Mechanical failures still occur, but modern motorcycles are generally quite reliable. Advances in engineering and manufacturing have given us machines that are often harder than their predecessors for DIY riders to work on, but they also need less attention—a debatable trade-off. There’s no ambiguity, however, regarding the increasing maintenance needs of aging riders. We may have fewer worries about our motorcycles breaking down, but we can’t escape concerns about our own inevitably declining mental and physical condition. Unfortunately, we’re not benefiting from any design updates.
Motorcycle owner demographics have been trending older and older. Obviously, there’s much to be said about the urgent need to bring new, younger riders into the fold. That said, we clearly must discuss the needs and concerns of our graying population, too. Ed Housewright’s new-for-2024 podcast series, “Riding into the Sunset” (https://bmwmoa.club/rits), has been well-received because many of us are increasingly interested in how aging affects our riding (and because Ed does a great job!). In my discussion forums at the MOA’s annual National Rallies, and in talking with other riders there and elsewhere, aging-related topics have been coming up with increasing regularity. The most common themes include a) how to extend our riding years as long as possible, and b) how to know/decide when it’s time to stop. Here I’ll cover some of the main points that have emerged in those conversations.
RIDING FURTHER INTO THE SUNSET
It’s a welcome coincidence that the single best thing we can do to prolong our mental and physical fitness is one and the same: physical exercise, especially resistance training. Our bodies naturally lose muscle mass with age, even when our activity level remains constant. If we’re going to have the muscular strength to handle a motorcycle (even small ones weigh close to 400 pounds, and big ones can be twice that or more), we can’t afford to waste away. We don’t have to be bodybuilders, but we do need to be able to right a fallen bike using good form (see numerous YouTube demonstrations). Otherwise, we risk being stranded as a result of something as trivial as a parking lot tip-over. Overall fitness can be extremely beneficial during the act of riding, too. Aerobic stamina and resilience are essential during vigorous riding, whether in the twisties, on the trails or during endurance-testing tours. Lower back strength allows us to maintain better form in the saddle, with less fatigue and pain – same with good flexibility/mobility. Even something as seemingly irrelevant as the range of motion in our neck can actually be a huge survival issue; if we can’t easily do a head-check for traffic in our blind-spot, we might ease over into the next lane right in front of an SUV. A robust body contributes to safety, performance and enjoyment on two wheels.
While it may be ideal to hire a personal trainer for custom-tailored programming, gym memberships can be cheap and include numerous class options, along with a vast array of equipment (don’t forget your local YMCA, which may be an excellent bargain). If you don’t want to leave the house, that’s fine, too. There’s an inexhaustible supply of wide-ranging online exercise videos on tap, with many specifically oriented toward middle-aged and older folks who don’t necessarily have an elaborate home gym. And, of course, if you’ve retained the ability to read, old-school paper books on the topic still exist. The most important factor in many people’s success or failure with an exercise routine is whether or not they have a workout partner, either someone who exercises with them or is available for commiserating and accountability checks as you both work your programs independently. Remember to incorporate stretching, make sure to get your breathing and heart rate up, and don’t undo your efforts with a bad diet. Not only will you have an easier time wrestling your motorcycle around, you’ll be mentally sharper and feel better about yourself in general.
Back when I was writing for Motorcycle Consumer News, my all-time favorite letter came from a reader in his late 70s. He described increasing pressure from friends and family to quit riding, with them citing the risks to his health. He rebutted their arguments with his own: Being a motorcyclist supplied the motivation for his attention to diet, exercise and other elements of a healthy lifestyle, as he wanted to maximize the time he could spend riding with his son. He was still a competent rider and felt he wouldn’t be able to maintain his level of self-care without that payoff. Rather than being an anti-health vector in his life, he considered motorcycling one of the most potent pro-health forces. He was plenty aware of the dangers involved, but for him it was a question of taking a risk versus a guaranteed loss. I found his testimony inspiring and remind myself of it on a regular basis.
In addition to physical exercise, two other factors make major contributions to maintaining mental fitness. The first is life-long learning. People who continually challenge their minds with new tasks tend to maintain cognitive capacities longer than those who don’t. I’m not talking about doing crossword puzzles (those have received more hype in this regard than they deserve), but rather the pursuit of discovery and larger scale mastery. Think learning a new language or taking up a new hobby or sport. Such engagement exercises key aspects of the mental apparatus and also makes us more interesting human beings – which brings me to the second big factor: social interaction. Staying involved with friends and family, and continuously expanding our social circle with new acquaintances helps us sustain emotional vigor with enriched stimulation and connection. Isolation does the opposite. Even loners need some level of contact with others. Solitude can be a wonderful and necessary refuge, but if it’s our only mode of operation it leaves us depleted and depressed; there’s a balance to be struck, and it will be different for different people, but it must include meaningful connections to others.
Have you noticed the circular dynamic here? All these things that support us riding further into old age are also things we can get from riding further into old age! Many types of motorcycling involve some physical exertion. There are always new skills to learn and practice, new adventures waiting to challenge us, new places, events and activities to explore. And it can be a medium for lots of energizing social interaction. As we work on keeping our bodies and minds young enough for riding, riding in turn helps keep our bodies and minds young in general—it’s a pretty sweet deal!
We can also extend our riding years by adjusting our equipment and ambitions to better fit any diminishing capacities. We may require a smaller, easier-to-manage motorcycle, and shorter, less arduous trips. We may need to avoid solo outings in favor of “safety in numbers.” Maybe our canyon-carving gets replaced with sport-touring, or our hard-core off-roading gives way to milder dual-sport romps. Perhaps we take a new interest in restoring a vintage machine as an indulgence of our own nostalgia, and as a way to scale back the performance intensity of what we’re riding. Tapering down can be a better solution than precipitous quitting, but there is a caveat. Riding more and more occasionally is a dangerous approach, since every time you ride you’ll be rusty – on top of whatever physical and mental decline is in play. That’s a double-whammy to avoid. Even when we’re in peak shape, riding abilities decay quickly without practice. We may remember how to do things, but our reflexes and muscle-memory won’t be there to match the ideas in our heads. It’s critically important to get saddle time frequently and consistently, even if the outings are brief. Fifteen minutes of drills in a nearby parking lot can go a long way to keeping us fresh between longer rides (see MotoJitsu.com).
The Ride Inside with Mark Barnes is brought to you by the MOA Foundation. You can join the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America quickly and easily to better take advantage of the Paul B Grant and Clark Luster programs mentioned in this episode.
KICKSTANDS DOWN
If we live long enough, there will come a time when we no longer possess the physical and/or mental faculties necessary for riding a motorcycle with a modicum of safety. We will need to content ourselves with having had a good run, so it’s imperative we live now in a way that will justify such a satisfied retrospective assessment down the road. How any particular motorcyclist arrives at this conclusion will vary. One may simply feel more anxiety than joy when riding, aware they can no longer maintain adequate vigilance or concentration, or they lack the reaction speed, balance or coordination to handle the physical demands of even low-key, abbreviated outings. A different rider may still have nominal confidence in their abilities, but tire of the relentless pleas of family members to reduce their risk exposure. Yet another rider may have a close call with disaster (or an actual crash) that shocks them into a reevaluation neither they nor their loved ones had even considered. Some defiant riders may have the decision made for them by a physician or other entity with the power to take away keys, license or motorcycle access.
A person losing their hearing may not recognize what’s happening at first and instead grow annoyed with others for mumbling. Likewise, a rider with waning competence may believe drivers around them are more careless and unpredictable, or that their motorcycle is somehow not functioning as well as it used to. Certainly, some deterioration in traffic etiquette or machine condition is a possibility, but this could also just be a function of perspective, with the aging rider attributing near misses to anything and everything but their own impairment. When pondering our status, we should assume trends in our riding experience reflect something about us, rather than only looking at the circumstances of each individual situation; we are the common denominator across all scenarios.
The decision to stop riding is a highly personal one, and one that will likely be somewhat arbitrary. I can’t really know when I’ve reached the absolute last drop of my own competence. I’ll either stop a little short of it as a conservative precaution and leave something on the table, or I’ll overshoot it and suffer the consequences. I would do well to consider the judgements of trusted others who can see what I can’t. Even if I don’t notice my riding getting sloppier, my riding buddies probably do, and if they care about my well-being they’ll bring it to my attention. It’s up to me to exercise humility and not treat such unhappy exchanges as humiliation, which will likely prompt defensiveness, resentment and blindness to my actual limitations. Sure, a mistake here or there might be a simple matter of me needing to fortify a few skills with more practice, but there could well be a forest where I insist on seeing only trees. Do I still possess the energy and desire required to work on areas of riding weakness? If not, that should be a powerfully daunting realization. Do I have trouble elsewhere? There’s probably some overlap with the tasks of riding.
Writing about this fills me with dread bordering on mortal terror. I don’t know how I’ll fill the void left by subtracting motorcycling from my own idiosyncratic formula for psychological equilibrium. Figuring something out about this ahead of time would make it more tolerable to let go when the time comes. It’s much scarier to jump off a sinking ship when there’s nothing to swim toward on the horizon. Cultivating other recreational interests as replacements would count toward my life-long learning credits, too. Ironically, it might thereby extend my tenure as a rider. That’s a win-win.
Mark Barnes is a clinical psychologist and motojournalist. To read more of his writings, check out his book Why We Ride: A Psychologist Explains the Motorcyclist’s Mind and the Love Affair Between Rider, Bike and Road, currently available in paperback through Amazon and other retailers.
