This topic means a lot to those who through injury or medical conditions have lost abilities. Some that includes the ability to ride, for some it is as simple as they cannot play golf anymore. When it happens to you it matters not how hard you try to fight it off. At a certain age, my age it is happening almost daily to my friends and family. Not riders, just people we care about.

The discussion of feeling unsafe on a large heavy two wheeled vehicle is not to be taken lightly. I feel the same about wilderness hunting in Idaho’s Frank Church and wilderness fly fishing. I’ve had to splint my leg and hobble three miles back to my vehicle. I try to keep my strength up, but I’m not as stable as I was in my 60’s. I also ran into a grizzly bow hunting. Fortunately I saw it on the next ridge 250-300 yards before it saw me. I immediately switched back to my 357 from the 9mm. Part of my quandary about going into the wilderness is I’ve outlasted by partners. Same thing happened for my bike. Not only that, but two years ago my 75 year old wife said no more month trips, then after a long painful weekend to hells canyon, she’s off the bike. I’m solo again, but it is not the same as it was being solo for years. It is different as I near 80.

today at out poker game, one has bone cancer and Parkinson’s, ones on oxygen, ones wheel chair bound, ones got right side paralysis from a stroke, and then two of us, despite other ailments are the healthiest. These tough life illnesses came rapidly, often without prior notice.

So, as much as I fight it, when you or my best friend and former riding buddy says he’s selling his bike, I get it. I don’t like it, but if I were in his boots, I might be making that same call.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, just that at 78 I am aware that these choices matter. I’ve got a months riding solo this summer, but after that will I be touring still or just taking to sporty canyon carving. I find myself thinking about 250-500cc dual sport to use fly fishing and goofing around. Age does these things. The older we get, the more aware we are that we might only have one more go at it.

I relate the touring solo to going up on the roof to clean it. Okay, I wait until my wife is shopping as her panic doesn’t do me any good, but I am oh so aware that one slip and I’m impacted for life. So I hired a professional this year. It is no different (fear, thought, awareness) than getting on my road king and riding to the black hills through glacier and Yellowstone twice this summer. To meet friends in the black hills, ride the west, then ride back to the black hills, say goodbye and ride home.

When I decide the king is enough, I’ll be fine with that. When I decide the XL is enough, you can pry the handlebars from my cold dead fingers.

This thought experiment is because this topic is important to me now and will be to every one on this forum in the future if not now.

 

My story is I rode a Honda mini bike when I was about 10 and that was all she wrote. Kept riding and got a job washing dishes at 14 and bought my first dirt bike. Then a mx bike and began racing MX in High School. Lots of crashing and by early 20s went over the bars and separated my shoulder. Could have easily have broken my nexk and been paralysed. When I woke up from surgery in excruciating pain from a 1 inch SS screw holding my shoulder together, they knocked me out with morphine. When I came to the surgeon came to my room and told me how it went and asked if I had any questions. The only thing I asked was how soon until I could race again. That was 50 years ago and I have been on more dirt bikes and the last 20 years well over a couple hundred thousand miles in my Harleys. I’m in it until the end.

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!” ― Hunter S. Thompson

 

I'm only 68, not like some of the old fogies in this thread (LOL) but after a hip replacement and a knee that's been arthroscoped several times I turned to a trike for two-up riding. Not only do I not have to worry about dropping it, the wife doesn't have to worry about being dropped. For one-up, I kept my Ultra but eventually downsized a little bit to a Road King. Now looking at knee surgery again, dealing with two fractured vertebrae, a herniated disc and a fractured bone in my pelvis, I'm still riding and will as long as I'm still able to pick up the bike I'm riding one-up and still mentally on my game on either the bike or trike. It's a decision you have to make for yourself, not unlike the decision whether or not motorcycling was for you or not when you started riding way back when.

 

I couldn't help but think of this oldie

A man says, "Have you seen my dog? He has brown fur. He's missing his right ear, is blind in one eye, and has three legs. He answers to the name of Lucky."

 

When i was young I lived close to a busy road.
I was outside late one night and heard a bunch of whimpering.
I got a flashlight and went to see what the commotion was.
Someone just dumped a bunch of puppy's off on the road.
Just when I went to retrieve them a 18 wheeler came by
And Ran over all but one, I took him home and raised him
And his name was lucky.

 

I hope the human that dumped them off got castrated with a pair of dull scissors

 

Fixed it.

 

I get it...

I was an avid snow skier for a long time.

Not a great skier by any means, but I enjoyed the experience every time out on the slopes. I damaged my meniscus and tore an ACL along the way. It did not keep me off the mountain - in fact, I didn't even miss a season.

Then, in time (many years post my ACL replacement), I became uncomfortable skiing. I just didn't feel confident enough on my skis. My last two seasons I recall feeling "relieved" that I survived more so than enjoying the actual skiing experience.

That's when I knew it was time to hang-up the skis.

I suspect the same will come for me on the bike. When it's too heavy or my skills diminish there will be hard decisions to make. I've said before there's a trike in everyone's future for this very reason.

At the end of the day it's very personal - enjoy the ride while you can and be smart about realizing when the time comes that you can't.

Riding should be a stress-reliever, not a stress-inducer.

 

This is not advice nor is it a suggestion. It's just me sharing the path I took as I encountered much the same thoughts and emotions under very similar circumstances.

I'm a couple months away from being 68 years old. I was diagnosed with Type II in 2012 with chronic kidney disease and had a stroke in Aug of 2015 where I woke up paralyzed on my entire left side and took me a few weeks to learn to walk again without a walker.

More recently?...I was forced into retirement at age 66 over a workplace injury (snapped 4 tendons in my right shoulder, rotator cuff tore in 1/2 and right bicep detached and withdrawn 1 1/2"s) they drug the mediation out almost 2 years which then required a reverse shoulder replacement due to atrophied muscles over them postponing surgery so long which now became an extra invasive surgery I was not a candidate for forcing me to take a chump change payout and walk away from my 20 year CNC machinist/programmer aerospace job.

2 months ago I tore my right hamstring (messing with a concrete birdbath) which to a piece of my pelvic bone with it which brings us to the moment of ?...

Me having seen "fear" as a corrosive thread that eat my life and soul from the inside out and regarding fear as an emotion that left unbridled can and does run through an endless pasture of out of control imagination in the land of "What If's" leaving in its wake a trough of an ever decreasing quality of life as it gives all forms of hope, joy and happiness the coup de grace if?....I allow it to.

The alternatives I selected?...

when I feared that I'd have to take a beating by trading in my heavy 2020 SGS for a lighter bike (or worse yet a trike) because of weight and aged legs suffering acute neuropathy?...I took the Hogworx Tour pack off that I had a ton of crap I never used in it and also sorted a bunch of junk out of my saddlebags that had become an extended storage unit for my workbench and even more recently the torn hamstring thing?...

I just had Dirty Air Fast Up air ride shocks with a console mounted up/down toggle switch installed and?...no problems getting my hamstrung leg over on and off the bike with no fear of dinging my saddlebag speaker grills...way better...in ever way.

So my point here is: If I allow fear to take riding motorcycles away from me?...what's next?...and the more that allow to be taken from me?...the more inactive I become...and the more inactive I become?...the harder it is to climb up into my truck...do I sell that next or trade it in on a prius so I can drive to wallyworld once a week where all of a sudden those electric scooters at the front door start looking appealing because I haven't been doing much walking lately and OMG this store is a monster long walk between pet food and groceries?...and once you get in a scooter or wheelchair?...you don't get out so now do I go ahead and sell the prius and just pay for delivery services?...and maybe now assisted living might start looking like a viable option?...I mean where's it end?...oh...that's right...it ends in that furnace or 6' under...but why rush it?...cause I'm gonna do as much as I can for as long as I can because?....

"THE MORE STUFF I STOP DOING?...THE MORE I STOP DOING STUFF!"

Instead?...I find a way to make it work...I'm a little slower backing my bike out of my single car garage these days and a lot more attentive and judicious about every move I make and when I get out in traffic?...I ride like a yellow vest motorcycle safety instructor until I get out of town and then?...lett'er rip for more miles of smiles now?...where'd I put my "No Fear" bumper sticker? LOL!

Hope that helps but you do you buddy!

 

I commend you on your fighting spirit, and wish you and others well as we face and battle our challenges