Consider It Joy
Photos/S. L. Kelly.
By S. L. Kelly
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1: 2-4)
A little more than a year ago, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the world to pause. In the beginning, it was hard to understand how to move forward. After the lockdown, it felt like a kind of global reset presented an opportunity to take stock of life and all that is essential to it. My experience in the pandemic culminated in a lesson in what it actually takes to face any trial in life, pandemic or otherwise. Trials come to make us stronger. It took a run-in with a plastic fuel switch to remind me.
My life was routine and safe, bedrock even. To shake things up, in 2017, I decided to buy a motorcycle in hopes of fulfilling a childhood dream of riding across the country. I purchased a used Kawasaki Versys, a tall sport-touring motorcycle. I practiced riding for nine months, balancing the bike on my tiptoes at every stop. I saved money, purchased the necessary gear, and prepared for the trip. In July 2018, I rode that bike from Nevada to Florida and back. It was amazing. Fulfilling that challenge introduced a need to ride that has since become essential to my life. For me, riding is life, like breathing.
During the lockdown, I refrained from riding. The daily news reports of overworked first responders, overrun hospital emergency rooms, a lack of protective gear, and an inadequate number of ventilators for coronavirus patients kept me home, grounded. I did not want to add to an already stressful situation essential workers were experiencing in ERs across the city. One accident could send me to the “coronavirus” hot zone of the local hospital. Like everyone else, I stayed home. I prayed.
For a few months, working from home kept me busy and focused on completing daily goals. Still, the endless stream of news stories on the global fight against the virus fed my paranoia about what life might be post-pandemic. With each passing day, the walls began closing in on me. Work, news, worry, repeat. I needed an outlet. I needed to ride. This presented an issue. The prepaid maintenance package I had purchased when I bought my bike had expired, and due to the virus, I had put off taking the bike in for service for as long as I could trying to avoid contact with people. It was simple: I needed my bike. If I was going to ride, then service was necessary, and it was up to me.
To prep, I gave the bike the once over. I checked my previous service records, mileage, and consulted a service manual for maintenance tips. I checked the oil reservoir window and saw what looked like stale black coffee. I needed to change the oil, flush and replace the coolant, replace the air filter, and to solve a visibility issue I had while riding at night, I wanted to replace my stock headlights with LEDs. I purchased the necessary supplies for the job and picked a morning to begin my project. I was excited, and a bit nervous. What if I screwed something up and the bike wouldn’t start? How would I get it to the shop to get it repaired without a trailer? What if I did irreparable damage?
I started with the headlights. After watching several YouTube videos on how to convert a stock headlamp to an LED, I felt confident in my ability to perform this simple task. One thing all of the videos had in common was one caveat about a retainer clip that could pose a problem when installing the new bulb. Still, I felt I could handle it. Changing the first bulb proved to be no challenge. It took a few tries to replace the retainer clip, but it was not as tough as I had expected. The second bulb was a different story. When I attempted to replace the old bulb, I discovered that, unlike the left side, there was not enough space to maneuver my index finger inside the headlight assembly to replace the clip. I struggled for about 30 minutes. After several attempts, my fingers could take no more, so I gave up and tried a new method. This time, I disconnected the middle fairing from the front end of the bike to give myself room to work. With the middle fairing loose and supported by my left hand, I replaced the second LED with my right hand. When I finally set the last retainer clip into place, with sore index fingers, I was elated. “I got it!” All of the trouble it took just to get to this point was simply part of the process. Adapt. Adjust. Move forward.
After the bulb conversion, I was energized. I moved on to changing the oil and replacing the coolant with relative ease. These things were not altogether new to me. When I first decided to buy a motorcycle, I bought an older 250cc Honda on which to practice riding and to learn how to perform basic maintenance, so changing the oil held no mystery. I leaned into the work with renewed vigor and spirit.
The trouble started in my attempt to disconnect a fuel switch to free the tank from the frame. The switch is plastic, and the ends of the two lines are married by a tab that must be released in order to disconnect the fuel line. Further complicating things was the fact that the switch is positioned between the tank and the frame in such a way that, again, if you have large hands, the chances of easily freeing the tab from the housing are minimal. Full stop. No matter how much I contorted my hands to release the tab, it would not budge. I struggled with it for about 20 minutes. A sinking feeling came over me. I had gone too far. What was I thinking? I stepped back and looked at my bike, naked and in pieces. Nuts, bolts, plastic pins, and plastic fairings were scattered all over the garage floor. Afraid to move forward, I gave up. I felt like a fool.
When I was young, I can remember sitting in my father’s garage watching him do his work. It is one of my most vivid images of him: he in his Key overalls, face shield down, with a gloved hand holding a welding torch, hard at work making money with magic. There was not a single thing that he could not build, or a job he didn’t complete. To him, every task could be tackled “as long as you have the right tools and a little bit of know-how.” In his world, this was the way to get things done. “Slow down. Think. There’s got to be another way to release that switch.”
Defeated, I begrudgingly put the bike back together, reassembling every nut, bolt, plastic retainer pins, fairings, and all. I was embarrassed and ashamed of myself for foolishly going into territory in which I clearly didn’t belong. I had gotten in over my head. I closed my garage door on my failure. In my head, I kept hearing my father’s voice, “There’s gotta be a way to release that clip.” I was being haunted.
I went for a drive in my Jeep, Nate. When I got back home, 45 minutes later, I walked right past my unfinished maintenance project without even looking at it. Normally, it is all I can do not to look at my bike whenever I am in the garage. It is common knowledge among bikers that the only thing a biker loves more than riding and talking about their bike is looking at it. I fell into my favorite chair in my living room, tormented by the fact that I was so easily defeated by a plastic fuel switch. This could not stand. I thought about it, and went back to the drawing board, YouTube! I looked up more videos on how to remove the gas tank on my make and model of bike. There had to be something that I was missing. There had to be a way to free that switch. I went back out to the garage and took the bike apart again. I had to finish the job. That gas tank was coming off one way or another.
On this second attempt, my fear of doing damage to the bike dissipated. I took control of the situation. I studied the repair manual instructional photos, and I watched another video on the process of removing the tank a few more times, rewinding as necessary, before I again attempted to disconnect the switch. This time, I slowed down. I allowed myself to breathe while working my fingers into position to release the tab that would release the switch. After a few tries, the tab was released with little effort. It felt like the last nerve holding on to a loose tooth had finally given in, revealing the prettiest gap-toothed grin! With the switch loose, I slowly pulled the gas tank away from the frame and set it on the garage floor. With the tank off the bike, the skeleton of my machine was exposed, sparse. There is not a lot to a motorcycle. The technology that makes the bike go is minimal. A frame, an engine, a gas tank, wiring, battery, handlebars, seat, and wheels. This is part of the beauty of the machine. Altogether, when properly maintained, these things produce magic.
With the tank off, I replaced the air filter and slowly put the bike back together. I wanted to make the moment last. There was no need to rush. I had to make sure that every piece was secure. I relished every second. The sense of accomplishment was overwhelming. I had done it. I completed my project on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2021.
The next day, I rode to lunch with a friend as a test run. On the I-15, we merged into traffic like corpuscles in the bloodstream, sailing past the Strip amid the President’s Day tourists heading west towards Los Angeles. Riding a motorcycle on a freeway is like a dance. You find the beat in order to enjoy the rhythm. Timed just right, you fly along to the melody of traffic, jockeying for the optimal position. With the wind in my face, and a slight grip on the throttle, I embraced the vibration and the steady pull of the engine, listening for any change in rhythm. The work was done. I smiled inside thinking, “It’s perfect. The magic is back.”
As I ride my bike along streets slowly waking in the midst of shared trauma, I twist the throttle, change lanes, understanding all that is required to endure life in a pandemic is faith, “a few tools, and a little bit of know-how.”
Professor, music lover, motorcyclist. S. L. Kelly is one of the little people who makes things happen. She is a true believer in the notion that every problem can be solved with a long ride on a motorcycle.
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