Helping a friend

So i offered a colleague some help with replacing his chain and sprockets, my garage is better than many i guess, and i don't mind getting dirty to help. So we went through after work, stripped the wheel and chain and sprockets and proceeded to fit the new ones.

The job went from bad to worse to stupid to broken. Very very quickly. You see, he was in a hurry, to go on a date, where he'd promised the girl a ride. So quickly quickly, everything in a hurry. I discovered that part of the reason for haste was a non working headlight. I also discovered his back brakes were worn. Not worn as in the pads finished and the metal is scraping, i mean the metal was finished, and the disc is nearly gone. The sprockets were finished, not as in replace now, as in, they should have been replaced several years ago. GONE. No teeth on the front sprocket. Back sprocket slightly less bad, but way past worn, and teeth broken in some places. The chain was similarly beyond any hope.

The job failed, miserably. And i'm glad. I'm torn over not being able to help a friend, as i had planned. I feel like a bad mechanic and friend, those feeling are normal kneejerks to failing in the garage, with any job. But when i get through all the egotistical crap, there is a slow realisation that the bike standing forlornly in a foreign place is preventing it being ridden. And that is a positive thing. For now at least i guess.

I love bikes, i tolerate bikers, and i sincerely wish to see many many more on the roads around us. But the caveat is that it can only be done within a safety orientated framework. The thrill of the ride lasts only as long as the metal that makes it move, when the metal fails, so does the thrill. And when metal fails at high speed, so too ends the life of the person on it, and pillion too, if you're counting.

I also watched first hand how NOT to approach a mechanical repair job. The slow, ponderous, thoughtful approach of all the mechanics i know is there for a reason. Even when things go wrong, which they always do, taking slow allows a solution, eventually. Battering your will against the hard reality of cold metal brings blood, and pain, and fustration, and broken metal. And broken wills too.

I'm glad that the bike is broken, and not the rider. I'm glad that the bike is now going to be taken and fixed, by those who are trained to do so. This doesn't change my views on home repairs though, i've just reassembled my own bike's engine. But i have a much greater respect now for both the bike and the methods of approaching the bike. On the road and in the garage, respect first and foremost, for without that respect, fear and even awe of the engineering, we are but children playing with a very hot fire.

peace and love