A service schedule with one line circled

A model designation at the top. Under it a column of mileages — 600, 3,000, 6,000 and on down the chest — each with a box beside it. Most are ticked. One is circled in red.

That circle is where the bike is now. Everything above it has already happened.

Why a service schedule?

Because it measures a bike in the units riders actually use.

Motorcycle merchandise runs on skulls, wings, flames and the word freedom. A schedule runs on mileage, and mileage is the actual currency — how far it's been, how much of it you did, what's due next.

It's also a document riders genuinely look at. The tank badge is decoration; the schedule is consulted.

What does the circled line do?

It converts a spec sheet into a personal record.

An uncircled schedule is a generic table. One row picked out says: this bike, this odometer, this year. Everything above the circle is work that's been done, which for anybody who maintains their own machine is a considerable amount of Saturday.

The circle is also the design's only accent, which is why it's doing so much visually as well — one mark in a restrained palette carries disproportionate weight.

Can it name a real model?

Model names and badges are manufacturers' trademarks.

Bike makers are protective of both — the marks, the badge shapes and the tank graphics — and the classic model designations are among the most valuable things they own. Workshop manuals are published works with their own drawn diagrams too.

Service intervals themselves are facts about a machine. An invented model code, or a description that isn't a badge, gets the design there without borrowing anybody's. This is the same line a torque spec walks.

Does it work for a rider who doesn't wrench?

Then the honest document is a different one.

A route rather than a schedule: a road drawn as a line with its number and the corners marked. A mileage total for a trip. A tyre pressure and a chain slack figure, which is what most riders actually deal with. A first-year-of-registration plate.

For a long trip specifically, the elevation-and-route treatment already has its own piece — the shape of the ride beats the name of the place.

Is this for one bike or a club?

One bike is where the format is strongest.

The circle only means something if it's somebody's actual mileage, and a club can't share one. What a club or a workshop can share is the form — the same schedule layout with the club's name in the title block, and each member's own circle in a different place.

Which is a rather good version of team apparel: identical design, personal detail.

Does the age of the bike change it?

It changes which figures are believable.

A modern machine has long intervals and short lists. A thirty-year-old bike has a schedule full of things nobody adjusts any more — tappets, points, carb balance — and those words are half the appeal for the people who ride them.

An old schedule reads as a period document, which suits a faded print. A modern one reads as a spec, which suits a crisper treatment.

Does it print well?

Very — it's a numeric column with tick boxes.

Large figures with dot leaders and squares give a strong vertical rhythm and read from a distance, which suits a chest print better than a wide table does. Nothing is fine except the tick marks, and those should be drawn heavy.

Faded black, oil grey and deep green suit it. Two inks, with the red used once, on the circle, and nowhere else — the restraint is what makes the circle land.

How do I get one made?

Describe the schedule at JustOG — the intervals, the mileage it's on, and what the title block should say. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the shop.

Everything above the circle already happened, and mostly on a Saturday.