When Caleb finally turned the key, the old engine coughed and then fell silent. Grip gave a short, startled laugh, half annoyance and half relief. Caleb made a small adjustment, checked the starting sequence, and tried again. The Knucklehead came to life with a deep, irregular thunder that filled the garage, shook loose dust from the overhead beams, and turned every waiting face toward the lift. Outside, the riders fell silent.
The first few minutes of the test were deliberately gentle. Caleb listened for leaks and unwanted noises while Martin studied the structure under controlled load. The old twin found its rhythm, the kind of pulse that seemed too slow to move such a heavy machine until it suddenly climbed into a roar. Caleb watched the readings settle and compared them with the photographs he had taken earlier. There was no reason yet to celebrate; the machine had been perfect at low speed before.
The numbers climbed: thirty, forty, fifty. The engine note deepened and sharpened. At sixty, Caleb watched the frame while Martin monitored the test. The vibration remained within the range they expected, and the ignition showed none of the erratic interruptions that had appeared earlier. Grip stood with his hands braced on the workbench, his eyes fixed on the red tank.
At seventy, Caleb remembered the sound of the frame shaking against the restraints during the first test. He remembered thinking the failure looked mechanical before it sounded electrical. At seventy-three, his mouth went dry. Then the display reached seventy-five, and the motorcycle continued running smoothly. The needle passed the number that had frightened Grip on the highway, and nothing broke, stuttered, or shook out of place.
Caleb realized he had been holding his breath. The engine ran on, its sound steady and strong, while Martin watched the repaired section and signaled that he was satisfied with what he could observe in the test. Grip let out a low, rough laugh that seemed to rise from somewhere deep in his chest. Outside, a few riders who could hear the engine began cheering, though no one in the garage had yet declared the job finished.
Under the controlled conditions of the test, they gradually took the machine beyond the previous failure point. The display reached eighty, then ninety, and for a short interval touched one hundred without the disastrous shudder returning. Caleb had no desire to keep it there longer than necessary. He brought the test down, listened to the engine return to its old idle, and finally shut it off. The silence afterward seemed full of the sound they had all feared and not heard.
Grip looked at the motionless rear wheel. “It’s gone,” he said.
“The misfire is gone under these conditions,” Martin corrected. “Now we finish the checks before you take it anywhere.”
Grip looked at Caleb. “You found it.”