Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The group’s spirits are lighter now that they have arrived in Montana. After bathing, the group walks around the streets together feeling like a happy family. When the others go about their day, the narrator begins tuning his bike. The engine has picked up a strange sound and he wants to find the source of the problem.

He thinks about how rational tuning a motorcycle is, and how most people do not realize this aspect of motorcycle maintenance. The narrator says that “a study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself (117).” The classic/romantic barrier is brought up again, where a motorcycle as a whole can be viewed romantically, and yet its parts, its underlying form as a mechanic would see it, all fall on the classic side. Even the tools used for repair might have a romantic look to them, but their purpose is a classical one, to change the underlying form.

A motorcycle is not maintained based on any romantic or perfectionist reason. The machines need to be maintained because one small mistake in the parts can result in a total breakdown of the whole.