Tell me if this was a Great Deal!

[Stichill_imp]

That sounds like an excellent deal to me, letsjet.

I'm amazed at how impulsive people are. That story is surprisingly plausible: someone had a burst of nostalgia and/or aging anxiety and bought the bike with great enthusiasm. Rode it, realized the ol' backside was a tad wider and more tender than in the carefree days of youth and fitted the Corbin. Rode it again, realized "you can't go home again" and riding for them just didn't bring back the feelings and memories they expected. Maybe it was a bit scary. Put the bike back in the garage and never rolled it out again. Later on, decided to liquidate it when the next impulse purchased loomed (my bet: a sports car).

I got a big smile out of what you said.

After a 25 year hiatus from motorcycling, a friend took me too a vintage motorcycle show and I caught "bike fever" again. The following spring I bought a motorcycle for my 68th birthday. Everyone accused me of trying to recapture my youth.

It took a while before the seat felt comfortable. I don't think the seat changed, just me. I also learned to stop every two hours or so and walk around a bit.

During the first couple of months I visited the old motorcycle haunts. Never met any of the hundreds of motorcyclists I had know during my previous 23 years of riding. The modern riders were only interested in sport bikes and cruisers. If you didn't ride what they did, they were not at all interested in what you rode or had to say. As you said, "You can't go back".

As I like to ride the back roads, I learned I was better off riding alone. I went where I wanted, ate when and where I wanted, sometimes rode enthusiastically, and sometimes just cruised enjoying the sunshine and scenery. Does it make me feel young and free again. You bet!

I'm 54 now and became a new rider at 49...had never ridden before; always wanted to but the women in my life (and later, fatherhood) convinced me it wasn't a good idea. But later in life I decided, once the kids were raised, that it was time to get on a bike before I turned 50. As you said, people clucked that I was "having a mid-life crisis." I replied, "Not at all: I'm having a mid-life awakening."

That sounds like an excellent deal to me, letsjet.

I'm amazed at how impulsive people are. That story is surprisingly plausible: someone had a burst of nostalgia and/or aging anxiety and bought the bike with great enthusiasm. Rode it, realized the ol' backside was a tad wider and more tender than in the carefree days of youth and fitted the Corbin. Rode it again, realized "you can't go home again" and riding for them just didn't bring back the feelings and memories they expected. Maybe it was a bit scary. Put the bike back in the garage and never rolled it out again. Later on, decided to liquidate it when the next impulse purchased loomed (my bet: a sports car).

I got a big smile out of what you said.

After a 25 year hiatus from motorcycling, a friend took me too a vintage motorcycle show and I caught "bike fever" again. The following spring I bought a motorcycle for my 68th birthday. Everyone accused me of trying to recapture my youth.

It took a while before the seat felt comfortable. I don't think the seat changed, just me. I also learned to stop every two hours or so and walk around a bit.

During the first couple of months I visited the old motorcycle haunts. Never met any of the hundreds of motorcyclists I had know during my previous 23 years of riding. The modern riders were only interested in sport bikes and cruisers. If you didn't ride what they did, they were not at all interested in what you rode or had to say. As you said, "You can't go back".

As I like to ride the back roads, I learned I was better off riding alone. I went where I wanted, ate when and where I wanted, sometimes rode enthusiastically, and sometimes just cruised enjoying the sunshine and scenery. Does it make me feel young and free again. You bet!

My youthful gearhead phase was in the late '70s / early '80s and it was all about cars. Me and a buddy liked '50s cars and some of our other pals liked '60s cars and muscle cars. We had hours of good times wrenching, racing, and cruising downtown. We all sold our cars, got married, etc. and the old gang was no more. At 39, I think I was having mid-life anxiety and so I bought another '50s car. It was a lot better than the car of my youth but I couldn't recapture the zeitgeist...the social aspect was absent, and I wasn't a fan of going to car shows and sitting around in lawn chairs while people strolled by and picked nits on the car. Boring!

That sounds like an excellent deal to me, letsjet.

I'm amazed at how impulsive people are. That story is surprisingly plausible: someone had a burst of nostalgia and/or aging anxiety and bought the bike with great enthusiasm. Rode it, realized the ol' backside was a tad wider and more tender than in the carefree days of youth and fitted the Corbin. Rode it again, realized "you can't go home again" and riding for them just didn't bring back the feelings and memories they expected. Maybe it was a bit scary. Put the bike back in the garage and never rolled it out again. Later on, decided to liquidate it when the next impulse purchased loomed (my bet: a sports car).

I got a big smile out of what you said.

After a 25 year hiatus from motorcycling, a friend took me too a vintage motorcycle show and I caught "bike fever" again. The following spring I bought a motorcycle for my 68th birthday. Everyone accused me of trying to recapture my youth.

It took a while before the seat felt comfortable. I don't think the seat changed, just me. I also learned to stop every two hours or so and walk around a bit.

During the first couple of months I visited the old motorcycle haunts. Never met any of the hundreds of motorcyclists I had know during my previous 23 years of riding. The modern riders were only interested in sport bikes and cruisers. If you didn't ride what they did, they were not at all interested in what you rode or had to say. As you said, "You can't go back".

As I like to ride the back roads, I learned I was better off riding alone. I went where I wanted, ate when and where I wanted, sometimes rode enthusiastically, and sometimes just cruised enjoying the sunshine and scenery. Does it make me feel young and free again. You bet!

Me too! And I've found a group of guys that I work with who also love to ride, so we go out for lunch rides together and once a year we take a week-long trip, and then we'll usually take one or two day rides on the weekend...usually a spring ride and a fall ride. That's the neat thing about riding: you can have your freedom and solitude and also have some social interaction with other riders.