Thanks and ride safe

[jackonz]

Well after 3 and a bit years fixing up my R80/7 and only getting 260 miles on it I have sold it, first time in my life since I was 15 that i don't own a motorcycle.
After 58 years riding and so many bikes the time has come for me to call it quits and it is far earlier than I expected but my health comes first.

To all of you that gave me wonderful and thoughtful advice my thanks.

Ride safely.

[SteveD]

Cheers and stay well! That time will come to us all!

[melville]

Thanks for joining us for a bit. Be well.

[Rob Frankham]

Around the same age and feeling the strain. I feel for you. My best wishes and may all your aches and pains be little ones...

Rob

[barryh]

At one time I thought I would give up riding at age 70 but that milestone has come and gone without me feeling like giving up. What I am conscious of though is riding less often which is a danger in itself by being out of practice or out of tune with roads and traffic. I'm sure I was safer when I was in tune through riding every day. The infrequency of riding may become the criteria for giving up rather than absolute age.

[Seth]

I gave up riding a few years ago, but for a different reason.
While I was still working, I would ride to work often. I had 8 motorcycles to choose from and rode a different bike every day.
I also took "pleasure" rides. Some long (a week), and some short.
But as I aged, I took stock of life and the world and decided that "pleasure" rides were too self-indulgent.
Using gas for my own amusement seemed "irresponsible" (as the recently departed Pope said).
I now see that we can categorize most of what we do into 3 buckets. Sleep. Consume resources. Make garbage.
Things that were acceptable in the past we now realize to be unacceptable.
Here in the US, slavery was "acceptable" until the 1860s. Women couldn't vote until 1920. We would take our garbage out to sea and dump it and would dump chemical waste into rivers and on the land. On June 22, 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire.
We treat our atmosphere as we did the ocean, something vast that we could just dump in and it would "go away".
A gallon of gas weighs about 6 pounds. Burning a gallon of gas in you vehicle creates over 19 pounds of CO2.
Over 10 pounds of good, clean breathable oxygen (O2) is turned into poison (for us, not plants).

So I've stopped riding. And more radically, I have begun disassembling my "pleasure" vehicles and are recycling what I can. This includes my motorcycle collection (77RS, Mystic, Triumph 750, Yamaha AT2, Honda CB400F) and cars (67 Camaro Indy 500 pace car, 73 Corvette).
I work on other people's cars (friends, neighbors etc), but have stopped working on their "pleasure" cars, as I see it as being an "enabler".
Last one I worked on, a couple years ago, was an MGTD with a Volvo B18 motor.
I did recently help a friend with his R90S, as I was storing it in my garage, and since we didn't ride together it sat for years without running. When he came to bring it home to Colorado, the cylinders had rusted. I felt compelled to fix what belonged to someone else and I was supposed to be taking care of.

In any case, I wish you all good luck in life. Hopefully long and heathy.
I too, am signing off.

[SteveD]

Wow Seth, that's seismic! Congrats on your convictions!

[Krankshaft]

Don't worry about burning a few gallons of gas, Seth, Al Gore doesn't as he flies around in his Gulfstream jet.
John Kerry also has no qualms about flying around in his private jet, telling us all we are destroying the "climate".
The polar ice caps are still here and areal photos of the Maldives show the islands are actually growing a little bit.
Bill Gates has just completed his $42,000,000 mansion, complete with heli-pads, on top of a mountain, you might think, to avoid the deluge..not so, it's on the beach.
Plants love CO2, and our beautiful planet is 15% greener since the year 2000.
So, I plan to ride my motorcycles as much as possible until it is illegal and feed the plants.
Lithium will run out long before oil will.
Ride safe and stay healthy
Jim

[gspd]

To each his own. Everybody's different, we all have different priorities.
Everybody has their own reasons to quit riding.
Mine I hope will be...when they pry my cold dead hands off the handlebars...

Almost a million kms of experience since my first mini-bike in 1967.
I'm pushing 70 now, but still feeling (and thinking) 12 most of the time.
I'm seriously concerned that I will instantly get really old and die if I quit riding.

I'm a safer rider overall now than I ever was.
Slightly less disrespectful of speed limits, not always preoccupied with who's fastest.
I absolutely don't give a damn about the minuscule carbon footprint my bike leaves behind.

I have a two week 8000km maritime ride planned for early July with my wonderwife.
Just itching to go.
A nice mix of 800km long days and 400km short days.
No superslabs, all secondary roads.

It often takes me a full (PD) tank of high octane gas just to really, really, really clear my brain and truly envision reality with all it entails.

[Krankshaft]

Hi, gspd
Enjoy your trip and congrats on having a wife who will ride pillion for 5k in 2 weeks.
Ride safe
Jim