Mechanics – part one.

I just got off the phone to the motorcycle mechanic, whose had my bike since it broke down the other week from lack of oil, and I’ve got to tell you those guys are crafty.

My car mechanic is great, AP Motors on Keele street Collingwood. Phil comes from a long line of ancestors who’ve run the shop, he’s always straight up about what’s possible and what’s a waste of money, and he often ignores me when I walk past his shop which keeps me keen in a ‘treat them mean’ kind of a way.

But Phil doesn’t know bikes. Not many mechanics do. The ones that do specialize in bikes are very aware of their rockstar automotive niche, and they’re not afraid to exploit it.

My latest mechanical misadventure has been interesting as the motorcycle guys I’ve been dealing with aren’t sure how much I know about bikes – and how much they can get away with.

Truth is, I know next to nothing, but I have hung around other motorcyclists enough to regurgitate some vaguely informed sounding statements every now and then, which has really thrown them off.

When I initially walked in the store I made sure to hide any trace of iPod or sunglasses, but it’s always been hard to do anything about my lack of manly physique and my bogan accent is ‘mildly put on’ at best.

There was two guys sitting at a desk down the back and the first thing they did was ignore me for about five minutes, like some kind of test. I’m not sure what a manly man would do in this situation, probably yell out something blokey and obscene in a gruff voice, but whatever it is I clearly didn’t do it because their disdain was glaring from word go.

It was pretty clear they had me pegged as a skinny white guy with no idea, and on a scale of motorcycle manliness I’m sure they would have rated me a 2 out of 10 (1 out of 10 being a girl).

One of them reluctantly rose from their titty porn strewn desk and flopped himself into the receptionist chair. Let’s call him John, not for any privacy reasons, just because I can’t remember.

‘What bike is it?’ he asked.

‘A CT110. The tow truck guy’s bringing it round the back.’

I deliberately avoided the words ‘Honda’ or ‘Postie bike’ as they’ve become mainstream as of late, and I believe that if I could have read John’s mind at this point his rating of me would have shimmied up from a 2 to a 3.

For me to ride such a utility type bike I was either some sort of extreme bush guy or an idiot with no savings, and considering I used the manly name I was probably the former.

‘What happened?’ he asked.

‘I forgot to put oil in it and it died.’

Back down to 2.

Both John and the guy still sitting at the titty porn clucked in unison, they knew they’d caught themselves a fat one. Titty porn guy was so confident that he jumped in with some honesty/cold hard facts talk.

‘If I were you I’d start calling round the wreckers now for a new engine. That thing will be seized up and no good to anyone.’

‘How much do you think an engine would cost from the wreckers?’ I asked.

‘Dunno. Bout $600 – $800? They’re hard to get as CT110′s rarely break. Unless you forget to put oil in them.’

‘But the whole bike only cost me $1250!’

‘Yep. We’ll do our best.’

I walked out of there feeling pretty down. I wasn’t sure how bad the engine damage would be, and I knew that they were setting me up with the initial $800 quote so that anything they charged later on that was less than that would feel like a bargain. I was powerless and everyone knew it.

Less than an hour later John called my mobile. I happened to be shopping in a perfume store at the time (searching for the perfect gift for my stepmum) and was in the process of sniffing some delightful scents, but I didn’t tell him that. Instead, I summoned my deepest occer voice from within the Gucci aisle.

‘Good news Jason, you’re a very luck man. The bike didn’t seize up, it just needs a service.’

Wow, things were looking up.

‘But…the clutch is pretty worn out. We’ll need to replace that. All up it should come to about $220, plus parts.’

Bang. The happy train had left the station and was heading express to Money Town. While $220 was manageable he made a point of not giving me a price on parts, and I knew for a fact that motorcycle dealerships make most of their money from parts.

But then I hit him with a game shifting blindsider, and he could barely hide his surprise.

‘Do you use genuine Honda parts? Because I don’t want any Chinese copy parts in there.’

SHAZAM. 4 out of 10, that’s right, I know about copy parts. That was a TWO point markup in the manly stakes.

‘We do use Chinese parts, but I can get a quote on some genuine parts.’

I’m lucky as I can get hold of such parts myself, and when I told him so he knew the terrain was getting rocky.

A page had been ripped out of John’s conning playbook, and I was sitting on 5 out of 10 man points with only $220 worth of labour to worry about. Things were looking up.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the saga, and for the love of god leave a comment.

Buying gear.

The second step to being a motorcyclist is buying gear. This is pretty tough, as it’s a pretty serious purchase and motorcycle stores are very aware that they have you by the bathing suit region.

Safety gear was a particularly important purchase for me, as I relied on it as a hefty weapon during my various ‘I don’t think you should get a motorcycle because I don’t want you to die’ debates.

As I spent a year working for a major motorcycle manufacturer I’m pretty savvy with the stats and arguments for the pursuit of motorcycling, and one of my favourites is the ‘look at these Kevlar jeans, I’ve seen footage of people being dragged on the ground behind bikes and they didn’t even get a bruise thanks to these amazing jeans’ maneuver.

That move is only second to the ‘according to the stats, about 50% of motorcycle deaths are a result of people not bothering to wear a helmet.’ I’m not really too sure about this one or who exactly is riding without helmets, I think I read it on the TAC website, it must be farm accidents and dickheads flogging ATV’s over boulders.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to start my gear purchasing spree with a second hand motorcycle jacket, which was given to me by my boss. Apart from that I had nothing but half maxed out credit card to sort me out, and oh was it a thrill.

I went to the Peter Stevens outlet, behind their Harley shop. I could write an essay about walking into that place with skinny jeans, a freshly shaven face and ridiculous sunglasses, but I won’t.

Contrary to what I’d hoped this outlet did not stock a bunch of sweet half priced Harley gear, which would have made a hilarious match to my CT110, but it did have a lot of discounted stuff.

Apparently motorcycle gear is also a victim to the ‘that is so last season’ fashion mindset, although if you ask me any motorcyclist that subscribes to that talk is a sucker or a wanker, of which I am neither.

I wandered around the store awkwardly for a while until I was greeted by James, the mildly socially awkward young guy who got visibly excited by my ‘I have nothing, I need to buy everything but a jacket’ spiel.

James knew a lot about helmets and was a pretty patient guy, which came in handy after I tried out every single helmet the place stocked. I learnt that helmets are not supposed to touch your chin, open faced helmets are a bad idea and that if you don’t pull the chin straps out really hard when you’re putting the helmet on it feels like your ears are getting ripped off.

He was adamant that the helmet shouldn’t rub this, press against that, but as we ran out of options he became more lax with these minor details.

I have this stupid habit of thinking I’ve bonded with sales people and feel really guilty if I don’t buy what they’re flogging me, like I’m personally responsible for paying their rent.

When I was taking the least uncomfortable helmet available to the counter to be ‘put aside’ for me I think both James and I knew that the helmet deal was looking very much unsealed, despite the 30 minutes he’d endured with me in the helmet aisle.

As an apology gesture I bought a pair of boots after only one try, and soon James and I found ourselves in the gloves aisle.

As with everything, there were some expensive options and some cheap options for gloves. James confided in me that sometimes he liked to go riding without gloves, apparently it’s really nice to feel the breeze between your fingers on a summer day.

Then the whole dynamic shifted.

As I revealed that I was a musician and quite protective of my hands, James’ happy go lucky demeanor evaporated and he smelt a hot sale. I’ve never seen a man change his tune so quickly.

‘Well you should probably be looking at these ones. They’re pretty expensive, but there’s actually tiny vents in them as well as bits of leather that bind your pinky to the next finger.’

‘Why would I want two of my fingers stuck together?’

‘It’s pretty common for people’s pinky fingers to get ripped off.’

‘Oh.’

‘That wouldn’t be too good for playing guitar wouldn’t it?’

‘No.’

He had me hook, line and sinker, until it became clear that there were no gloves in my size. Finally, free of the madness, I made moves to pay for the boots and get back to my car, which was probably getting near its parking ticket expiry.

‘What about a jacket?’ James asked.

I explained that I already had one that my boss had given me, something that I’d said from the start but he’d conveniently forgotten.

James was getting frantic now, the golden goose was slipping from his fingers.

‘Have you been fitted for it? The jacket is extremely important, if the pads are just one centimeter off it could be a problem…Was he the same size as you?’

‘Actually my boss was a women, but it fits pretty well.’

‘You’re wearing a WOMEN’S jacket??’

At this point I backed away, mumbling some line about coming back for the helmet, doing all I could to avoid James’ heartbroken gaze.

I felt bad for leaving him hanging like that, for about five minutes until I realized that as a result of being too polite to bail earlier on his gloves/jacket sales pitch I’d earned myself a parking fine. Fuck him and his stupid helmet.