The art of
motorcycle maintenance.
A small San Francisco workshop for the bikes worth keeping — honest service, and one-on-one classes that teach you to wrench your own machine. Air-cooled BMWs and SOHC Hondas a specialty.
Careful work on bikes worth keeping, by someone who has done it for 30 years.
Learn to set valves, balance carbs and trust your own hands — on your own bike.
Air-cooled BMW boxers and 1970s SOHC Hondas are what we know best.
What we know best
Our specialties
Free tool
The maintenance checklist
Before every ride, every month, every season — tick off the jobs that keep an old bike safe and sweet. Your progress saves as you go.
Open the checklistFrom the shop
Shop guides
Caring for a 1970–95 BMW airhead
Valve clearances, carb balance and a charging system you can understand. The airhead boxer is the friendliest classic to own.
Keeping a 1970s SOHC Honda running
Cam chain, carbs and points. The jobs that keep a CB350, CB550 or CB750 as smooth as the day it left the factory.
Learning to wrench: the art of motorcycle maintenance
One bike, one teacher, your own two hands. Why learning to maintain your motorcycle is the best thing you can do for it — and yourself.
On the bench
The bikes we love
The hunt
Finding a first project bike worth learning on
The best bike to learn on is a sound, simple one — an airhead boxer or a SOHC Honda. Buy stock and honest over cheap-and-modified, budget the sorting, and hunt online where the photos and history are laid out. Listings such as motorcycle auction are a practical place to find an honest project and price the work before you bid.
Read the buyer’s guide