Retracing the Path: Pirsig’s Journey as a Living Tradition

Following July’s virtual retrace and online gathering, David Matos reflects on the tradition that connects Pirsig’s readers across generations, with Lila October still upon us.

This year’s July Retrace concluded with readers and riders gathering online to share what Robert Pirsig’s journey has meant to them. As October arrived, the community had another occasion to return to his work: Lila October, the month-long celebration of Lila: An Inquiry into Morals. In 2026, the novel marks 35 years since publication, while the 1975 sailing voyage behind its narrative marks its 51st anniversary. Before turning to the Hudson River, we look back at the July tradition and the readers who have kept returning to the road.

Every July, the ZMMQuality Facebook page embarks on an unusual journey. It recreates Robert Pirsig’s original July 1968 motorcycle trip according to the same calendar dates as the journey described in the book. Daily posts combine selected passages from the novel with historical photographs, maps, contemporary images of the route, and editorial commentary, gradually reconstructing both the physical journey and the philosophical narrative.

Readers began following that road soon after Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance appeared in 1974. An early documented retrace is held at Montana State University Library, recording Ted DuPont and Jim Vavrinchik’s 1974 retrace. In August 1974, DuPont, then a 20-year-old college student, and Jim Vavrinchik retraced part of Pirsig’s route during a five-week journey from Chicago to San Francisco and back on a BMW R75/5. At Pirsig’s Minneapolis home they met Chris, although his father was out. Later, after travelling the Beartooth Highway, they wrote to Pirsig about what the experience had meant to them. His reply, dated September 16, 1974, expressed pleasure that the trip had given them a similar sense of presence.

In 1990, Ronald L. DiSanto and Thomas J. Steele published their Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Produced with Robert Pirsig’s oversight, it offered readers historical background, explanations of philosophical references, and commentary on the book’s themes.

A few years later, Swedish writer Sven Lindqvist approached Pirsig’s work from a different direction. In 1994, he retraced much of the original route across North America, publishing his reflections as a series in Stockholm’s Dagens Nyheter. He later expanded the journey into the book Fadern, sonen och den heliga motorcykeln (Father, the Son and the Holy Motorcycle, 2006), demonstrating that retracing Pirsig’s journey could itself become a work of literature. During his archival research at Montana State University, Lindqvist also uncovered Pirsig’s long-forgotten 1961 memorandum Quality in Freshman Writing—an important precursor to the ideas later developed in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—bringing renewed attention to a significant document in Pirsig scholarship.

English professor Gary Wegner helped shape the reading schedule that the July Retrace follows today. Drawing on clues in the book, he reconstructed the chronology of Pirsig’s July 1968 journey, retraced part of the route in 1978, and later brought his research together in the Read and Ride guide. His ride preceded both DiSanto and Steele’s Guidebook and Lindqvist’s journey. Henry Gurr’s ZMMQuality website later preserved Wegner’s essay Thursday July 4, 2013: Read and Ride, alongside chapter correlations, maps, and route documentation, keeping the material available after much of it had disappeared with Wegner’s original website. Wegner’s invitation was simple: dust off a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, read the corresponding section each day in July, and leave time to reflect between the Chautauquas.

The July Retrace took its present form through the work of Gary Wegner, Henry Gurr, and David Matos, each contributing to the way readers experience the journey today. Gary’s reading framework provided a daily structure. Henry spent years documenting Pirsig’s route, photographing locations across the American West, corresponding with Robert Pirsig, and building the ZMMQuality website into a rich resource for fellow readers. Pirsig also shared a selection of his own rarely seen colour photographs from the 1968 ride—images that had never appeared in any edition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. When David brought ZMMQuality to social media, he used Gary’s chronology to share this growing collection of photographs, maps, research, and commentary day by day throughout July. The July Retrace was first launched in July 2014.

October brings Lila October, a month-long trace of Pirsig’s second novel. David describes it below as the July Retrace’s sequel, inviting readers to continue exploring Pirsig’s work together.

In an earlier interview, Ian Glendinning spoke with David Matos and Henry Gurr about how the July Retrace began. In the conversation below, we ask David how the tradition has developed over more than a decade, what readers gain from following the journey day by day, and how it brings people together. This interview was conducted in July 2026, ahead of that year’s July Retrace.

RPA: One striking aspect of the July Retrace is that it reconnects the philosophy with the geography of the journey. Do you hope participants come away remembering particular places—or particular ideas? Or is it really the relationship between the two that matters?

Pirsig was already working on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance even before he went on that July 1968 trip west on motorcycle. In June of 1968, he spammed over a hundred publishers with letters soliciting interest for an unfinished book of philosophical ruminations that he was working on with that famous title. Then in July 1968, while visiting a friend in Hollywood after the trip described in the book, he realized bookending his philosophical ruminations with story of the trip they had just taken would make his philosophical ideas more palatable for readers.  A stroke of genius, really. Pirsig was very much in the school of “write what you know” vs write something fanciful, as inculcated by writer Allen Tate at the University of Minnesota.  As Henry Gurr has noted,  Pirsig’s descriptions of a very real trip west and very real landscapes he passed through lend power to the narrative in his novel.  

There are uncanny connections between the landscape the narrator is passing through and the Chautauquas being presented, most notably the motifs of the “high country of the mind” and the alpine meadows of the Beartooth Highway or hiking in the Gallatin National Forest, and its opposite, the motif of the “bottom of the ocean” that gives readers qualms as the trip reaches the Pacific and the crisis between narrator and Chris climaxes.  And, in its own unique way, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a love letter to American West landscape, something that is truly realized by Pirsig enthusiasts who relive the trip.  The trip west described is also an inward journey as well, to Enlightenment, to reconnecting the narrator with his past, to resolution.  All these things being said, the trip and the places involved are the frame story that encapsulates the philosophy and makes it more approachable for readers.  The places and the philosophy cross paths at times, but mostly run in parallel.

RPA: Many readers return to the Retrace year after year. Has your own understanding of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance evolved through this annual practice? Is there a passage or moment that has taken on new meaning over time?

It’s impressive to hear from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance fans about how they reread  the book and take away different things each time.  From going over the book multiple times, a couple passages in the book have really resonated with me..  The dinner party at the DeWeeses stands out.  Pirsig really captures the social/art scene that the DeWeeses are at the center of at their Cottonwood Canyon home.  Having researched the people within that social/art scene, you realize the rancher/sculptor is a real person, as are the others at the dinner party.  Philosophy-wise, the Chautauquas on stuckness and gumption stand out as useful understandings.  I suspect these are part of the first drafts of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, before the trip was even added.  Yet, Pirsig does use the trip to emphasize his philosophical points… the narrator falls into the gumption-trap of fatigue in eastern Oregon, finding himself thinking “nothing thoughts” on a “nothing curb.”

RPA: Every July, the original journey—which took place only once in 1968—somehow happens again. Do you ever feel that the July Retrace has become part of the living legacy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—not simply remembering the book, but continuing it?

The July Retrace certainly has become a tradition now that we hope Pirsig fans look forward to.  Tolkien fans have Hobbit Day, for Robert Burns appreciators there’s Burns Night, James Joyce Ulysses readers have their Bloomsday and then there’s Towel Day for acolytes of Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  Pirsig fans have the July Retrace, and now its sequel, Lila October.  

RPA: This year’s Retrace comes as interest in Pirsig’s work continues to grow through new initiatives such as the Robert Pirsig Association, new discussion forums, and preparations for the 2028 Zen Ride. How do you see the July Retrace complementing these efforts?

The July Retrace is our most visible moment in social media… our audience with the July Retrace is at its largest… and we hope that will draw Pirsig fans into community, such as joining the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Facebook group, signing up for the Robert Pirsig Associations email newsletter or joining its Discord discussion group.  Already the social media connections have helped lay the groundwork for the Robert Pirsig Association’s founding in 2023.

When we asked Pirsig fans how to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the overwhelming suggestion was to recreate the road trip described in the book.  With Robert Pirsig’s Centennial approaching, we hope the July Retrace will also help whet appetites to join the Zen Ride 2028.  It certainly did for me!  Posting the July Retrace each year absolutely made me want to retrace the trip in real life as we did in 2024 with the ZMM50thRide.

RPA: Looking ahead, where do you see the July Retrace fitting within the broader Pirsig community? As new readers discover Pirsig’s books, what role do you hope this tradition will continue to play?

For some, we hope it will be an access point to learn about the book and pique their curiosity.  For others, we hope it reminds them of the book they read and , extends their understanding.  And of course we hope it continues to bring Pirsig fans of all stripes together.

RPA: Finally, if someone has never participated before, what would you say to encourage them to join this year’s July Retrace? What kind of experience should they expect beyond simply rereading the book?

They should expect an adventure.  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a “Great American Novel” partly because of the “Great American Road Trip” it describes.  But the “trip” doesn’t need to end there, if they’re up for Hudson sailing trip in “Lila” – sailing was a bigger part of Pirsig’s life than motorcycles – they will also find challenging philosophical discussions that change the way they think.