Famous bike from 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' finds new (very public) home

If you've read Robert Pirsig's book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," you’ve spent time with his cycle, "the most famous forgotten motorcycle in American history," says Smithsonian curator Paul Johnston.

You’ve been in the saddle, rolling philosophically across the Dakotas. You've crouched next to the engine for a quality tune-up in the shade of a remote hotel in Montana.

Maybe you, like millions of readers, have been influenced by the bestselling 1974 book that ruminates about quality, technology and values in the 50 years since its publication.

Perhaps you’ve delved into philosophy, dared to tinker with engines, or become one of the passionate “Pirsig’s Pilgrims” who have retraced the book's Zen motorcycle ride across the country.

Now you, and the rest of America, will be able to see Pirsig’s motorcycle yourself. His 1966 Honda Super Hawk, with 33,213 miles on the odometer, will be exhibited at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., starting April 15.

Can't see our graphics? Click on this link.

And you may be surprised to learn Pirsig's motorcycle is a Honda. He never identifies it in his book – it's known only as "the cycle" or "the machine." 

"He often said the brand wasn't relevant and mentioning it would be a distraction," says Wendy Pirsig, widow of Robert Pirsig, who died in 2017 at age 88. Photos from the ride weren't made public until around 2000.

Pirsig used the ride to frame an intense philosophical work that was published to wide acclaim and is still relevant today.

With his 11-year-old son, Chris, on the back, Pirsig rode this cycle roughly 2,800 miles from Minneapolis to San Francisco and back in 1968. (The total is 5,700 miles, according to Johnston, who researched the return trip.) Two friends, John and Sylvia Sutherland on a BMW R60/2, accompanied the Pirsigs as far as Bozeman, Montana.

"This Honda motorcycle's had a life; it's had a story," says Dawn Wallace, an objects conservator for the American history museum. She headed the group that spent many hours preparing the cycle for exhibit. "We didn't want to polish away that story.

"There are different modifications to the bike. You can tell some parts have been dented, like the fenders, and others that have been welded back together.

"It's really nice to see how it's been used," Wallace says. "You can see the evidence of human use."

How did Pirsig's motorcycle find a home in the Smithsonian?

The decision to donate the cycle "was sort of an end-of-life conversation that my husband and I had as we got older," Wendy Pirsig says.

"We didn't have a plan for it, but some friends suggested the Smithsonian," she says. "We reached out and they were glad to accept it. It was mutually agreeable."

Wendy Pirsig contacted the Smithsonian in 2016 to ask if it would be interested in acquiring the motorcycle and other items associated with the book. The call was transferred to Johnston, curator of transportation at the American history museum.

"I've been riding motorcycles since I was 11 years old," says Johnston, who specializes in maritime artifacts, motorcycles, race cars and road transportation. "I'm a lifelong rider and lover of motorcycles. To me, the acquisition was a no-brainer."

Johnston has since become an authority on Pirsig. He has written a number of articles about the cycle exhibit, Pirsig's boat, and his writing.

"Everyone knows about Evel Knievel's bike, which we have, and Captain America and Easy Rider," Johnston says. But with Pirsig's motorcycle, "nobody ever followed through. I thought, well, here's a chance."

Johnston visited Wendy Pirsig in Maine. In the family's garage, he found the cycle connected to a trickle charger, an electrical device that keeps an unused battery charged. He discovered the Pirsigs had meticulously catalogued thousands of photographs, documents and other items.

Wendy Pirsig "took me down to the basement and I went through every single toolbox, every box of archives," Johnston says. "I selected what I thought was a representative example of both (Robert Pirsig's) riding and writing."

The Honda, Pirsig's beloved tools, typewriter, computer and other articles were crated and shipped to the Smithsonian.

The cycle and Pirsig's things "are an amazing collection to bring in," says Anthea Hartig, the Elizabeth MacMillan Director of the National Museum of American History.

Exhibit marks 50th year of famous book's publication

The cycle exhibit is part of the 50th anniversary of the book, which has sold more than 5 million copies in at least 27 languages. It's revved up anticipation among motorcycle riders, philosophy buffs, Smithsonian staff, and even those who started reading the book but skidded off the road when the metaphysics got too slippery.

The book – with its peculiar but intriguing title, as The New York Times noted – rapidly became part of American culture and is still popular. Its current anniversary edition contains a foreword by Matthew Crawford, the bestselling author of "Shop Class as Soulcraft" and "Why We Drive."

The motorcycle is a crucial element of the book, and the book is an essential part of the Smithsonian exhibit. You couldn't have one without the other.

"It's a great gift to the 50th year of the book to put the motorcycle on display now," Hartig says. For the Smithsonian, "it's an honor when people give you their family's material culture. It's incredibly humbling."

Pirsig's book "has been called a cultural zeitgeist," says Mark Richardson, an automotive journalist and author of the 2008 book "Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

"There was nothing else quite like it at the time."

Pirsig crafted his book "in a very interesting way, through the premise of the motorcycle road trip," Richardson says.

That's because "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values" – its full title – is a complex, thought-provoking book. Readers may come for the motorcycle trip, but many stay for Pirsig's philosophical ideas.

"I think the ride helped to bring in more readers and attract more people," Richardson says. "Rather than just reading a textbook, they're able to read a more interesting novel, which shows off his ideas."

Where did the book's title come from?

In a talk given to students at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design on May 20, 1974, Pirsig recounts his friend John Sutherland talking about the 1948 book "Zen in the Art of Archery."

Pirsig noticed the engine of Sutherland's Harley-Davidson was firing improperly and thought what Sutherland needed was a book on Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

"That's where it all started," Pirsig says.

It's rare to see vehicles from literature in a museum

Besides Pirsig's Honda in the Smithsonian, two other book-related examples are:

• John Steinbeck's 1960 GMC pickup truck/camper (named "Rocinante") from "Travels with Charley" in the National Steinbeck Center.
• Ted Simon's 1973 Triumph Tiger 100 motorcycle from "Jupiter's Travels" in the Coventry Transport Museum in England.

Super Hawk was good choice for Zen ride

When you look at Pirsig's cycle, you won't just see a machine that's unique in American literature. You'll also be looking at a milestone in motorcycling.

It made "perfect sense" for Pirsig to use a Super Hawk, says Aaron Frank, a motorcycle journalist and author of "Honda Motorcycles," a 2003 book that reviews the company's history and its impact on motorcycling.

"In the '60s, the Super Hawk was the most elegantly engineered, high-quality motorcycle you could buy," Frank says.

The Super Hawk was "Honda's first real motorcycle, and in a lot of ways, the first modern Japanese motorcycle," Frank says. "It's kind of impossible to overstate how important that bike was."

When the Super Hawk was introduced, "people took notice because it was reliable," says Jon Kosmoski, a software designer who rebuilds vintage Hondas, including Super Hawks, as a hobby in Neptune Beach, Florida.

He has worked on nearly a dozen Super Hawks over the years. In college, a Super Hawk was his main mode of transportation.

"It would do 100 miles an hour, nuts stayed on their bolts, and it didn't vibrate itself to death, like a Harley or Triumph would," Kosmoski says. "You could start it with a push of a button. That was unheard-of."

With a rugged tubular frame and cushiony telescopic fork, Super Hawks were "cheap, easy to live with, didn't leak oil, didn't vibrate, handled well, and went fast. Everything about it was revolutionary," Frank says.

"And it was easy to work on," Frank says. In the book, "Pirsig is working on it all the time. It's definitely not like a modern motorcycle, where you have a computer and electronic fuel injection and all that stuff.

"It was an analog machine that was easy to fix with a handful of tools you could carry under the seat. I honestly couldn't imagine him on any other bike."

Can Pirsig's book be difficult to understand? Yes.

When you open Pirsig's book, "you're expecting to read a motorcycle trip story," Richardson says. "But it's not a motorcycle trip story."

"The first thing I emphasize is the book is actually a novel," says Adam Rose, an instructor at the University of Chicago's Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies who teaches Pirsig's work in philosophy classes. "It's a work of literary art."

The book is a fictionalized account of the motorcycle trip, not a diary, noted the New York Times in its obituary of Robert Pirsig in 2017. The people and the ride were real, but Pirsig changed some aspects to illustrate philosophical points.

During the ride, the author uses a series of inner monologues, which he calls Chautauquas, to explore his philosophy, including the uneasy relationship of technology and its users and the lack of quality in American life. He also reveals his own struggles with schizophrenia, which was treated with electroshock therapy.

"I think it's clear the novel is a geographical journey that's a metaphor for a philosophical journey," Rose says.

While other books like Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," John Steinbeck's "Travels With Charley," or William Least Heat-Moon's "Blue Highways" have some kind of meditation on philosophical or social issues, they're still mostly the great American Road Trip, Rose says.

In Pirsig's book, "the road trip is the sugar that makes the philosophy medicine go down."

Many readers read the book more than once

Not everyone loves the book.

"Most academic philosophers ignore it or bad-mouth it quietly, and I wondered why that was," Robert Pirsig said in a 2006 interview. "I suspect it may have something to do with my insistence that Quality not be defined."

But there are many readers who do.

"Every time I read it, I find something I've missed before," Richardson says. "And I've read it many times, trust me.

"What I got out of it was a basic message that it's OK to actually step back. Take a deep breath, look at what you're doing, and look at how to do a better job properly, rather than just sort of hack through something and get on with the next step, which is what we tend to do these days."

Says Rose: "The book is philosophy, the way Socrates did philosophy, in the sense of helping you lead a better and more fulfilling life. A big part of it shows you don't need to go to the ashram or monastery. The ashram is within you.

"We can have it here. We can find wisdom, peace, contentment, quality – which is the key word – quality of life," he says. "It's all right here now, if we better understand ourselves and the world around us," Rose says.

John Chorne, who's helping organize a ride in honor of the book's 50th year of publication, says: "It's such an impactful book that I keep going back to it during different points in my life. Anytime I feel like I'm getting more consumed by the material world, I'm drawn to the book to get a bit more centered and balanced. I've read it at least four or five times."

It's worth noting that Pirsig worked hard to find someone who would publish his manuscript. He contacted 121 publishers before finding James Landis at William Morrow (now HarperCollins).

Exhibit pays homage to Pirsig's sailing days and second book

Robert Pirsig loved motorcycles. He also loved to sail.

"I found out about the maritime side when I went to look at the bike and met Mrs. Pirsig," Johnston says. "No one had any idea that Robert Pirsig had this abiding maritime interest throughout his life."

With proceeds from "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," Pirsig bought a $60,000 Westsail fiberglass cutter, a 32-foot vessel built for ocean sailing, in 1975. He named it Arete, the Greek word for excellence.

He and Wendy Pirsig learned celestial navigation and took the boat to Europe, inadvertently sailing through a storm in which several people died in the Irish Sea during the Fastnet yacht race on Aug. 14, 1979.

"We landed in England and visited the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden and France," Wendy Pirsig says.

Pirsig worked on his second book, "Lila: An Inquiry into Morals," while living aboard the ship in foreign ports. That book was published in 1991.

The Pirsigs eventually returned to the U.S. and took the ship on short trips around New England for years. They sold the vessel in 2014.

The Smithsonian exhibit contains a number of items from Arete and a watercolor painting of the ship.

How would Robert Pirsig feel about all this?

"I'm sure he would have been honored if he had lived to see the bike accepted and exhibited there," Wendy Pirsig says. That's in addition to his tools, manuals, typewriter and other memorabilia.

"Throughout his entire life, Robert was very happy that both of his books continued to be read," Wendy Pirsig says. "This exhibit will bring attention to them as well."

Would Robert Pirsig have visited the Smithsonian himself to see his cycle? "Most likely," she says.

"I'd think he'd love it," Richardson says. "I think he would consider the idea of the bike being cleaned up and in the Smithsonian as wonderful."

How does the Smithsonian hope the public will respond to the exhibit?

"I think the exhibit will reawaken interest in the book," Johnston says. "It'll resonate with the motorcycling community."

Those who work with their hands may also appreciate the exhibit. "Pirsig is an icon of the do-it-yourself community," Johnston says. "He's one of the idols of DIY, because he really maintained things himself."

"I hope visitors, even if they really know the book and worship Robert Pirsig, get a deeper understanding or affirmation of the story after seeing the bike," Hartig says.

Later 'Zen' editions include heartbreaking note

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" was reissued in 1984. In that edition, Robert Pirsig wrote: "The receding Ancient Greek perspective of the past ten years has a very dark side. Chris is dead."

Chris Pirsig, two weeks shy of his 23rd birthday, was stabbed to death in a street mugging in San Francisco on Nov. 17, 1979.

"I go on living, more from force of habit than anything else," Pirsig wrote.

Books by Robert Pirsig

• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values: William Morrow, April 1974
• Lila: An Inquiry into Morals: Bantam Books, November 1991
• On Quality: An Inquiry into Excellence (Unpublished and selected writings edited by Wendy Pirsig), Mariner Books, April 2022

Also:

• Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Ronald L. DiSanto and Thomas J. Steele, William Morrow, November 1990
• Lila's Child: An Inquiry into Quality compiled by Dan Glover with introduction and annotations by Robert Pirsig, 1stBooks, February 2002

Want to learn more?

• Robert Pirsig Association: www.robertpirsig.org
• International Journal of Motorcycle Studies: motorcyclestudies.org
• Online classes:adamrose.us/june-2024-courses-zen-art-motorcycle-maintenance-zmm50

Here's how to see the Smithsonian's Pirsig exhibit

Robert Pirsig's Honda Super Hawk and other items will be on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, 1300 Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C., 20560.

You'll find the cycle and other items in the "America on the Move" exhibition on the museum's first floor, in the East Wing.

The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. every day, except for Dec. 25. Admission is free and no tickets are required.

And finally: If you come away from the exhibit wanting to read Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" yourself, stop by the museum's gift shop. Copies will be available for sale.

Photographs from Robert Pirsig's 1968 motorcycle ride are courtesy of Wendy Pirsig; museum photos are by Jaclyn Nash and are courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Sourcing for this story includes USA TODAY Graphics reporting and research and interviews with staff of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. Other sources include Montana State University; The Robert Pirsig Association; National Maritime Historical Society; the International Journal of Motorcycle Studies; Sea History Magazine; and the National Institute of Health's National Library of Medicine. Special thanks to Melinda Machado, director of the National Museum of American History's Office of Communications and Marketing, Integrated Communications.