Two Wheels Move the Soul

 (Late acknowledgement of International Woman's Day, loosely based on my mother who rode motorcycles and pinstriped bicycles by hand. Story from my current book Dead People From the Attic)

 

 

Two Wheels Move the Soul

There were only two women in the motorcycle club and Jane was one of them. She had read somewhere – “Four wheels move the body but two wheels move the soul.” She firmly believed it. She was thirteen when her brother, after much nagging on her part, had let her ride his Indian Scout. Even though her toes barely touched the ground and it almost fell on her once, she was smitten. From that time on her goal was to own a motorcycle - not just any motorcycle, but an Indian just like her brother’s.

It took Jane five years of relentless scrimping and saving to come up with the money to buy a fifteen-year-old Indian Scout. The bike had seen better days, but she had been hanging around the fringes of the motorcycle world for five years and had picked up a lot of information along the way.

Her brother Elliot was a mechanic and had his own garage so she had access to all the tools she would need. He also had an unused bay that he used to store tires, oil and what not. She talked him into letting her use the bay to work on her Indian. Little did he know when he gave her permission that she was going to nearly live there for six months. Somehow she had acquired a maintenance manual for her bike and planned to tear it down all the way and rebuild it.

Jane was not for doing something half way. Once she had it fully dis-assembled, she took the frame, fenders and gas tank to the local bicycle shop. She had worked for Mr. Small during the war painting and pin striping bicycles. Since all steel was being sent to the war at that time, new bicycles didn’t exist. Mr. Small’s shop would tear down an old bicycle, then re-chrome the handle bars, strip the frame and fenders and the lacquer them.

The final touch was to add the pin stripes on the fenders. It looked like a new bicycle when they finished with it.

Mr. Small took on the project and didn’t charge Jane anything. He had some fire engine red lacquer ready to go. All Jane had to do was strip off the old paint and get it down to the bare metal. After everything was dry she used her pin striping talent to do some fancy flourishes on the fenders.

There was still the matter of rebuilding the engine and re-assembling everything. Jane got a little help from her brother, but most of it she did in her free time when not working as a switchboard operator for the telephone company. She could have gotten her Indian back in shape sooner by paying to have the work done, but she wanted the satisfaction of having done it herself. She’d bought it in October and figured if she had it on the road by spring she would be happy.

Word had spread about this cute girl working on a motor- cycle over at Hancock’s garage. Her brother didn’t encourage a bunch of motorcyclists hanging around, but he really couldn’t chase them off either. They bought gas, oil and tires, so it was good for business. Besides, pretty soon it would be too cold and the guys would have packed away their cycles until spring. By then Jane should have her bike back together and be out of the storage bay.

Well, April rolled around and Jane unveiled the Scout. It was gorgeous. She had polished all the chrome and waxed all other surfaces. It nearly sparkled in the early April sunshine. Then she kick started it – it fired off on the first kick. It had a low throaty purr. She put on her helmet and took it for its maiden cruise.

Elliot was envious of her “new” motorcycle. Even though his was newer, her bike looked like it had just rolled off the assembly

line. She rolled back in and asked Elliot if he’d like to take it for a spin. Elliot didn’t want to look too eager but thought it might be a good idea to make sure nothing was wrong with it.

Elliot took it out and opened it up on the straight-away

going out of town. He hit eighty miles per hour before he slowed down. It was perfect; no vibration, no hesitation. He had to admit it, she’d done a damned good job.

For the next month or so she took it out to every speed trial she could find. Every time she won, beating all other bikes in her class. Of course, she had tweaked it just a bit. She’d polished the cylinder walls, adjusted the fuel to air ratio to be optimal and a couple of other things that she was keeping to herself.

Word began to get around and many of the guys that had poo pooed a woman motorcyclist were eating their words. They were even coming to her for mechanical advice.

Jane realized she was spending too much time on other people’s bikes and not having any time for her own. Something had to give.

Jane went and had a talk with Elliot and they came to an agreement. He would let her use half of the storage bay and his tools, free for six months. After that if she thought there was enough business he would start charging her rent, otherwise she would close up shop. They shook on it and the next day she turned in her resignation at the telephone company.

After the first month, she had a waiting list of customers for her service. After six months, she was paying Elliott rent and was happier than she had ever been. The business grew until she had to move to her own garage. At this point she was able to hire some up and coming mechanics, including one woman. Her reputation grew and she could be seen from time to time at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah consulting with one team

or another. She was there in 1967 when Burt Munro broke the land speed record with his modified Indian. They were to become good friends and corresponded regularly until his death in 1978.

Jane never broke any speed records, but may have had a hand in some of them. Although she could now afford any motorcycle that she wanted, she continued to ride the Scout that she rebuilt. As parts wore out it was getting harder and harder to find them, but she always managed. She was seventy-three when she had a stroke. The doctors said if she hadn’t been on that motorcycle at the time she may have lived.

She had made prior arrangements so that her headstone was engraved with a picture of her beloved Indian Motorcycle and the words “Two wheels move the soul.”