My Hobby is Heart Break
Things that are “hard” are better, cooler, tougher, more manly, and more righteous than things that are “easy”. I think this is some footnote to the puritan work ethic I was raised with, and I am fairly certain that it has caused me more grief than satisfaction.
Recently I have decided to take my longtime love of motorcycles and turn it into a faster and much more expensive hobby by way of rebuilding a motorcycle for the track and some amateur road racing. The desire to rebuild a motorcycle to these ends was partly a financial decision and in part was fueled by my need to do things the hard way.
I found the bike I wanted a Triumph Daytona 675 on Craigslist in San Francisco. The bike sells new for about $9,400 and this was an ‘07 with only 1800 miles for $3,400. The catch, this bike had been crashed, did not run and had a salvage title. This was a dream come true, the price was right and I would have a great pain in the ass learning project on my hands. After talking to the owner I convinced myself that this could be rebuilt for about $2k and be ready to take to the track in a month, and I bought the bike.
I rented a truck and coerced my sister into driving to SF and back in a weekend to bring the bike home. Once I got it home the work began, and like every project i have ever done most projects it went well over budget and took about twice as long as I hoped. Rather than bore you with a description of all the work below is a slide show of my project and the bike.
So after all this work I can hardly wait to get to the race track on Memorial Day 5/26/2008. We are there early and roll the bikes off to go play on the track. After the first 3 laps of intense grinning I pulled into the pits to see look over the bike. Before I even got off I caught the faint smell of oil burning in my helmet then I looked down to see oil covering my rear-set and right boot. The feeling in my stomach was akin to the feeling you might get when your high school girlfriend says “we need to talk”. It is a the feeling of something good ending.
Reviewing the bike it was obvious that the seal around the clutch arm was the source of the leak and was not something that would be replaced that day.When it comes to hobbies they are supposed to be fun, they are supposed to be the way you enjoy the fruits of your labor, apparently not when you choose to do things the hard way. I could have just gone to the dealer plunked down some cash and been riding a brand new bike for a small monthly payment. No, not me instead I have spent $6k out of pocket and easily 100 hours of labor and my track day was a total failure.
Would I do it over if I could? Probably not, I love being in the garage working with my hands instead of in front of the computer, I have learned a ton about the bike, and if you were around when I first got the bike started you could have heard the whooping and hollaring a block away I was so excited. Sure this bike is far from perfect and I will almost certainly continue to have problems down the road, but this is the way I choose to tackle my hobbies.
Maybe I just need to redefine my “hobby”, maybe my hobby isn’t motorcycling or old cars or skiing maybe my hobby really is heartbreak and doing things the hard way.
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i know it is heart breaking to only get a teaser on your big track day but there will undoubtedly be more to come in the very near future. you are the best!