The time has come.

[Rev Ken]

As I approach my 84th birthday I have reluctantly decided to stop riding. I realised I had only managed three 100 mile rides this summer as my wife is suffering form long COVID and one of the symptoms is increasing anxiety. While she has always 'allowed' me to go for rides as she knows I get 'stir crazy' if I can't get out, it isn't fair to put her through more anxiety every time I go for a spin. I've been lucky to have had nearly 68 years of riding with only a few minor injuries, so I'm not going to push my luck.

Now to work out the best way to get a good home for my bike!

[DJ123]

Sad to hear it, but at least it's a choice you've been able to make and for the best reasons.

[Norfolk UK]

Hi Ken.

This decision must have come after some long hard thought. Probably will therefore be the right one but no doubt you will still miss it all. Your efforts to get the rest of us out and riding together were also a credit to you and I wish they had got more results (finally got to Route 11 Café with my local group recently).

All the best and hope your wife recovers soon.
Ian

[TheMeteor]

Hi Ken. Given the circumstances it seems the right and thoughtful decision.

I have some parallels. I had avoided riding at the onset of the pandemic to avoid going to hospital (should the worst happen) and, of course, the first time I went out I had my first 'real' motorcycle accident. I broke bones in my right hand, toes and bruised my leg badly. At the time my wife had just begun to experience her continuing and growing neurological problems.

While I have done rehab and healed, I have only ridden one time, with my son, around Father's Day. I help my wife almost daily and I am fearful that, should I again injure myself, I would not be there for her. She has been improving of late through therapies and I hope to return to riding in the next year or two.

Good luck to you and all the best to your wife. I hope her symptoms lessen over time and you are a good man to care for her.

[Rev Ken]

Hi Ken. Given the circumstances it seems the right and thoughtful decision.

I have some parallels. I had avoided riding at the onset of the pandemic to avoid going to hospital (should the worst happen) and, of course, the first time I went out I had my first 'real' motorcycle accident. I broke bones in my right hand, toes and bruised my leg badly. At the time my wife had just begun to experience her continuing and growing neurological problems.

While I have done rehab and healed, I have only ridden one time, with my son, around Father's Day. I help my wife almost daily and I am fearful that, should I again injure myself, I would not be there for her. She has been improving of late through therapies and I hope to return to riding in the next year or two.

Good luck to you and all the best to your wife. I hope her symptoms lessen over time and you are a good man to care for her.

My sympathies are with you. It isn't easy to balance 'possibilities' while needing to be there for our loved ones. Until recently we both agreed my 'wellbeing' made it worth the risk of riding - after all I don't usually have accidents. (The worst I've had in the last 10 years is dropping the bike when a car changed direction making me jam on my brakes as I was coming out of a junction. The bike stopped, but I couldn't hold it up. My Hellite Turtle air jacket 'operated' and I was left lying on my back waving my arms and legs in the air - I now know how a turtle must feel like! I was shaken but had no injuries, but it could have been a lot worse.)

[MGD109]

My Cap is Doffed.

Good Luck Ken.

[Royce]

Ken, you have been a lucky man your entire life. You have a wonderful wife who cares for you and loved you enough to allow you to ride a motorcycle and discover the world from two wheels. You rode longer than most of us and you survived nearly unscathed every intersection and every blind curve. My hat is off to you and your bride and I hope the two of you continue to have a wonderful life together. Don't worry about selling/disposing of the bike, that will seem a very minor task as you move forward. I hope good luck continues to dog your trail.

[notacop]

I Lost my wife in March after a years long decline from Dementia. Then we had really toasty weather and I didn't feel like long miles in 100 degree weather. So the Spring and summer came and went then I had a wild hair and bought a F750GS 40th anniversary and spent another minor fortune on crash bars, windscreen, Sargent seat, Outback Motortek bag mounts and some hard bags from Harbor Freight. So the bike is ready to go somewhere but I'm turning 75 in February and maybe I'm loosing my rabid addiction to 1000 miles attending rallies in far away states. Losing a Spouse of 50 years does a number on your thought processes. Maybe in time I'll work up that desire to load up and become a vagabond again.
Like Ken I ponder the need for riding.

[TheMeteor]

Nota, I am sorry to hear of your wife's passing. I imagine that losing a spouse after 50 years will indeed do a number on one's thought processes and reassess things.

[Closterman]

Top of the hat to you Ken
Surely you are a skilful and cautious rider to ride that many years unscathed
I wish I will do as good as you.

[BoxerBits]

Good luck Ken.

Your kindness is giving up something you love for the benefit of another speaks volumes about your character.

Let's hope that your wife's symptoms improve with time.

Stay healthy.

Sent from my moto g(8) power lite using Tapatalk

[ccwatchmaker]

The eighty-fourth anniversary of my birth is now in the rearview mirror. I keep riding because I have no reason not to. At age fifteen I became the proud owner of a '47 British Excelsior with a 125 cc Villiers engine and never looked back. Bought the bike for $35. While most parents are horrified a the thought of their child getting a motorcycle, my mother thought it was a wonderful thing. In later years, she told me the reason she was pleased with the motorcycle is because most of the time I would be in the garage working on it. Over the years, I have owned dozens of motorcycles, road raced in the sixties, both solo and sidecar.

Yesterday, went for a three-hour ride up the twisty road to Virginia City and back down the other side; then turned around and came back. It is somewhat disappointing that I cannot ride as I did sixty years ago, drifting through the corners, but then tires have changed, bikes have changed, and I have changed. On the bright side, I was out in the wind with the bugs in my teeth.

My wife of sixty years died four years ago

[MGD109]

The eighty-fourth anniversary of my birth is now in the rearview mirror.

I can only hope when my eighty fourth birthday is in my review mirror, I get to see it in a motorcycle mirror. (with one of my offspring trying to keep up).

[Daboo]

Ken, we've been together on the same forums through a couple different bikes. It'll be sad to see you go. It's something each of us has to face at some time though.

You've had a good run, if you think about it. Many people aren't even alive at your age. I tell my Father-In-Law when he complains about his body not acting like he wants it to that many of the doctors he's had in the past, probably aren't even alive any more. He's 94.

I started noticing when I hit 60 that some people age faster once they reach 60, and others like you, seem to age far slower. I have friends where the wife is in her late 50s and she looks older than her husband who is in his early 70s. Another guy who taught with me in the prison seminary program is in his early 70s, and looks to be in his 50s. Over in the Colonies, we are celebrating Thanksgiving today. You and I know we have more than this life to be thankful for, and the years we've been riding pale in comparison to what awaits us.

I've wondered what I'll do when I reach this point also. Buy a three-wheeler? The Can-Am looks like a good choice. Buy a Mazda Miata? Or just stick with my turbocharged Subaru and enjoy the twisties in the winter out of the rain with heated seats.

Whatever choices you make next, you made probably the best one. To love your wife and please her.

Chris

[Lesleymorris]

Ken, it's wonderful to hear that you have been able to ride to such a great age. It must have been a hard decision to give up but the right thing to do under the circumstances. I took my test at 55. I'm now 63 and I hope I have a good few years ahead of me yet. I hope your wife improves and you can really enjoy your time together. I wish you both all the luck in the world.

[Rev Ken]

Ken, it's wonderful to hear that you have been able to ride to such a great age. It must have been a hard decision to give up but the right thing to do under the circumstances. I took my test at 55. I'm now 63 and I hope I have a good few years ahead of me yet. I hope your wife improves and you can really enjoy your time together. I wish you both all the luck in the world.

Well done in starting at 55! I do hope you enjoy your riding as much as I have, but perhaps not for the next 50 years or so!

[Rev Ken]

Just to say thanks for all the kind responses. I still look at bikes and 'lust' after them, but then walk away. PERHAPS some time in the future I'll get a small, very old, British bike, or even a trike, but in the meantime I'll just hair around in my 18 year old 3.2S Porsche Boxster.

[guscsr65]

Really sorry to hear this, I am no spring chick myself and have a wife who regularly watches those 'ambulance' progs -----and every-time a bikers appears lying on the road ---i am reminded by her of our risky pastime. So i can empathise with you. The time comes to all of us. -----why not suggest likes of a----argh sidecar outfit ----or even a trike! yes i know BUT it would be better than nothing. I was reminded of this when we were on a rideout to Oban----there was one of those three wheel things which at first we derided ----but then the owner turned up----had only thighs ---and prosthetics ---RESPECT! he was getting the most out of what he COULD use.

[notacop]

Wife and i did the sidecar thing for a long time until her hip replacements made getting into the chair very difficult. It was fun while it lasted. i knew a couple paraplegics that rode BMW's with sidecars. They got on the bike and pulled the chair up between the bike and chair and strapped it down. One does what one decides to do and figures out a way.

[Rev Ken]

I've had two sidecars in my 'early' days as I could pack all my worldly belongings into it. (Now it is a fleet of removal vans!)

I confess I was far more dangerous with them when I ran out of acceleration on left hand bends..... My second sidecar was used to take all my books and stuff to college in Dundee (I lived in the outskirts of London) To do that I removed the sidecar seat. One evening in Dundee my pal, and his brother suggested we should go to see a film so I had them sitting back to back in the sidecar and all went well until we were going down a cobbled street behind the cinema with cars parked on both sides. I was faced by a car driving straight at us. I saw a small gap on the left hand side and swerved into it while slamming on the brakes as I tried to straighten up. The rear wheel left the ground as the aluminium front of the sidecar hit the cobbles and my pal found cobbles under his feet while his (BIG) brother was leaning on him looking up at the stars. e didn't it anything but the car continued to the end of the road and smashed into a wall. The driver had died at the wheel!

I took the sidecar body off but kept the chassis on as I wasn't insured for a solo. To keep the sidecar wheel down I tied a plank of wood on it with a 56 lb weight. All went well until I had another mate on the back going along the Kingsway, a dual carriageway with a wide grass central reservation. Unfortunately the plank started to resonate in a 'Harmonic' way until it snapped, depositing the 56lb weight on to the road which carried on at speed showering sparks and passing cars on the nearside while we took off on to the central reservation. I was riding a 1935 Velocette MSS 500 which had a straight down front tube frame . It dug into the grass as I was trying to slow down with my pal on top of my back and me trying to remove my wedding tackle on the petrol tank filler cap. (We have two offspring!)

I wonder if I've improved my sidecar skills to risk getting another one

[scf]

Wedding tackle...that’s a new one to me , I like it!