Baling wire & zip ties
Over the course of my life, I’ve been the proud owner of several old Hondas and one crusty KLR 650. All of which were carbureted, occasionally reliable, and often cranky. My toolkit included an adjustable crescent wrench, baling wire, some random screwdrivers, and the Haynes manual.
I was young and generally short on cash. So when things went wrong, I would scratch my head, bandage the bike as best as possible, and keep on riding.
My first motorbike was an old CB750 and I kept a rubber mallet tucked under a bungee cord on the back seat. The fuel float had a habit of sticking and needed a gentle reminder that spewing gas was not the proper thing to do.
The CX500 has a look only your grandpa (and, apparently, me) could love. With its Guzzi-inspired v-twin and shaft drive, mine was issue-free, other than when the cylinder cover puked oil on my leg for 100 miles until I could buy some gasket-maker to smear on it.
The KLR had its own set of issues, namely that it was my first adventure bike and had a tendency to tip over. The desert-brittled plastics hit the ground so often that they were more zip ties and epoxy than actual protective shrouds.
Back then, the Haynes manual was my bible, but gone are the days of paper schematics. My repair kit now contains a Verizon unlimited data plan so I can google my bikes back to working order.
Though not much more scientific than in my 20s, my wrenching process is decidedly more high tech: watch a half-dozen YouTube videos, google some diagrams, attempt to determine how all the bits go together, and hope that there’s nothing too important looking leftover at the end.
I’ve never been an expert mechanic; I just love the process of figuring things out. Working on your bike is refreshing and logical, even when it’s frustrating. It’s an honest conversation between you and a chunk of metal. When you’re doing something right, the precision-milled pieces fit perfectly together. When you’re doing something wrong, the bike lets you know in a neutral way. Nope, you’ve got that cross threaded, just back it out and try again.
Even though I ride a fancy, fuel injected motorcycle now, I still love working on my bike. Getting my hands dirty, making adjustments, and fixing things myself feels more real and tactile than virtually anything else in my life.
My toolkit now is a curated collection of Torx bits, tire repair, and appropriately sized wrenches to suit each BMW bolt. It can get me darn close to fixing any problem that might come up on the fly. And for the things I can't fix in the field, I keep baling wire and zip ties in there too. Because sometimes you just scratch your head, slap on some gasket maker, and keep on riding.