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When should we stop riding? -- perspectives of an older rider

I retired at 65, sold my SV650S and bought an upright with bad suspension because I thought I needed to slow down. Not only did I slow down, I quit riding because it wasn't fun anymore. I sold the bike and all my gear a year later thinking I was done riding. So I played a lot of golf and rode my bicycle but those wonderful times rushing through the Sierra Nevada mountains wouldn't stop replaying in my imagination. Last month I bought a Yamaha FZ6R and am loving riding again (at a sensible pace). I'll be 70 this year and have no plans to stop riding.
 
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I am 61 here and will keep riding my three bikes every week. It is great fun being in front of young kids of 20 in the dirt. The sport bike & track season is almost to much fun. Do not stop , nothing longer than two weeks. I think 70-75 is very doable.
Kevin
 
at only 54.
but with a body that is all banged up joints swollen, sometimes painful just to get a handful of brake. :afm199

but i will keep on riding as long as i can get gasoline. and the ss police do not impound the bike, due to some contrived reason...or no insurance, no current reg, that kind of stuff.
hay when i am a old man in his 80's or 90's why bug me.:teeth

as long as i can keep the bike up right i will ride. just not as fast as now...maybe? :ride
 
packnrat said:
at only 54.
but with a body that is all banged up joints swollen, sometimes painful just to get a handful of brake. :afm199

but i will keep on riding as long as i can get gasoline. and the ss police do not impound the bike, due to some contrived reason...or no insurance, no current reg, that kind of stuff.
hay when i am a old man in his 80's or 90's why bug me.:teeth

as long as i can keep the bike up right i will ride. just not as fast as now...maybe? :ride
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Get yourself a bike with ABS linked brakes. Using the front engages the rear, and "studies show" (for what that's worth) much reduced braking times/distances. A lot of my riding doesn't involve front/rear braking, I use throttle control and engine braking. I can come to almost a full stop before engaging the brakes. :thumbup

Oh, and I'm closer to 59 than 58, so I feelz yer painz. :laughing
 
sixty three here. . .uh, why did I come in here?

I'll quit when I can no longer pass a squid on the outside of a decreasing radius curve and show 'em a tail light walking away.

When it's no longer fun to walk down a line of harleys at Daytona Bike Week and click every kill switch to "off", then watch from across the street as the owners come back and attempt to make a powerful exit.

When speeding citations are issued on the say-so of the mandated electronic tracking device installed on all new bikes by the factory.

When I take longer to piss than to drain the old oil out of the bike's crankcase.

When the bike my bud brings me to work on leaks less than my wife.

When I can't determine from the exhaust note a passing bike's engine configuration.

When I no longer fantasize about fantasy destinations.

When excuses to not ride add up to more than reasons to ride.

I'll quit riding when politcians quit lying. . . .
 
Cincinnatus said:
Get yourself a bike with ABS linked brakes. Using the front engages the rear, and "studies show" (for what that's worth) much reduced braking times/distances. A lot of my riding doesn't involve front/rear braking, I use throttle control and engine braking. I can come to almost a full stop before engaging the brakes. :thumbup

Oh, and I'm closer to 59 than 58, so I feelz yer painz. :laughing
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you want my pains? left leg crushed 34 years back, pain in every joint of my body, and knuckles swollen to double size.

but that very bad head-on accident i was in a couple years back, did my back in. :wow

some days i just take a couple norco's and roll over to back to sleep (norco puts me to sleep).

.
 
It's kind of funny how that works; I picked up riding again when my firstborn was two or three months old (he was and is a great kid, so it wasn't any form of escape... I guess he helped me realize how riding is a piece of my life that I was missing)
 
Checking in. I'm 68 and will be doing around thirty trackdays this year. Though next to my friend Joe Kerr, I'm a pussy. I think he did 52 the year he was 68. O, BTW, Joe rides his bike to the trackdays. He was several choice motos and fabbed up nice brackets for gear carrying. He also rides trackdays in Virginia, Ohio, etc., and yes he rides there.
 
At 59, I'm feeling at home in this thread...:laughing
 
Well hell. I'm a young buck at 39.

Gobs of input already.

Bottom line - it's a personal choice.

The one con that is undeniable is the inability to control and predict other motorists, acts of nature, wildlife etc on the road. (Chaos)

Wise riders know this and practice risk mitigation, but even with that you can't control chaos.

Interesting debate about age and natural decline being a factor. I still think it's the chaos factor that is the limiter, and willingness to accept that risk.

I felt the same pull when my first two babies were born. Stopped riding for a while. But for me, my thought cycle eventually comes to the same place.

There is a point at which self sacrifice is more of a detriment to children than benefit.

What lesson am I teaching that when you have kids, you have to stop living your own life in the way that is your most true self?

Quit riding when you want to quit, for your own sake. IMO
 
Pushrod said:
When it's no longer fun to walk down a line of harleys at Daytona Bike Week and click every kill switch to "off", then watch from across the street as the owners come back and attempt to make a powerful exit.
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That is funny...:rofl
 
The day I can't, or the day I find something more fun. But I don't see anyone inventing an affordable personal jetpack with a few-hundred-mile range any time soon.
 
bruceflinch said:
At 59, I'm feeling at home in this thread...:laughing
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Also 59.

Went on a couple of hour ride the other day...first longish ride in a while.

My clutch hand started to hurt at the top part of my hand close to the wrist.

Hope that goes away with more riding.

Would suck if it got worse! :mad
 
Geoff, silly question, but are your controls rotated too high or too low?
 
KKM said:
I am 61 here and will keep riding my three bikes every week. It is great fun being in front of young kids of 20 in the dirt. The sport bike & track season is almost to much fun. Do not stop , nothing longer than two weeks. I think 70-75 is very doable.
Kevin
Click to expand...

My buddies Joe Kerr and Fred Willing rode into their seventies. Last year Fred WON the Daytona Thruxton race, and won the national championship Thruxton Cup a couple times in the last six years. Joe's idea of fun was to put his luggage rack on his 1098 and ride to Virginia for a trackday. He did 50 a year and rode to almost all of them. I'm just a kid at 69 but will still be riding and instructing this year, on the track.
 
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