The Garage as Rubik’s Cube

Motorcycles Arrive, but None Ever Seem to Leave

Originally published in BMW Owners News.

Each time my wife and I return from an errand in the car, and press the garage door button, a vast collection of motorcycles is revealed. “My god,” she says, the door opening slowly. “Look at them all. Are we starting a museum?” 

Motorcycles are squeezed together like fins in some ancient rectifier. Toward the front is my 2016 R1200 GS. Tucked next to it, at a right angle, is my 1975 Honda CB400F. To one side, sitting on the hydraulic lift, is a 1978 R100/7. It’s not in need of service. It’s just that, well, there is no other place to put it. Off in the corner, somewhat forlorn, is the 1969 Honda Z50 I restored a few years back. Around the corner, in the side yard, you’ll find my 1986 Honda Reflex trials bike, under cover, chained to an anchor point that’s set in cement, competing for space with the refuse and recycling bins.  Never mind the bicycles. By last count, there were eight of those. It’s good that someone invented the wheel. Otherwise, my life would be entirely barren. 

Battery charger wires traverse the garage like some vast system of umbilical cords, or the local ICU. Kitty litter and various containers need to be appropriately positioned and regularly disposed of, due to widespread motorcycle incontinence. When I retired a few years back, I never imagined I would be faced with this degree of complexity. It occurs to me that maybe I should go back to work, just to relax. 

This inexplicable profusion of motorcycles makes even the simplest movement difficult. Accessing the trusty airhead, for instance, involves the following sequence: 

1. Open the garage and back my wife’s car into the street. 
2. Re-enter the garage, push the bike off its centerstand, and roll it into the street, adjacent to the car.
3. Pull the car back into the garage.
4. Move the airhead out of the street and into the driveway.
5. Go for a ride, and repeat the whole thing in reverse, trying not to have any embarrassing tipovers that would require calling 911 or using the Jaws of Life.

One false move and I’ll end up squirming like a beetle on the ground, covered by motorcycles. After decades of dutifully avoiding major crashes on the street, this may indeed be my fate. “Here lies Geoff, crushed under the weight of his own obsession. In the end it was the little Honda that got him.”

I’ve been married for more than 40 years, but it’s a condition I don’t take for granted. The profusion of bikes does not help.  A while back, in a moment of delusion, I agreed to make motorcycles a zero-sum game: if I acquired one, another one had to go. Have I adhered to this diplomatic protocol? Of course not. Motorcycles seem to arrive, but none ever leave. Bad Geoff! 

To get out the driver’s side door of her car, Meredith must open it gingerly, to avoid smacking the front wheel of the Slash 7. As she walks the short seven feet to the door, she has to pirouette around four bicycles and a workstand, before gracefully entering with armloads of groceries. Expletives are sometimes heard. Divorce lawyers stand ready. I try to make the case that daily garage ballet helps keep us young, supple, and light on our feet. So far, this argument has gained no traction whatsoever. She would just as soon get her exercise in Pilates class. 

I’m always on the lookout for square footage. It’s gotten to the point that neighbors flee when they see me approaching, wondering if I will ask to purloin space in their garages for decrepit motorcycles from distant decades. 

There is also the small matter of my motorcycle trailer, which lives variously in our driveway and on the street. On two occasions, when Meredith absolutely couldn’t stand looking at it anymore, the trailer was banished to two different friend’s houses, for months at a time. Until they got sick of it, and it came dejectedly back home again, a sad little orphan trailing its wiring harness and chains.

Ducati Decor

My friend Robb Talbott, who founded a motorcycle museum in Carmel Valley, California, has long made beautiful motorcycles part of his home décor. There’s a Ducati 916 in the foyer, and a Mondial in the dining area. I am not permitted these extravagances. Meredith spent her career in architecture and interior design, and “Motorcycles as Décor” was not part of the curriculum. I try to impress her with the beauty inherent in old bikes, waxing eloquent about the delicacy of the airhead’s pinstriping, or the sculptural quality of the CB400’s sumptuous, four-into-one pipes. “Wouldn’t these look great in the living room?” I ask.

“They can be a source of fascination outside,” she says. “The answer is no.”

But do I stop acquiring motorcycles? Of course not. Right now, for exactly no reason that I can ascertain, I’m earnestly seeking a twin-cylinder two stroke, such as a Yamaha RD350 or a Suzuki T500. So, preparations must inevitably be made. More Rubik’s cube activity.

Where will these smokers go, you ask? I have no idea, but if you have any room in your garage, I hope you’ll let me know.