Whither the Motorcycle Shop?

Originally published in BMW Owners News.

The other day I told my wife that my friend Ken and I were going on a “shop crawl.”

“Really?” she said. “What’s that?” 

“It’s like a pub crawl,” I said hopefully. “That’s when you go from pub to pub and drink a pint at each stop. Only in this instance, you ride to a bunch of shops and buy a motorcycle at each one.”

“Hmmph,” she said with characteristic skepticism. “And how many shops are you planning to visit?”

“Just three,” I said. 

So, after surrendering my credit cards and checkbook, Ken and I set off on our all-day mission. First stop: a small, 50-year-old Honda dealership in Salinas, California. Within a few steps, I thought I’d passed through a portal in the space-time continuum. Bikes, new and old, were jumbled in the darkened showroom. Ancient pegboards displayed the wares of a bygone era: Allen head screw kits, pullers, velocity stacks. A spinning rack from the ‘70s held shop manuals for a 1967 Honda CL160 and a 1972 XL250. Old steel shelves contained a selection of tubes, oils, and polishes, covered with appropriate amounts of dust.

In other words, it was my kind of place: the type of shop I loitered in, endlessly, as a teenager. The kind of place you can’t find anymore. Back in the ‘70s there were three shops within a few miles of my Connecticut home. Day after day, I’d make my rounds, ponder my sorry financial condition, and dream of motorcycles. The shop owners would see me fogging up the windows, lusting after a blue SL70, and rush to hide catalogs and easily pilfered literature. Undaunted, I’d return several times a week, groping bikes and asking inane questions of the mechanics. (“Why are they called points? They’re not pointy.”)  It was heaven for a penniless teenager who longed for a large, fast motorcycle. 

Ken shares my disease, having started his motorcycling life in western New York on a Sears Allstate. He and I can talk all day about Honda’s full lineup for 1971, AMF Harleys, Combat Wombats, the demise of two-strokes, the proper use of a timing light, and other matters of dubious consequence to the world at large. 

Before leaving, and partially out of sympathy, I buy the service manual for the CL160 (in its original wrapper!). According to my twisted logic, if I have the manual, the rest is a fait accompli: I just need the motorcycle to go with it. At the last second, I add in a can of polish and one of those cool little fork seal cleaning tools. The entire transaction is written up on carbon paper (no computer here!), which I glance at, only to notice that the most expensive item (the shop manual) has been omitted by the salesperson, an elderly gentleman who appears to have worked there since the shop sold Honda Z50s for $239 in 1970. No wonder the whole enterprise seems moribund: they give merchandise away for free! Of course, I point out the error and pay what’s due—my small paen to a lovely old shop whose days seem to be numbered.

Our next stop is a nearby Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Suzuki dealer. This is a more modern enterprise, full of quads and side-by-sides, along with a pleasing jumble of bikes and boxes. I bend down, pick up a leather jacket, and notice that the price tag is emblazoned with the logo of a shop two towns away that recently went bankrupt. Now, I can’t blame the dealer for acquiring the inventory of a former competitor. At the same time, there’s something vulturous and predatory about this, a kind of ambulance chasing in moto world. It’s sad. And it’s common. The third shop was much the same.

Motorcycle shops: we hardly knew ye’

What’s happening to motorcycle shops? Not long ago, my hometown of Santa Cruz, California, was the perfect place for a weekend shop crawl. You could find every major brand within a few salty blocks of the ocean: Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Harley-Davidson, BMW, Yamaha, and Hinckley Triumph. There were multiple incarnations of Ducati and Moto-Guzzi dealers, for the discerning Italophile. You could even find a full set of gaskets or a Lucas wiring harness to patch up your weepy, flickering Meriden Triumph. 

But where are they now? Gone, like points and condensers—victims of the pandemic, a fickle market, and more than a few bad decisions.  Other shops are shedding brands, downsizing, and laying off employees. They try selling electric bicycles, scooters, and quads. Nothing seems to help.

Thirty years ago you could rattle your blue-smoke dream down main street and turn not one head. It was an age of three inches of suspension travel, anemic drum brakes, Steve McQueen, open land, and uncomplaining neighbors; a time when you could roost your way up the main fire road in what is now a State Park. After all, who would stop you? No one, that’s who. 

In the Silicon Valley, just an hour away, you can find modern, spacious shops with an espresso machine, leatherette couches, and a large screen TV playing the latest round of Moto GP—all the trappings of a modern, sanitized retail operation. But there is no dirt, no collection of Maico and CZ gas tanks, or old racing leathers with scuff marks. The mechanics area, when you actually get to view one, does not contain timing lights, degree wheels, Whitworth wrenches, or my personal favorite: a collection of holed and melted pistons, the result of an overexcited throttle hand in the days before rev limiters.  

You couldn’t jabber with a mechanic if you wanted to: they’re off limits, behind a wall, or sometimes plate glass. I get it: time is money, and they don’t want to be bothered. Then again, time ain’t money when all you got is time. That’s me. I’m retired, and I’ve come to linger. 

I like framed moto art and high-fidelity audio systems playing “Born to Be Wild.” But I also like exploded diagrams of engines thumbtacked to the wall, stacks of expired knobby tires, weathered gas tanks from old Bultacos and Pentons, and even the occasional girly poster in the bathroom. Politically incorrect? Of course. But I am of another age, and the very things that repulse new buyers, enthrall me. 

I know, having spent years in the bicycle industry (as a journalist and former bike shop employee), that the same thing is happening in that world. In fact, every retail channel is undergoing this sea change. The tactile experience of the retail store might just be dying. Alas, it seems like we hardly knew ye.

I am not innocent in this. I try to buy from shops. But, particularly since I do all my own service, I also buy lots of parts online, for convenience. Most people I know do.  Are we unwittingly contributing to the demise of the traditional motorcycle shop? Guilty as charged.

It’s not my purpose to propose a solution, try to influence anyone’s buying habits, or malign current economic trends. But here’s what I do know: I miss the smell of rubber and gasoline. I miss the banter of mechanics, and the pleasing racket of a compressor and tire machine. I miss the “parts guy,” ruling his small kingdom of clearly visible shelves spilling over with piston rings, inline fuel filters, and clutch cables in their original OE packaging. And, just maybe, I miss the girlie posters. 

Still, it’s been a good day. And, to my wife’s great relief, no bank accounts were harmed in the process.