My “love affair” with motorcycles began early. I bought my first one in 1960 in Japan, where I was stationed with the Army for 18 months. When I got home, I bought a little Honda 150. Remember the saying, “you meet the nicest people on a Honda!” That bike and its successors served me well for the 5 years I spent going to college. Graduating and moving to California allowed me to start my motorcycling career in earnest. For the next 25 years, I owned over a dozen bikes but never more than 4 at a time. After a hiatus of 13 years, I got back into riding upon retirement and count myself fortunate to fall in with a group of like-minded old guys. Our unofficial club, the ROMEO’s (Retired Old Men Eating Out), is a great group of old Dudes, and we have a lot of fun.
There are three major divisions in the world of motorcycles: street, dirt, and racing. Racing can involve street or dirt but basically, you have to be certifiably crazy to do either one. Riding in the dirt usually doesn’t involve a lot of miles but rather going to places that are not easy to access. Street riding has its own sub groups including commuting, sport riding, cruising, and touring. There are, of course, some overlaps such as “sport – touring” where the machine is sort of a compromise. Commuter bikes are typically small displacement engines that get outstanding gas mileage. These are used as cheap transportation to get to school or work. Electric bikes are starting to make their presence known and it is this niche they will serve mostly. Sport bikes are typically scary-fast. It is not at all unusual for a medium sized sport bike to be capable of 11 second ET’s at 120 mph in the quarter mile. Top speeds on these bad boys will exceed 200 mph.
Cruisers are characteristically big V twins. Harley Davidson dominates this group. The main goal of a cruiser is to look and sound good. Helmets typically mess with “the look” and are often eschewed. My area of expertise involves “touring.” Touring bikes are normally big, powerful, and heavy. They have full fairings with big windshields, saddle bags and a top case for packing lots of stuff, and frequently are seen pulling trailers. My machine is a Honda Goldwing; motorcycle touring is what I love. I have 200,000 miles on my bike but my pal Kenny has over 265,000 on his Goldwing. No major issues with either bike, by the way.
Every year at the end of May, a bunch of us old farts take off on a 6 to 9 day adventure on our touring machines. At age 75 I am smack in the middle, age-wise, for the group that ranges from 62 to 82. We’ve had as few as 3 and as many as 12 on these journeys. The route is planned in advance; motel rooms are secured in advance and with guys only, we have a great time. That is, no shopping is ever involved. We all ride the same way, all wear helmets with headsets to be able to use our CB’s hands free and are all safe riders.
One year six of us included Mt. Evans, Colorado on our ride. We were there on June 1, the day the road opened. This is the highest paved road in North America at 14,000+ feet. As we crossed 12,000′ elevation, one of the guys came on the radio and said, “you know if we were in an airplane, we’d have to be on oxygen now.” Steep, rough road, extremely tight curves, 40 mph + winds and 32 degree temperature! When we finally got back down,we calculated that the six of us had 3 million miles under our collective belts (butts?) and this was the worst road any of us had ever been on. Great Fun! As one of our guys said, “I’ve been on this road twice: first time and last time.”
In conclusion, I have to answer the questions we’re frequently asked out on the road:
1) “Isn’t it dangerous riding a motorcycle?”
- It can be, but it’s also a lot of fun.
2) “Don’t you get (cold, hot, wet) when you’re out on the road?
- Yes. But it’s still more fun than being comfortable at home.
3) “Can you take me for a ride?”
- Sure. Hop on.
