Nathaniel Salzman

There are few certainties in life, yet there’s one thing I know for sure: I married well. I’ve lost count how many times I’ve heard a guy say “I used to have a bike, but my wife made me get rid of it.” I have one consistent, unapologetic response:

“It sounds like you should have married better.”

Back in March I paid a visit to a Chicago-area motorcycle institution. Each Sunday morning, bikers of all sorts descend on the Full Moon Diner for the weekly motorcycle gathering and ride.

At this point, my home shop is about 50% set up, but it’s still allowing me to get a lot done. It’s become an inspiring, energizing place where problems get solved and motorcycles get fixed. After successfully buttoning up the CB750, I’ve turned my attention back to my GL1100. Late last season I’d swapped the handlebars on the GL for a black set of superbike bars. These gave me a much more aggressive riding position than the stock touring bars, but without making me lean way over for clip-ons or clubman bars. While pretty comfortable, they weren’t quite where I wanted to be on the bike.

I work in an industry where “done” can sometimes have a very subjective definition. So one of the things that I really appreciate about working on mechanical things like motorcycles is that “done” is a very objective thing. As Matthew Crawford puts it in Shop Class as Soulcraft, a motorcycle “either runs or it doesn’t.” - Read More -

There are really two kinds of motorcycle repair jobs. There’s the bolt-on-bolt-off stuff, then there are the in-depth repair procedures. For me, both are fun in their own way, but the bolt-on-bolt-off jobs are great for near instant gratification. After kicking off 2012 with an inaugural ride of my Honda GL1100, I was really jones’n - Read More -