[Radam]

This has been posted here before, but it's a great video.

[Ichiban 4]

Thanks for sharing that..even if it had been posted before (I didn't see it).

Made me think of my own background with motorcycles..especially as a young kid growing up..how I would idolize the guys with shops..bike builders..machinists in general.

I still do feel that way sometimes..that old school mechanics..et al..are sadly dying out.  I even have a couple of my old mechanic mentors that I visit..call sometimes.  But they're now in their 80's +..and I can see that they'll not be around much longer.

I've had to accept the reality in recent years though..that the good old days will never be again..and as our bikes cars..stuff in general age (as do we)..it will be a new order and technology that replace us.  Oh sure..some of the old school guys will always be around I think..but not in any numbers that would have a significant effect on current technology.

I have also come to accept in recent years..that the era of mass usage of internal combustion engines..petroleum use..and the technologies of the 20th century..will necessarily have to be replaced by cleaner and more environmentally friendly alternatives.

Nostalgia and maintaining past traditions is good to a certain extent I feel..but present day reality seems to be pretty much saying that we need to move on with what's happening now.

Just some ruminations on this subject..

Ichi

[Radam]

I agree with you 100%. I grew up working on old Jeeps with my dad. He and his friends built old Willis Jeeps. That's what I learned to drive on. My first car was a Suzuki Samaria and we did all sorts of work building it up. 5" reverse shackle lift, rebuilt the engine and put a cam in it, webber carb, centerforce stage 3 clutch, header, and on and on. I loved that thing. I wish my dad would have been more into motorcycles though. I've only really gotten into them in the past 4 years or so. I haven't done a lot of work on them, but I'm learning. I will definitely teach my kids how to at least do some regular maintenance when I have kids.   

[gerhed]

Some good points

--I've spent most of a lifetime devoted to the I.C. engine

--but my last two projects have been all electric machines
--kind of refreshing to deal with motors that have one moving part!!!

[Coyote13]

Very inspiring. It saddens me every day how far we've moved from the "can-do" attitude that I grew up hearing about, yet never seeing fully. Maybe it was long gone before I got here 24 years ago, but then I tend to feel like I was born in the wrong time anyways.  I look at my life thus far and feel disappointed that I'm not one of these guys, one of these masters, that I don't have a shop full of tools, that I haven't harnessed the creative capability that lives restlessly in the pit of my soul. The day and age in which I find myself, however, seems as if it is dictating my future, instead of my hopes and dreams taking the reigns. Hearing someone else talk about what we're losing as a society when we become complacent and content with boring, with bland, with mainstream, with conformity is very motivating, to me at least, to carry on the traditions of our American forefathers, those that sweat, bled, and died to build an identity for this great country. An identity that seems to be losing the battle to the MTV's, the iPods, the flash and glamour. Keep up the good fight gentlemen. It may be a losing battle, but we have not lost yet.


Sorry for the run-ons, just thinking out loud