Bring Shop Class Back! How Motorcycles and a Community Garage Owner Are Reviving Hands-On Education

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This is an interview with Brian Schaffran, the founder of Skidmark Garage, a community motorcycle workspace in Cleveland, Ohio, celebrating its 10th anniversary. Schaffran shares the origins and challenges of running a community garage. The interview also introduces MotoGo Cleveland, a non-profit started by Schaffran and his wife, which aims to reintroduce shop class to high schools, using vintage motorcycles as a way for students to learn hands-on skills, problem-solving, and embrace failure as a learning opportunity. Schaffran expresses a passionate belief in the program's potential to transform education and notes the exceptional aptitude of female students in the shop classes.

You can find out more about HERE:

Skidmark Garage

MotoGo Cleveland

DONATE to MotoGo HERE

***They are also looking for Honda CB350s if you have one to donate to the program!

Transcript

Interview with Brian Schaffran

Annick: Recently I received an email from a viewer that I would like to share with you. Hello, my beautiful Motorheads. Welcome to FÉROCE, where we inspire you to live fiercely. I'm your host, Annick Magac. I love getting emails and direct messages from you guys because you really let me know what you like and don't like.

But what's been happening has been that now that the show has been going for a little bit, you guys are starting to give me recommendations for people to interview. So let me read you this letter and it goes, " Hi Annick. I've been enjoying your YouTube interviews, especially with Chris Cosentino and Walt Siegel, who I have been following for years.

I would suggest give Brian Schaffran a call and consideration for an interview. He and his fabulous wife, Molly, run a public access motorcycle garage in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition, they operate a very successful program to bring shop class back to local high schools. The students actually disassemble and put back together CB three fifties to running condition.

Cheers. Stan Lippert, Ohio." Stan, thank you. You think you know everybody and then you find out the motorcycle community. We, there's still a lot of people to meet and there's still a lot of motorcycle experiences to be had. I got in touch with Brian Schaffran. He agreed to be on the show and today we talk about what it takes to run a community garage. We talk about bringing shop class back to high school, which I think is like one of the best things I've heard in a really long time.

And we also talk about the experience of failure and how that can be a really great learning experience, but also real growth experience both for the kids and for adults.

 * INTRO *

Annick: Brian, what would make you wanna start a community garage?

Brian Schaffran: The idea came from when I was driving a Volkswagen bus in California and couldn't afford to pay a mechanic, and so the necessity of needing to work on it, but not having a way to made me think, well, wouldn't it be cool if there was a place I could pull it in, put it on a lift, change my oil, do what I gotta do, and.

I was young and broke and had no money to start such a thing. So I sat on the idea. And then when I got into motorcycling, uh, let's see, that would've, I think I bought my first bike in 2001 or two, and it was an old CB seven 50 and I couldn't get anybody to work on it. It seemed like I was right back in that spot of.

For one reason or another, either not being able to afford someone to work on my old stuff, or no one will work on it, not even the dealership it was purchased from. And I didn't understand why. I understand now, but uh, then I was like, well, my community garage idea would probably be better for motorcycles than it would be for cars.

So. It kind of, uh, came back to me and, and I just figured it had to work. I couldn't be the only one that was suffering through, you know, trying to figure out a vintage motorcycle. So it was necessity. 

Annick: It seems like you're into some vintage things and, uh, I think I might wanna note that in 2001, it was a lot harder to get information on a lot of these vintage vehicles 'cause they're, it was just kinda like the beginning of the internet.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah, I didn't even think of that. You're totally right. And in 94, 95 when my bus really started breaking down a lot, uh, I don't even know that I'd been on the internet yet.

Annick: Probably not. I'm only, I'm only saying that from experience. 'cause I also started with the vintage motorcycle and it was a poor decision. I remember like having to, uh, find a catalog and then try to find, you know, call a guy up and know the part. And then wait for him to go look for it in his stock room, get back on the phone, and then I would send him a check, and then he'd send me the part

Brian Schaffran: Oh my God. I forgot about sending checks,

Annick: I know.

Brian Schaffran: man. Totally right.

Annick: So when you, you know, you had this concept for Skidmark Garage, and to you though, like what did, first off, like what did, what would entail community Garage in like two, where would you even start it?

Brian Schaffran: Well, the original idea was for cars, and I would, in my mind, it was 15 bays long, each one having a lift and each one having its own set of tools. And then like one person. That was, that kinda knew his way around all vehicles and could guide each person and make sure they were doing things correctly.

And people would just come in and do simple things for a couple hours and car would come down and they'd bail. And then when the motorcycle idea struck me, I knew it had to be. Like an old falling apart warehouse and give it that like urban decay feeling and there's no shortage of that in Cleveland.

and I didn't, I thought I knew how it was gonna work and I really didn't. And I just kind of went with it and figured it out over time. I think there were plenty of ideas in the beginning. I had that quickly went by the wayside, and ideas I hadn't thought of that I had to incorporate into running it so that it would be successful.

Annick: So what's something that didn't work out?

Brian Schaffran: Uh, it was actually a good thing. It didn't work out. I thought that because everyone I talked to, including my family, thought it was the dumbest idea ever. No, no one had ever heard of such a thing. In fact, the only people that understood what this was are people in the military. 'cause they have the hobby shop on bases where they get to for like $1 fix their car.

And they can rent all the tools. And so I didn't know that. And in my mind, I'm the only person on the planet that came up with this idea So when I was describing it to people, they all couldn't grasp it. And their biggest question was, well, how are you gonna protect your tools? Everyone's gonna steal your stuff.

You're gonna have all these bays of tools and people are gonna walk off with it and there's no way you're gonna be able to stop that. So I spent a million hours trying to decide how to. Keep this perfect inventory and was I gonna take a picture of the tool bench when they came in? And then a picture when they left and look at the picture and compare what's not there.

Was I gonna have them sign things in and out? Was I gonna keep it all behind a cage and they'd have to gimme their ID and ask for things? And I found out pretty quickly that nobody has ever in 10 years taken anything out of here and I don't have to worry about. Keeping an eye on things. Even when I had a huge party here on Saturday and there was 500 strangers in here.

Nobody took anything. Nobody touched anything. And I remember asking a member after about a year telling him that this is what my family thought was gonna happen. And he was like, well, that's stupid. Why would anyone steal from what they have free access to? Like we already feel like this is our garage.

Why would we steal from our garage? So that was something that blew my mind. I also

never really considered how difficult it would be to collect the money from the people I. And I've been really bad about that. I haven't signed anyone up on recurring credit card payments, no automatic charges. So it has been, uh, a constant battle trying to connect and get people to pay. And they're not being malicious about it.

They're just, they don't get a bill. They don't pay. Like I, if I joined a gym and they didn't send me a bill, I wouldn't pay either.

Annick: right. Right. Well, would you consider switching over?

Brian Schaffran: I've asked, I, I had a meeting with all the members and I'm like, Hey, I wanna do this automatic billing, and you gimme your card number and it automatically takes it out every month. And out of like 50 people, 40 of 'em said, no way.

Annick: Huh.

Brian Schaffran: Tons of people still pay cash in here. There are a couple people that still pay with checks.

Weird,

Annick: today

Brian Schaffran: right? So the, and you know, I also, um, couldn't understand in the beginning why I needed to get an accountant. I was like, why do I need to pay someone to tell me that I have no money? I don't, I, I see my bank account. I see that I'm coming down to like a hundred bucks at the end of every month. I don't need to pay someone to tell me this.

And so I didn't get an accountant for the first. Probably seven years I was in business and I see that that was a huge mistake and I still can't explain why, but I can feel it in my bones now that I'd be better off if I did have one from the beginning.

Annick: I think those are some good words of wisdom, because when you start a small, you know, you just, you, you start a, you get a great

Brian Schaffran: Okay.

Annick: a small business There was no blueprint for what you were doing. You know?

Brian Schaffran: Yeah.

Annick: It's not surprising that there's been a, learning curve.

Brian Schaffran: Man, and I try to tell all the other community garages that are trying to start up and they contact me and ask me for, Hey, can I ask you some questions? I already know what they're gonna ask. I've answered these questions 50 times over the past 10 years. So I basically have this huge email bullet point of, let me send you answers to the questions.

You aren't even. Understanding that you need to ask. So I usually send that off and then have a phone call with them and, you know, just own up to all my mistakes. Like, don't do this, don't do this, don't do this.

Annick: I think that's pretty awesome. Most people don't, uh, like to admit what they've learned the hard way. So that's pretty cool that you're actually sharing that. And I, I, you know, like, I wanna circle back a little bit to, you had mentioned that. People haven't stolen anything, and that really makes my heart all warm and fuzzy I, you know, I always say that the motorcycle community is amazing and, you know, people will help each other out.

But to actually hear that is fantastic for me. I've, I've known that in, in working or sharing garages more what has happened in my experience. I'm curious if this has happened to you, is just things being broken because people don't understand how to use the tool.

Brian Schaffran: That is a gigantic issue in here, and

I've always been saying, um, from the beginning. Beginning, I thought that everyone would want to join the garage because they'd have access to the expensive tools that if you're only gonna use it once, you don't wanna go buy. You don't wanna go buy a sandblast cabinet, you're gonna use it for two hours and never touch it again.

So I thought if I had all these cool tools, all these people would join because of these tools. And I thought, well, the other plus is when it breaks, they don't have to fix it themselves. They don't have to buy a new one that's on the garage to do. But it's not like things are breaking just from wear and tear.

They're breaking because. They don't spend two minutes on YouTube watching a demo of how to use it. They just, and you know the number one thing are chain breakers. And chain breakers are not cheap. You get the nice ones and they just take 'em and they just go crazy. And next thing you know, everything's broken.

And I'm like, dude, that was a hundred bucks and now I gotta buy another one. And. So many tools get broken because they just don't know how to use them. And generally men are too effing stubborn to research how to use these tools.

Annick: Or ask

Brian Schaffran: Yeah,

Annick: or, or ask somebody who's like, you look like you know how to use it, but I don't wanna admit that I don't know how to use it.

Brian Schaffran: yeah. God, they just won't admit it.

Annick: Uh, I've seen it a lot.

Brian Schaffran: Man,

Annick: Well, do you, so do you guys ever do classes

Brian Schaffran: there is one.

Annick: or like, do you have that guy that's floating around

Brian Schaffran: We, we have a guy. Yeah, there's a couple guys here that know how to use everything. But the other, you know, 99% of the members won't admit they don't know how to use something, but there is a guy named Steve Noble who's a member. He has his own little LLC called Noble Moto, and he makes tons of videos for like, fix my hog and lowbrow customs.

And then he runs little classes out of here. Um, you know how to, how do carburetors work, how does electricity work? How to do maintenance 1 0 1 type things on your bike. And he's been trying to run a. Here's how to use all the specialty tools class, and he's never gotten anyone to ever sign up for it,

Annick: Really?

Brian Schaffran: but yeah.

Annick: I guess this goes back to what we were just talking about.

Brian Schaffran: Yes, the stubborn male,

Annick: I know.

Brian Schaffran: God,

Annick: Come

Brian Schaffran: so

Annick: If it was all women, we'd be like, oh, we got notes. Can we,

Brian Schaffran: yeah.

Annick: how'd you do that? Can you repeat it again?

Brian Schaffran: Right. God.

Annick: Hate to say that, but that is a fundamental difference.

Brian Schaffran: a huge difference and I've, I've experienced that huge difference in many, many ways. But I thought about putting like a QR code on the plastic case of every single specialty tool so that they could scan it and then see the quick demo of how to use it without anyone knowing that they've, you're watching a how to video.

But, uh, I haven't gotten around, but I would love to do that.

Annick: It's a good project.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah, because I need more of those.

Annick: for you, but maybe for a, uh, you know,

Brian Schaffran: An intern. Yeah, that's a great idea.

Annick: I, I got a few of them. Stick with me, kid. 

So with Skid Mark also, do people just come in per project, or can they keep their bikes there and like if they have like a long term project, they just keep the bike there and work on it and show up whenever they want? Or do they have to like move in, move out per job?

Brian Schaffran: Uh, I offer both, and I would say 95% of the members are leaving their bikes here and doing long-term projects. so the membership includes leaving your bike. So if you buy a one month membership, you can leave it here for 30 days and then you get 24 7 access. So you get a code to the lockbox on the back door.

You can come whenever you want, open up the door, turn on the lights, and do what you gotta do. but there is also an hourly membership for the people that just need to do a tire change or an oil change. That's not as common as I thought it would've been. I'm not entirely sure why, but I would say in a year if I have 30 new members join, only three of them are coming in for an hourly thing and then taking off.

So it's almost all leaving their bike here. And then once they, once they find the joy of working with their hands and. I mean, for some of us it becomes an addiction working with our hands and we, and helping other people. So the guys that come in, I keep saying guys, when the people that keep coming in and they're working with their hands and they find how much satisfaction they get from working with their hands and helping the person next to them, even when they don't really know everything, and they'll be the first to tell you, I don't know how to do this, but.

The opportunity to help people is a tremendous sense of gratification that we don't always get anymore. Children get it, you know, children love to be helpers and that that base feeling of helping is something that children live for. And then it's kind of pounded out of us at some point. And in here, you get this great.

Combination of community and helping and working with your hands, and so eventually within a first couple, you know, if someone buys a six month membership after one month. They've gone and bought a second bike or a third, and they're storing 'em here, and they're just lining bikes up for future projects and as soon as they finish one, they start on the other or they finish one and they go buy another really quick because they just want to have a reason to come back to the garage.

That's pretty common. So we have a lot of people that are here for years.

Annick: That's great.

Brian Schaffran: It is.

Annick: as we were, we were getting on that you had a, uh, a big anniversary this past weekend

Brian Schaffran: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I opened January of 2015, so we celebrated our 10 year anniversary, uh, Saturday, and had a couple bands play and a bunch of beer and tons of bikes and everyone just hanging out, having a good time, and walking around and checking out the garage. It was really fun.

Annick: That sounds fantastic.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah, it was a, it was a big deal in my head.

Annick: that's one of the things I miss about being in an an urban area. 'cause there's just like, you know, it's easier to congregate, but. having a cool point, like skid mark is like, makes it a lot more fun.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah. Yeah, it was a, it was great.

Annick: What's the, uh, Cleveland scene like for motorcycles?

Brian Schaffran: Huge. It's, it doesn't make any sense 'cause obviously we don't get to ride all year long. Uh, I would say I. Having eight months of riding is very lucky. It's probably more like six or seven. And so you would think there wouldn't be anybody riding here if they can't ride all year long. And you would think that everyone in the south rides every day, all day, all year long.

But the scene up here is absolutely enormous. And there's a Harley dealership up here that. I think is either number one or number two in the country for selling brand new. And you know how much a Harley costs?

Annick: Yeah.

Brian Schaffran: They're, they're pounding out several a day and it, it, it's amazing. The second the temperature gets to be above like 45 and dry, you start seeing 'em on the road.

And there's a huge amount of vintage bikes up here. For some reason Honda had a, a pretty big presence in the, like sixties and seventies around Cleveland, but definitely in Ohio and there's just billions of these ancient Hondas all over the place. So the scene is huge. Um, Cleveland Moto is selling all kinds of wacky stuff all the time.

They, they're Guzzi dealership and Enfield dealership. They're always representing these cool different brands and. I got a Triumph dealer, Ducati dealer, got a Honda dealer, sills Honda. It's been around since I think the sixties. So there's a huge, huge, population of riders in Cleveland.

Annick: How many motorcycles do you own?

Brian Schaffran: I think I've gotten it down to two or three. There, there were at one point, like eight or nine, but I'm trying to be, I'm trying to embrace the idea of being a minimalist a little bit more. And so there have been several people that have come into the garage, say, Hey, I love what you do. I, but I don't have a bike, but I'd love to have a bike just so I can work on a bike.

And I'll say, all right. And I'll just kind of shove off one of my personal bikes. I'm like, you can have this for. 500 bucks. If you buy a year membership, which is a huge deal. It's a bike that I could probably go and sell for a grand or two grand or three grand, and I just want someone to love it and I want another member of the garage.

So I was able to get rid of five or six bikes that way, and I just kept my, uh, 75 Guzzi and my 67 Honda 3 0 5. Other than that, I don't need anything else.

Annick: That's impressive. So you're still loving the vintage motorcycles? Yeah. Yeah. So besides Skidmark, you also have another program, and when that got brought to my attention, I was really intrigued by it. So I'd love to talk about Moto Go Cleveland.

Brian Schaffran: So Moto Go is, um. Essentially we are bringing shop class back to school because in Ohio, and I think a lot of the country shop class got removed because, well, for several reasons, and I don't know if we want to go into those reasons, but it's gone. It, I mean, so it, it disappeared because of, uh, like state testing.

So when the state said, we're gonna doll out all the money to all the schools like we always do, but you're only gonna get. Um, all of the money you deserve. If you show us that all the kids are passing all these tests and we're gonna test you in math, English, science, social studies, and the schools that were struggling, namely the urban schools, they're like, well, we need all the money from the state.

Like we've always gotten. And our kids aren't passing these tests, so we're gonna lose all our money. So we are going to eliminate shop, class, and music and gym and art, and we're gonna double down on these four subjects so that our kids can spend more time doing these things and then they can pass the test.

So that was kind of the final. Straw that broke the camel's back. Before that, the cost of insurance was making it hard to have shop class. The stigma that was attached taking shop class was like, I think the first big, negative associated with shop class. Everyone's being pushed to college all throughout the eighties.

The stigma of everyone that takes shop classes, a stoner and a flunky the insurance, and then the tests, and now it's gone. So I was a high school teacher and I experienced how little knowledge students had with using hammers and cordless drills and rulers and screwdrivers, and I was disgusted and I thought, someday I'm gonna, somehow I'm going to bring this back.

'cause it was really important to me. I didn't take shop class. My dad wouldn't let me. I was, I was being pushed into college like every other kid in the eighties. And even though my dad was super handy, he, the stigma was what stopped him. He was like, you're not gonna be a, you know, a laborer. And I bought into it hook, line, and sinker.

But once I was in California and I had to fix my own Volkswagen, that's when the whole thing like woke me up. And I realized how awesome it was to learn with my hands. And so I went back to school to finish being a teacher, and I just had to get in front of kids and stop them from just memorizing things and let them understand that you can learn with your hands and it's this life-changing experience.

And after I opened Skidmark, I was open for a couple years and then I was like, yeah, I'm, you know. Certainly not busy enough. Let me start a nonprofit with my wife and we will bring these motorcycles to schools and we will show the kids how to use tools by throwing them in front of an old motorcycle.

And we, we had a couple people that were members of the Garage that believed wholeheartedly from the minute I talked about it. And they kind of pushed me and they pushed my wife Molly, to form a nonprofit and, and get this going. 'cause they believed in it as strongly as we did. And so we had several meetings with an advisory board and said, here's our idea.

And they directed us in a much more efficient way of a better way to do things. And so now we, at this moment, we're in, I think 12 schools and. We bring old Honda CB three fifties to the schools, or we bring just the engines to the schools and we leave them there for the whole semester or the whole year or the quarter or several years.

And then the students come out to whatever room they've got these motorcycles in, and it's usually once a week, twice a week for an hour at a time. And we just throw 'em to the wolves and. We don't show 'em how to use the tools and we don't explain much about the motorcycle, and we certainly don't explain how to read the Clymer Manual And so we, we set them up for failure. As crazy as that sounds, our whole job is setting them up for failure and letting them suffer through. Failure because they're terrified of failure. They all are. And once they realize that they can fail a billion times and it's not the end of the world, they're not gonna get an F At the end of all these failures, they're gonna have a running motorcycle.

And it just redefines the importance of failure in a way that they've never been exposed to. The best way to learn is by screwing something up a million times and having to fix that broken thing that you just screwed up. And the manual is not written for, uh, 17-year-old girls in a private school. It is written for, a seasoned mechanic male who's, you know, already understands what these parts are called and knows that these black and white pictures that kind of suck.

Knows what to look for. And so most students these days don't have the experience of reading a manual either. And so we get this perfect like storm of shit that these students don't understand what they're doing, but by the end of it, they're calling the tools by name, they're calling the parts by name.

They're completely problem solving in ways they've never done before. And it is all about problem solving and it's, some students come out of there [00:24:00] like, this is the greatest. I wanna be a mechanical engineer. I wanna go to college. I didn't know I wanted to go to college. Some students come out of there like this was, I'm glad I took it because I thought I wanted to work with my hands.

And I realize I do not. I'm like, that's just as important to know what you don't like and what you're not good at. either way it. Every single kid comes out with a significant jump in confidence to know that they have the ability to fix something and solve these problems that aren't just on paper.

So it's a, it's this mission and we've got this great team of people that all believe exactly as Molly and I do, There's five of us that go to these schools, and so we're going from school to school to school every day. All five of us are in the morning at one school, late morning, at another school, early afternoon, at another school, late afternoon at another school, and then the day is over.

And the next day different schools. And then on Saturdays we get the Cuyahoga County Juvenile. the kids that are in the court system and they have to do community service hours and they come up to Moto Go [00:25:00] and they're helping us rebuild and prep bikes and engines for when we bring them to schools.

And they're doing the same thing that the kids are at the fancy schools, but we just bill it as you're helping us prep these things. And really we're just doing the same thing. We're exposing these kids to working with their hands and, I would say for a huge percentage of these students, it's life changing.

Whether they're at a public school, private school, or in the county program, they all walk out with smiles. They walk out like saying, oh my God, I, I could probably do this. I could probably do this for a living. I, I, I never knew that, that I could use these tools, that I can't believe that you're just trusting us to use these things.

So it's, it's the greatest and every single one of us, there's only, right now there's seven. We're hiring another one or two here pretty soon. 'cause I think in the fall we're gonna be at 20 schools and it's, uh, it's every single day, every single class, all of us at MotoGo are like thrilled about what we're doing.

Annick: What's the age range of the kids?

Brian Schaffran: The earliest we do is sixth grade and, and then we go up to 18.

Annick: In sixth grade.

Brian Schaffran: Sixth graders are 12,

Annick: Okay.

Brian Schaffran: 11 and 12. That's a, they're the sixth graders are okay. It's the seventh and eighth graders that are pretty tough. sixth graders still have a sense of like, Uh, fear of consequences for misbehaving. Whereas seventh and eighth graders, I think their brain has like been spun around or something 'cause they just can't grasp consequences for being a knucklehead.

So that's a bit more of a challenge. in my mind, I'm, I'm really good with the high school kids. Some people thank God are better with middle school kids and so we're trying to. Uh, put people where they're best fit.

Annick: When you decided to become a teacher, was it in a subject or did you immediately just go into teaching this?

Brian Schaffran: when I decided to become a teacher, the only thing that I felt like I could, originally I wanted to be a math teacher because I struggled so much in high school and math and I thought I. If I can be a math teacher, I can help out the kids that are struggling better than a couple math teachers that I had.

But then after I flunked out of Ohio University, I went back to school to be a history teacher. 'cause all of a sudden I found this love of history, but I soon realized that it didn't really matter what subject and. I taught at a Catholic school for five years, and the first year I taught world history, and then the second year I taught computers.

And then the third year I taught geometry. And then the fourth year I taught trig. And the fifth year I taught I had to do computers again. So I realized that it didn't matter what subject I was in, I could have, I could still reach the kids and I could still kind of. Get the message across of the importance of learning and using your hands, although I hadn't totally discovered the using your hands bit yet.

I was on that way. I was on the way to explaining the importance of things and letting kids fail, although I didn't really know that that was my, my curriculum, my hidden curriculum. But, all I knew was I, I had to stop kids from just memorizing. I. Because I, I feel like I didn't learn anything in high school.

A couple subjects here and there, I learned some things, but I felt like, I feel like I got through high school by memorizing for a test and then taking the test and then forgetting that stuff the next day, and, and I thought that was learning. I truly believed that was how you learned. And once I worked on the Volkswagen and it changed me.

When I was like, I gotta get back to school. I gotta stop all these kids from wasting high school, and I have to get them to understand. They just can't memorize. So I didn't really care what subject, but history seemed to be the easiest in for me.

Annick: it's impressive that you that a drive because I think If more kids had been exposed to shop class, like you're talking about like it was waning during when I went to school and you know, I had it up until eighth grade and then after high school we didn't have it. I think it would change a lot of people's futures and their trajectory.

Like as, you know, as you were talking about exposing people to different things, but also realizing like that. A lot of people have an innate ability to work with their hands. satisfaction and the confidence that comes from that can be really life changing. 'cause if you're never exposed to it, you don't even know that that's a, a part of your personality or in your, uh, aptitude. when you were, you know, you talk about working on the Volkswagen and you know, you also had the vintage motorcycles. How did you learn in particular, to do mechanical things?

Brian Schaffran: Trial and error. Um, I was pretty scared of. Breaking things and failing. I still don't particularly, like failing and even though I preach it to my students, I'm, I'm re, when I fail I get very, very upset. I was terrified to play around with this Volkswagen. I had no experience working on anything mechanical, but I had a roommate in LA that was so casual about it, and he was like, listen, we've got tools in the garage.

Uh, I've got, I've got a hydraulic jack, and if we take it apart, we can put it together. And I just bought into, like, I borrowed his confidence. I, I was like, okay, if, if you think we can. Then I'm in and I bought the, uh, the Idiot's Guide, you know, the Volkswagen for the Complete Idiot that was written in the sixties, and it had all these hippie drawings and stuff, and it's written like a novel instead of a manual.

And that walked me through. taking the engine out and taking the engine apart and then buying another engine and putting all the parts back on. And, and there was things that we couldn't get to work and my roommate was like, oh, let's just call a machine shop and have them make these things. And I was like, what?

Nobody, you can't make these, these have to be made in a, in a factory. He goes, no, no. There's this, these guys down the street, there's machine shops everywhere. They, let's just bring it to him and he'll understand and he'll make 'em. And sure enough. Dude made me all these new bolts with different size heads that were the only things I could get to work.

And so it started up like first try and, and then I drove it around the country again and I, I didn't know that's how I needed to learn. I didn't know that I had to do the trial and error and, you know, everyone talks about it, oh, it's. Learning the hard way. Well, yeah, I guess you could call it learning the hard way, but I feel like that's more people than not, and the hard way is the good way.

There was a kid that at, uh, at Oberlin College, we, we had our first MotoGo class at a college over the winter. And, you know, it's, it's Oberlin, it's this. Very prestigious. It's like the first college in the country to accept women, and it's got this long history and it's so academic and it's liberal arts and fancy and expensive and awesome.

And we got all these kids to sign up and they had no experience at all. Most of them, they just wanted to do something different. They were totally game and after it was done. One of the kids said, you know what I really liked? I liked that when I failed at something like four or five times, and then I got it right on the last try.

He's like, now I understood why the right way is the right way because I got to see the wrong way. I got to see like five wrong ways of doing it, and then I got to see the right way. So now it makes so much more sense why the right way is the right way. I'm like, man. You get it more than anybody. And that's kind of how I have to learn.

and I think, I think that speaks to a lot of people and they don't know it yet. Just like I didn't know it.

Annick: are you guys doing this program full time? Like, is that what you do full time?

Brian Schaffran: It is, yeah. So I'm only, I do the moto go gig from like. Eight in the morning until some classes go as late as like five, and then I come down into Skidmark and spend several hours here in the evening.

Annick: So you work a lot.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah, I love it.

Annick: Do the parents get it?

Brian Schaffran: I think all of them do. I don't, we don't get a ton of interaction with the parents because we're not, uh, employees of these schools, so we don't have, we're not in on like the parent teacher conferences, so the only time we get to get feedback from the parents is. If a school has an open house and they're trying to attract new students in and they ask us to show up 'cause we're like a feature one of their classes, and there's all these families walking through There's usually a family walking through that says, oh, my daughter took your class at this school a couple years ago and it was her favorite thing in the world, and we saw how it changed her and we love it. And if you guys are here, we're gonna send our kid here. And so I think, I think all the parents get it, which is fantastic.

Annick: That is great. Thank

Brian Schaffran: It really is. Yeah. Yeah.

Annick: Where do you see this going, this program?

Brian Schaffran: Well, it's gonna sound preposterous, but

Annick: I love big ideas. Bring it. Let's go.

Brian Schaffran: I, you know, being a teacher for as long as I was, I saw all the good and the bad of. The education system, and I think that the bureaucracy of education and the politics of education has made it very, very difficult for students to get what they need. And I think that Moto Go is the holy grail to education and I.

Feel guilty might be too strong of a word, but I feel guilty that I haven't gotten this at every single school in Cleveland and therefore I feel like I need to get it in every single school in the country. and I feel like this will change education. For good or for as long, and the end goal is to get shop class back.

The end goal would be the nonprofit no longer needs to exist because every single school has shop class and every single school is talking about the importance of failing. grand plan that Molly and I keep talking about is getting Cleveland to saturate the schools with this. With it, and we've got a killer team, but we kind of need to be three times the size and as soon as Cleveland is cruising, we, and we've already been to several cities to speak about expanding, and we've gotten great reception every time.

But I think now the next step after we get Cleveland going is to just get in the Volkswagen. Because we bought another one and we drive to some city and we live in some city for six months and we get that one rolling and then we go to another city and we get another chapter rolling and we get to travel and we get to go camping in the bus and we get to save education.

And if that takes the next 20 years, great.

Annick: Is there a way that people can support you do in. Donate 

Brian Schaffran: Yeah. we do have a pretty big fundraiser in the early spring every year and, uh, the Moto Go cleveland.com website has, I think some donate now buttons. So there's monetary donations that can be made, which is the most helpful. we've had people donate CB three fifties, which is really helpful. we get local companies like I think Sherwin Williams came in and donated like 30 people's time to help paint things and organize things and clean things.

And. Luol Corporation, they send us volunteers to help with whatever we need help with, but the donation of straight up cold hard cash through the website is the absolute best way to help. It goes directly into buying more motorcycles and getting us into more schools. 'cause a lot of schools can't afford it.

It's not a cheap program to run. And so, the schools that can't afford [00:37:00] it, we give them a ginormous discount and we have to eat a lot of that cost. So the donations we get from the fundraiser and from the website help cover that.

Annick: Well, I will for sure put links in the, uh, in the description so that people can and talk to you if they've got motorcycles. That they'd also like to into the program. And I, that also makes me think like if, would you also take tools, like

Brian Schaffran: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. That one doesn't happen as often, but it would be great.

Annick: Okay. 'cause they can get very costly and some stuff is harder to find, but

Brian Schaffran: Yep.

Annick: when family members pass

Brian Schaffran: I.

Annick: somebody might have a Bridgeport sitting in their garage, so you never know.

Brian Schaffran: Yep.

Annick: I, I was really trying to think before I came on here. Like I, I'm not even being able to put like my words together eloquently to just say that think it's so important and to have shop class and. would've made a huge difference in my life. anybody that I talk to in my friend circle [00:38:00] who builds things, you know, I know a lot of builders and most of the people I know also wrench on their own motorcycles or just like fanatic gearheads of some sort. And I kept saying, I'm gonna have this guy on who is trying to revive shop class. every time I, I said it to somebody, they'd put down their tool and they'd be like, it's about time. Like,

Brian Schaffran: Yeah.

Annick: and I was like, I know, right? Like, how do you, like everybody talks about changing the education and stuff. I just think that there's, there's this void that needs to be filled. There's also a void in people's lives that needs to be filled

Brian Schaffran: Yeah.

Annick: of substance that they can have and see physically that there's been a change and they've helped make that change.

So thank you so much for what you guys are doing. I just think it's fantastic also. Even with Skidmark as well, because so many people never learn as adults, even to learn how to work on their bikes or, you know, even where to start. And it can be very overwhelming. So community garages seem like where it's at these days.

Not that there's many,

Brian Schaffran: Yeah, there aren't.

Annick: know many I know of you in, uh, in, my friend in Brooklyn, New York, but know, there's, I'm

Brian Schaffran: Which one?

Annick: MotoGrrl.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah, she's the first. She is like,

Annick: episode, which I'll link.

Brian Schaffran: oh, that's awesome.

Annick: fantastic.

Brian Schaffran: She is the, uh, I believe she's the oldest functioning community garage in the country. She's been around, I think 12 or 15 years, and I.

Annick: maybe a, yeah, I have to look back at the episode. It might even be a little bit more than that.

Brian Schaffran: Wow.

Annick: it's totally impressive.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah, she's a legend.

Annick: And you know, in bringing up again, like you, you had the party this week and it's like, this also brings up like people want to get back together and do things and a lot of people who ride wanna find other people to ride with or just be among people who have a shared interest.

So it's really cool that you're also doing this Skidmark.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah. Right on. Thanks.

Annick: Yeah. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us that we didn't, perhaps didn't get to cover?

Brian Schaffran: no, I think, I think you asked all the perfect questions.

Annick: sometimes I'd be, uh, passed through Ohio, so

Brian Schaffran: Yeah,

Annick: knock on your door, is that okay?

Brian Schaffran: yeah, yeah. That would rule. I would love it.

Annick: right, cool. I would love to meet you and Molly and get a, tour of the shop and

Brian Schaffran: would be wonderful.

Annick: on one of the shop classes. 'cause that

Brian Schaffran: Yeah,

Annick: be really fun.

Brian Schaffran: absolutely. Oh, the one thing that I gotta say is. The girls are a billion times better at building motorcycles than any of the boys. And it's, it's, uh, I even when I was a regular high school teacher, I didn't, I, I knew that there was differences, but now that I'm at schools that are all girls schools and I'm at schools that are all boys and mixed the all girls schools.

Oh my God. It has completely made me understand and believe that women should be running every single aspect of the world. They're better at listening, trying, understanding, asking questions, doing the agility, the, the caring. It's. It's so disheartening that this world has kept more than half of the population under their thumbs.

We all suffer because the lack of women running things, and it's just, it makes me so angry and I tell these girls in these schools, I'm like, you guys, I'm gonna do everything I can to make you understand that you have to run everything and it, it is unreal.

Annick: wow. You might be like the best spokesman for Thank you for saying that.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah, yeah,

Annick: For, for all. I mean, I know

Brian Schaffran: yeah, of course you do. Of course you do. And you can say it a million times and men aren't gonna listen.

Annick: no.

Brian Schaffran: But if, if, if every garage was full of women and every construction crew was all women, cars would be fixed right the first time. The roads would be perfect all the time. Everything would be great.

It's,

Annick: 'cause I've been trying to tell people this forever,

Brian Schaffran: yes, of course.

Annick: thank you.

Brian Schaffran: You're welcome.

Annick: Wow. That's awesome. I feel

Brian Schaffran: Yeah.

Annick: like a mic drop. We might have to end on that.

Brian Schaffran: Yeah.

Annick: Thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing that

Brian Schaffran: Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome.

Annick: the women mechanics in the world thank you.

Brian Schaffran: Thanks for having me.

Annick: you. and I'm sure your community is very appreciative. So again, thank you.

Brian Schaffran: Absolutely.

Annick: All right. And to everybody else, Ride Smart Ciao!

* OUTRO *