Motorcycle Repair & Maintenance
From rebuilding vintage Hondas with high-schoolers to teaching adults how to wrench with confidence, Steve Knoble has turned mechanical know-how into a mission. In this episode, Heather Wilson Schiltz sits down with the creator behind Knoble Moto to talk about his journey from millwright and NASA fabricator to YouTube educator, hands-on instructor, and advocate for bringing shop class back to schools through MotoGo Cleveland.
Steve shares how his early days of trial-and-error when wrenching on bikes led to a passion for creating accessible repair tutorials, teaching problem solving through failure, and building community at places like Skidmark Garage. They also dig into V-twin projects, tool preferences, the realities of filming useful how-to content, and what’s next for the Knoble Moto brand.
🎧 What You’ll Hear:
• How Steve went from industrial machine repair to building a motorcycle education brand
• The mission behind MotoGo Cleveland and why shop class changes how kids learn
• What inspired the Knoble Moto YouTube channel — and the biggest challenges with filming
• Why simple maintenance tutorials often outperform complex builds online
• How in-person classes boost confidence for new DIY riders
• The most common repair mistakes riders make
• Steve’s go-to tools, favorite project bikes and why torque wrenches matter
• What makes community garages like Skidmark so valuable
• Dream projects, current bikes, and future plans for Knoble Moto
• How he’s expanding into technical writing and install-video production
📲 Connect with Knoble Moto on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook
🌐 Learn more at KnobleMoto.com
🔔 Subscribe for more stories and strategies from inside the motorsports world
“What is the most common mistake that you see people make in terms of repair, whether it’s on their own or in your classes? Is there something that happens over and over again? -Heather Wilson Schiltz, Host
“Turning bolts the wrong way is probably huge one. We fix a lot of broken bolts. That’s probably the biggest one. And then people get nervous, and then they skip basic steps or they get in a rush. So a lot of it is probably taking their time and slowing down and being meticulous about things. Those are probably the two biggest concerns we’re running into a lot with people.” -Steve Knoble, Knoble Moto Owner
“And I’m married to a mechanic, so I get to hear about a lot of these things. I will admit that I don’t have a lot of mechanical knowledge, because I’m married to a mechanic. So it’s one of those things I didn’t have to learn out of necessity, and my dad could work on my stuff before too. But I feel like one of the things that I always hear from him is people like over tightening stuff.” -Heather Wilson Schiltz, Host
“Yes. That has been a problem. That is a problem in all kinds of worlds. That was a problem when I worked in factories. Guys would love to pull on stuff and [say] ‘I know when I tighten it, it won’t come off.’ Calm down, dude. There’s torque specs.” -Steve Knoble, Knoble Moto Owner
