The "operating room"
T Y SO N F R IT T S '
IN D Y GA R AG E
My workspace in Indianapolis started out in a area that is now full of vintage Hondas; from a CB550 with a sidecar for in-town trips with the family, to “Frankenstein” bikes built for motorcycle shows, to other vintage Hondas ranging from those in restored condition to “patina perfect” period mod bikes. Except for the three-foot mini ramps, complete with spine and four-foot extensions on the side, as long as the garage door stayed down, it didn’t stand out at all. It’s just a plain old two-car garage in the middle of the city next to a cultural trail for biking and walking. I had a new Honda Shadow I bought on payments right after I signed my first teaching contract, but nothing “vintage” at all. At that time, I was more focused on riding as much as possible. I took many longer trips to the east coast, Canada, or the gulf with friends. When the weather was nice, I’d open the back and paint little pieces of the chrome black and change the oil, but that was the extent to which I “worked on” bikes. I recall my friends working on their old Hondas and I always thought to myself, “That doesn’t look fun, I just want to ride!” That all changed when my neighbor a few doors down had his house foreclosed on. I just happened to be in my garage when he was driving The fleet through our alley and out of the neighborhood for the last time. He rolled down his window and yelled,”I’ve got some old bikes and tools in my garage that I don’t want, you can have them, just do it soon before the bank sends someone out.” My friend and I giddily ran down to check it out 28
WWW.AHRMA.ORG
and found a white CA95 “Benly” Dream in unrestored but complete condition, full of the usual mice nests and funk associated with band finds, and an older Yamaha V-Max along with an assortment of tools. I let my friend take the Yamaha. After dragging the Benly back to my garage, I started cleaning it out, researching parts. I will never forget getting it to fire for the first time and riding it down the alley, carb leaking all over the place, while holding up my makeshift plastic bottle gas tank. Once that one was road worthy, I bought a CB350F and it was all downhill from there. I quickly realized that as long as I had a bike that started and ran trouble-free, working on other bikes wasn’t stressful at all. In fact, it was, most of the time, actually more like a stress-relieving puzzle. A puzzle that, after hours and hours of work and a little bit of money, you could ride. An interesting sidenote about the CA95 150 Honda Dreams is that the word “Benly” is actually the Japanese for べんり(便利), which means convenient.
AMERICAN HISTORIC RACING MOTORCYCLE ASSOCIATION
NOVEMBER 2020
