The People Who Earn It

Nyx has been sick.

For those of you who don't speak fluent Kate, Nyx is my 2025 Harley-Davidson Road Glide, and she decided a couple of weeks ago that leaving me stranded at work would be an appropriate way to express her feelings. That led to one of those wonderfully hectic mornings involving a pickup truck, a rented trailer, and me questioning whether motorcycles have a sense of humor.

I think they do.

Once I got her home, there wasn't much I could do except wait for my mechanic to have time to look at her.

Now, about my mechanic.

He's incredible.

I don't throw compliments around lightly. Hell, I spend half my blog complaining about people who are bad at their jobs. But every now and then you run into someone who's so damned good at what they do that it reminds you what professionalism is supposed to look like.

That's him.

Every time he touches one of my bikes, it comes back... better. Not just repaired. Better. Closer to what I wanted the bike to be in the first place. He understands motorcycles in a way I never will, and I trust that expertise completely.

Maybe more importantly, he never lies to me.

He doesn't promise impossible timelines. He doesn't sugarcoat bad news. He doesn't tell me what I want to hear. He tells me what's true. If it's going to cost money, he tells me. If it's going to take time, he tells me. If he doesn't know yet, he says he doesn't know yet.

That kind of honesty is surprisingly rare.

He's a small shop. Just him and a helper. But he's always busy because people know good work when they see it. So I try not to bother him. I know that if my phone isn't ringing, it's because he's busy doing what I hired him to do. Besides, every minute he spends answering texts is another minute he isn't fixing somebody's bike.

So I waited.

At least, I tried to.

Yesterday was day eight, and my brain started doing what brains do when they're given too much ambiguity. It wasn't impatience. I have another motorcycle. I'm still riding every day. I wasn't sitting around feeling sorry for myself.

I was worried.

What if it was something catastrophic? What if the engine had decided it was done with this whole "running" thing? What if I was looking at weeks of downtime and a repair bill big enough to make me question my life choices?

I hate not knowing.

So I finally caved and sent him a text.

"Just checking in."

His response was exactly what I should've expected.

Yeah, he found the problem.

Of course he did.

People this good don't stop until they figure it out.

Not only had he diagnosed the issue, but he also managed to get my exhaust replaced under warranty because one of the baffles had failed. I wasn't expecting that. I was expecting a repair bill.

Instead, he found a way to save me money.

Now we're just waiting on the new pipes to arrive. Sometime next week Nyx will come home a little healthier, a little louder, and with just a little more attitude than she had before.

I honestly can't wait.

The whole experience got me thinking, though. I've spent a lot of time lately writing about people and institutions that have disappointed me. Cities that don't answer questions. Organizations that don't seem interested in listening. Leaders who talk more than they hear. Systems that somehow manage to make obvious problems feel invisible.

Maybe that's why this stood out so much.

There are still people out there who simply do exceptional work.

They don't need to tell you how good they are. They don't need motivational quotes on LinkedIn. They don't need to remind everyone they're experts. They just quietly become the kind of people you trust.

And trust isn't built because someone says, "You can trust me." It's built one honest conversation at a time. One repaired motorcycle at a time. One promise kept at a time.

When Nyx broke down, I wasn't worried because I doubted my mechanic. I was worried because I didn't know what was wrong.

Those are two very different things.

The moment he had the bike, I knew she was exactly where she needed to be.

That's a rare feeling.

Today I'm heading north to spend the weekend with my girlfriend, and that familiar ache that's been building all week is about to disappear for a couple of days. Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, there's another little bit of peace.

Nyx is in good hands.

Sometimes that's enough.

If you're in northern New Mexico and you're looking for someone who understands Harley-Davidsons as more than machines, do yourself a favor and call The Fab Shop in Santa Fe.

Just don't be a dick.

Good mechanics are hard to find, and the really great ones deserve the same respect they show the rest of us.