{"id":16327,"date":"2022-02-27T05:45:50","date_gmt":"2022-02-27T13:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=16327"},"modified":"2022-02-27T05:45:50","modified_gmt":"2022-02-27T13:45:50","slug":"there-comes-a-time-or-does-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/02\/27\/there-comes-a-time-or-does-there\/","title":{"rendered":"There comes a time…or does there?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A wise man once said there comes a time in every man’s life when he decides to hang it up…his riding days are over.\u00a0 Ignoring the sexist tone of that gender-specific comment, I guess the follow-on comment has to be:\u00a0 Or does there?<\/p>\n

I turned 71 a few months ago.\u00a0 To a lot of folks, that’s old.\u00a0 The funny part of it is, though, I don’t feel old.\u00a0 A little earlier today I was putzing around in the garage and my Royal Enfield was making me feel guilty.\u00a0 I hadn’t had the 650 twin out on the road in the last few weeks, a character deficiency I promptly corrected.\u00a0 The old girl and I had a nice ride around the neighborhood, I got the oil circulating again (in the Enfield and in yours truly), and I snapped that great photo you see at the top of this blog.\u00a0 \u00a0That’s snow-covered Big Bear you see off in the distance, a destination I’ve visited many times on a motorcycle.<\/p>\n

But to get back on topic:\u00a0 At what age should we think about hanging up our riding gear?\u00a0 \u00a0Now that I’m a septuagenarian (I had to look it up, so you can, too) I’m wondering about things like that.\u00a0 \u00a0But then I think about the guys I’ve ridden with and maybe I’ll continue riding for another 20 years or so.\u00a0 Take a look.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Simon Gandolfi, who just turned 90 and is arguably the most interesting man in the world, is a novelist and moto adventurer extraordinaire. He’s ridden around the world on small displacement bikes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Colorado Dan, the man. He cuts a dashing figure and is a great traveling companion.\u00a0 He’s a year or two older than me.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
Another most interesting man in the world…good buddy Willie. He’s usually riding when he’s not pitching Dos Equis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"
James, our Texas Ranger and a serious traveler, is in my cohort and he rode Baja with us.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You know, the funny thing is the tone of the conversations during and after a good ride hasn’t changed at all over the nearly six decades I’ve been riding.\u00a0 The topics have changed a bit, but not really that much.\u00a0 We still mostly talk bikes and good roads.\u00a0 But instead of bragging how drunk we were the previous night and who we spent the night with (which was mostly bullshit, anyway) the topics today address different specs.\u00a0 \u00a0Instead of 0 to 60 times, quarter mile performance, and top ends, now it’s things like our A1C, PSA, and HDL numbers.\u00a0 You fellow geezers know what I’m talking about.\u00a0 But the discussions are just as lively, I think a little more interesting, and probably a bit more truthful.\u00a0 We’ll touch on politics on occasion, but if the conversation gets too heated or goes too far in that direction, I can always get us back on track (and get a good laugh) when I weigh in with a single question:<\/p>\n

You guys know what the problem is in politics today?\u00a0 \u00a0All the guys who really know how to run the country are out screwing around riding their motorcycles.<\/em><\/p>\n

So, at what age should you hang it up?\u00a0 I’m finding that’s hard to say and most guys my age and older seem to just keep on going.\u00a0 I’ve ridden with guys well into their 70s, 80s, and sometimes even more.\u00a0 \u00a0Good buddy Dan is heading down to Baja next month to camp on the beach near Gonzaga Bay, and he’s a little older than me.\u00a0 Sim0n Gandolfi, the British novelist and adventure travel writer, rode to Cabo San Lucas and back with us on 150cc CSC Mustangs<\/a> about a dozen years ago, and he’s about to leave on another epic moto trip at age 90.\u00a0 \u00a0James from Texas bought a new motorcycle and rode one of the Baja trips with us.\u00a0 He spun off somewhere about halfway down the length of the Baja peninsula to take the ferry across to mainland Mexico, and he was going to ride home to Texas through Mexico.\u00a0 And Willie, another most interesting man in the world, rides every chance he gets when he’s not doing Dos Equis commercials.\u00a0 Like me, all of these guys qualify for that 89-cent cup of coffee at McDonald’s.<\/p>\n

Yeah, I think I’m going to stay at it for a while.\u00a0 I think you should, too.<\/p>\n

\n

Never miss an ExNotes blog…sign up here for free!<\/p>\n\n

\n

The best riding in the world?\u00a0 \u00a0In my opinion, it’s unquestionably Baja.\u00a0 Take a look<\/a>!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A wise man once said there comes a time in every man’s life when he decides to hang it up…his riding days are over.\u00a0 Ignoring the sexist tone of that gender-specific comment, I guess the follow-on comment has to be:\u00a0 Or does there? I turned 71 a few months ago.\u00a0 To a lot of folks, … Continue reading “There comes a time…or does there?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,89],"tags":[2605,2608,2607,2606],"class_list":["post-16327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-good-stuff","category-motorcycle-adventure-ride","tag-age-versus-riding","tag-at-what-age-do-you-stop-riding","tag-older-motorcycle-riders","tag-senior-motorcyclists"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/IMG_2123-002-900.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16327"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16349,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16327\/revisions\/16349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}