Zen and the Last Hurrah: Overview

Des Molloy's 2006 adventure combined promoting the book and DVD of The Last Hurrah, with a replay of Robert Pirsig's 1968 trip from St Paul, Minnesota to San Francisco. This journey of personal discovery, with his son Chris and neighbours John and Sylvia, featured in his multi-million selling book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. ZAMM ignores the title and is not really about motorcycle maintenance (or Zen for that matter) and for many is not an easy read, being more of a philosophical diatribe about the metaphysics of quality. Des recalls struggling to read it 30 years ago as he travelled South America. Now with maturity (many will laugh at this description) he hoped to gently read a chapter at a time, reflecting on that chapter whilst riding the roads that inspired it.

To give the right ambience to the ride, the correct era and type of bikes were sourced and bought although this time the Honda Superhawk was white not black like Pirsig's. Day by day maps of Pirsig's original journey are able to be seen on this website.

John and Sylvia with Robert Pirsig's son Chris. Beartooth Pass Montana 1968

12 photographs exist from the original 1968 journey and they are looked after by Professor Henry Gurr who has a comprehensive website dedicated to ZAMM. The photo above (which we replicated during the journey) is displayed courtesy of Professor Gurr and we thank him for that. His site also contains an essay I wrote summarising the ride.

Before starting the Zen ride the team went to the American Motorcycle Association's Vintage Days at Mid-Ohio near Lexington which is a 3 day festival of old bikes, possibly the largest in the world. The aim was to promote the book and DVD of The Last Hurrah, which was done with some success.

Later, as a respite from the solitude and back country experience of the Zen section of the ride, the team detoured deep into South Dakota to participate in the legendary STURGIS motorcycle week. Over 500,000 motorcyclists flock into this small town for the week-long biker's nirvana. Their lives may never be the same again. It was a surprise to get out of town without at least one tattoo.

The ride ended in San Francisco at the Zen Centre. The Dispatches are Des's thoughts about specific things that they encountered along the way. The Emails are the news as it happened... the missives home. Enjoy them both.