Posted on 03/02/2006 12:28:37 PM PST by martin_fierro
ZEN MOTORCYCLE PHOTOGRAPHY REVEALED
02 March 2006
Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance photographs have surfaced on the Internet.
Some of you may have heard of it, and some may have even read it. Written in the late Sixties the book 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' was a huge hit in the Seventies and even people who didn't ride motorcycle read it. It was in everyone's bookshelf.
The book was based upon a cross-USA motorcycle trip taken by the author Robert Pirsig and mixed the riding experience with Pirsig's mental ramblings on the theme of life, the Universe and everything. However, none of the photographs taken by Pirsig were included.
Now, the photographs have surfaced and can be viewed by going to:
It was a great book. It taught me how do housework with the proper zenlike attitude.
 |
  |
| Visit the FMH Swag Store & support FR! | |
| Send FReepmail if you want on/off FMH list | |
| The List of Ping Lists | |
BMW is excellent for touring.
Prince Charles looks so young in those photos.
That looks pretty cold.
Brrrr.
The Cliff Notes version of the book:
Man buys Japanese motorcycle, rides it across country and ultimately realizes he'd previously gone insane trying to determine the meaning of the term "quality" as referenced from previous Japanese motorcycle.
Don't flame me; I didn't write the book . . .
Heck no. My moto has no windshield and I-280 at 45degrees feels like Jack Frost is trying to kill me.
I probably ought to get a balaclava or something for such rides.
You ride I-280? We oughtta go riding sometime.
Or maybe it was the numerous toxins in my body that prevented me from understanding English.
In either case, I tried to read it and just didn't get it.
Sadly, I believe the author's son, who figured quite prominently in the book, was murdered during a robbery when he was in his early 20's.
zen ping
Maybe we need to talk about restoring an early Hawk.
Yeah if I decide to work on the weekends. Not during the week (Caltrain it), too many crazies.
A SJ FReeper ride sounds like fun to me.
Read it about thirty years ago and it was a 'one-gulper' at the time; I might see it differently now... or maybe not. At the most elementary level, I was struck that he noted the way you can smell things and feel tiny temperature changes on a bike, and how a car carries with it a cage of the familiar that keeps you from being entirely where you are, the way bike touring lets you be.
True all dat.
The sorta "square" couple he was riding with at the time were appalled. I guess they were sort of proto-yuppies, wanting the status symbol bike part over the functionality.
Every engineer should read the book.
SD
Sounds like my early riding experiences on a leaky old HD/AMF/Aermacchi SS350
Used gumbands (yunz know what those are) to add tension to the kickstand, and a cut slice of green garden hose to deflect oil leakage downwards.
If that's Zen, I was it.
Good book, I still have copy. ;);)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.