If we are to believe what the Buddhists tell us, that suffering is caused by desire and that true happiness is only to be achieved by not wanting—not an easy path to follow in the hyper-materialist world in which we live—what is one to do when one wants a certain motorcycle? The answer is to not want it too badly, and to not give in to the costly temptations of instant gratification. Let the motorcycle find its way to you. This philosophy has served me well over the years, as virtually all the bikes I've wanted have, sooner or later, come to me.

So it was with this 1965 305 Honda Dream, which I found quietly rotting away in the local salvage yard. Modern motorcycle shops, reeking of the consumerist Zeitgeist as they do, have always repelled me. But in the salvage yard, like a doctor in a refugee camp, I feel right at home, and the Dream called out to me like a long-lost friend. After some brief haggling and the exchange of $150.00 it was mine. (If only human friendships were so easily managed!)

My neighbor looks on in disbelief as I roll the rotting hulk into the backyard. Rusted, faded, and filthy, "Nightmare" would be a more fitting moniker. But, like Robert Pirsig and his handlebar shims made from aluminum beer can in Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I can see beneath the superficial form to the underlying function below.

Following the spark-and-gas mantra of the mechanic, I pop off the points cover and go to work. Because the Dream uses a 360¯ crank (meaning that both pistons rise and fall together) a single coil with dual leads and a single set of points are all that's needed. This means that one spark plug is firing on the exhaust stroke while the other fires on compression. It also makes for an extremely simple ignition system. Just slip a piece of cellophane from a CD wrapper between the closed points, put a wrench on the end of the crank, and adjust the points so that the cellophane is released when the timing marks line up. This absurdly simple process takes all of about ten minutes.

Then, off with the carb! Remove the jets and clean them with a single strand of copper wire pulled from an old wiring loom, cleanse the swamp growing in the float bowl and, everything spic and span, put it all back together. This technological tour-de force takes about forty-five minutes. Now, before forking out the big bucks for a new battery, borrow a battery from another bike, dump some fuel in the tank (check for fuel flow from the petcock) and tromp on the kickstarter.

Eureka! After 20 years in exile the Dream starts on the first kick! I can't believe it. Smiling at the once familiar engine sounds, and noticing the faint puffs of blue smoke from the left muffler, I am again reminded of what Peter Egan called, "the abiding patience of forgotten motorcycles."

Like a sixteen-year-old giddy with his first bike, I am excited beyond reason and, heart beating rapidly, can hardly wait to push it out of the yard and go for a ride. Zooming off down the street, exhaust blatting from rusted mufflers, I'm laughing like a fool, my teeth fully exposed for bug catching. The clutch is frozen, but after about 10 minutes of riding with the clutch pulled in it frees up and works fine.

After a few days of guiltless fun the smoke from the left exhaust shows no signs of abating, telling me that the rings on that cylinder are stuck in their lands. No worries, the bike will have to come apart for a thorough cleaning and repaint, anyway. And pulling the cylinder off these owner-friendly old Hondas is hardly more difficult than any of the other tasks.

The restoration proceeds without trouble. Quiet evenings are spent lacing stainless spokes, trips are made to the painter, a few bits get re-chromed, parts arrive from odd corners of America via the extensive classic-bike network - cheap therapy.

Bolting everything back together, I can almost feel the spirit of old Soichiro in every part. This is a bike built by mechanics for mechanics. It's easy to work on, everything fits, there's always space to get a wrench in where needed. And, make no mistake, this is one of the toughest and most reliable engines ever built. Unlike many modern bikes, which often run their camshafts directly on the head castings, these old Honda cams run in sturdy ball bearings, making them infinitely rebuildable. Huge crank bearings let you rev the snot out of it for hours on end with no concern of mechanical mayhem. But you must keep the oil clean and change it regularly, because the centrifugal filter on the left end of the crank is not nearly as efficient as a modern filter.

As the bike takes on recognizable shape, I find myself thinking back to when the first Dreams hit the streets. We thought they were the most pitiful excuses for motorcycles that we had ever seen - and we wouldn't have been seen dead on one. Only nerds rode Dreams, real men rode Triumphs, BSAs and Harleys. Today, most of those nerds are multi-millionaire tech mavens and the Dream, strangely enough, seems so very cool - and not just to aging boomers reminiscing about their carefree youth. What is truly remarkable is how cool it seems to young people. Again and again I get approached by twenty-somethings, all of whom invariably say: "Wow, what a cool bike. What is it?" They don't know whether it is old or new, Japanese or American. Free of prejudices, they judge it purely on appearances, which, in today's fashion-obsessed youth culture, are almost everything.

In Japan, this design was called the jinja bukkaku style, and it first appeared in 1957 on the 250cc C70. A jinja is a Shinto shrine and a bukkaku is a Buddhist temple. This was Soichiro Honda's bold attempt to create a uniquely Japanese design taken from traditional Japanese architecture, and it marked a radical departure from the largely derivative style of contemporary Japanese motorcycles. Judging from the large number of unsolicited compliments the Dream receives these days, one could make the argument that Honda was as far ahead of his time as a stylist as he was as an engine builder.

The Dream's dubious coolness aside, for me the Dream and other old bikes evoke the values we motorcyclists have so thoughtlessly abandoned - the values of motorcycling's paradise lost. These simple machines remind me that we can avoid the materialist trap set by our society and, in so doing, rediscover the essential qualities of motorcycling.
Unlike modern bikes, which intimidate the owner with mechanical complexities too mysterious for the uninitiated to ever unravel, the old bikes and their simple technology welcome your hands, your care. They invite you to take apart that carburetor, check those points, pop open that cover and have a look inside.

It is a care which is well rewarded.

Parking the Dream on the street the other evening, a middle-aged fellow walks by with his missus and the dog, comments favorably on the bike and says, wistfully: "Those were good bikes."

They still are.

Nick Voge writes an occasional column for SuperBikePlanet.com