Learning to Ride Later in Life: One Man’s Experience
As one journalist finds out, learning to ride a motorcycle requires a certain level of maturity, no matter what your age might be.
The vast majority of folks reading this probably started riding a motorcycle at a relatively young age. You’ve probably been riding most of your adult life, in fact. But there are plenty of folks out there that, for various reasons, don’t ride or show an interest in riding until later in life. For those who find themselves intrigued by the idea, learning to ride a motorcycle is, well, a little different.
If you’re one of those folks, you can take solace in the fact that you aren’t alone. Take John Boyle, a journalist for Asheville, North Carolina-based news source Citizen-Times, for example. The 53-year old recently decided that he was going to buy his first motorcycle. Riding had long been a bucket-list item for Boyle, but his propensity for suffering injuries (and undergoing surgeries) had thus far put it on the back burner.
Boyle’s wife, predictably, wasn’t crazy about the idea. Neither were his co-workers, who dubbed his desire a “two-thirds life crisis,” hilariously enough. Boyle, who’s written about motorcycles in the past, knows firsthand the inherent danger of riding. But as they say, age brings wisdom, right?
‘I know a lot of middle-aged folks like me who have been riding for years. They got their hot dog impulses out of the way in their 20s, and now they like nothing more than feeling that wind, power and lean on a curvy mountain road.’
“I know a lot of motorcycle riders, mostly middle-aged folks like me, who have been riding for years and doing so safely,” Boyle said. “They got their hot dog impulses out of the way in their 20s, and now they like nothing more than feeling that wind, power and lean on a curvy mountain road.”
What the budding rider did next certainly took maturity. He enrolled in a Motorcycle Safety Foundation sponsored Basic Rider Course. Despite having ridden things like dirt bikes in the past. The course gave him “an appreciation for the weight and handling of a street bike, and the need for constant vigilance while riding.”
Also wisely, Boyle didn’t run out and buy a heavy, powerhouse bike to learn on. He instead settled for a Honda 750 to begin with. And for the most part, his experience has been good. But Boyle did admittedly make one boneheaded mistake and wiped out after attempting to turn under hard braking. Unfortunately, that low-speed scuffle resulted in a torn meniscus and may have hindered his enthusiasm a bit, but it did really hammer home everything he had learned in class.
“Always be vigilant, know your limits, control the bike instead of letting the bike control you, take it slow, dress appropriately,” Boyle recalls. Good advice for novice and experienced bikers alike. Especially when your youthful “wind in the hair” ambitions are paired with a less-than-youthful body.
