"Ride to Ride Again"

Do you folks ever think about how long we will be able to enjoy dirt biking? (and other forms of motorcycling for that matter). Do you ever think about the risk/reward tradeoffs of dirt riding? I'm in my 50's now and trying to be wise about adventure sports. I want to do them for a long time - "Lord willing and if the creek don't rise!" :)

Was on a trail ride the other day. Adv inmate, "Juniors KTM", was on the ride. He's also an offroad racer evidently can ride fast woods rider based on his racing classifications. But, on our ride he was taking it easy, standing on the pegs most of the time. Looked like a trials rider trying not to daub a foot. After the ride I complimented him on not trying to haul butt on the ride and that he was cleaning most all of the tough sections.

He told me the story of meeting an 87 year old dirt biker that was an awesome guy. Said his advice was "Ride to Ride Again" Juniors KTM - said it's harder to ride slow well than just to ride fast and he thinks riding "trials style" on a dirt bike is one of the best ways to improve riding ability anyway. Don't get me wrong, he was not riding super slow. He was just going slower that he could have and cleaning sections.

I like this approach to the sport and think it can extend our dirt bike riding careers - thoughts?

reminds me of:
there are old riders and bold riders, but there are no old bold riders

I like this advice. The older I get the more I enjoy slower tight single track riding with fallen logs and other obstacles.
Perhaps more technical and less balls than when younger but I don't go down as often and when I do I'm usually going slower.

I am 64 next week. I ride a wr250r and a KTM 690r. They are set up well for the type if riding I do. That is mostly double track and I work very hard at not hurting myself. I have learned this past year that I am more capable than I thought, tho. I don't need to be as timid as I am.

Still, I'm not climbing rock gardens and rolling boulders unless I have to. I like a less stressful ride these days.

Thanks for the words Mike!

Yup, there are definatley times and places for race speeds.....like in a race! Adventures and DS rides are always about the ride and the fellowship. That being said I have always enjoyed the pace of these rides to work on improving skills and not get lazy on the bike. I feel when you get too comfortable and lazy you aren't as sharp and bad things happen. So I try and make it fun.

Ride to ride again, words to live/ride by,

Braaap,

FF

I'm 51. I used to be able to ride anywhere, and keep up with most people. We had a good time hauling ass through the woods, in the desert, and pretty much everywhere. I got out of it for a bit, a couple of years, then bought a KTM500MX, rode it for a while to get back up to speed, then a YZ250 2 stroke, which was a great bike. Then I bought an 06 YZ450F, brand new. And it seems that I start getting behind what the bike is doing, after a bunch of turns, I'm at least a turn behind what the bike is doing, I'm not keeping up with it. And scared the shit out of myself a couple of times, coming real close to bailing in a big way. So, I sort of backed away from it a bit, most of the guys I rode with quit riding, and eventually, traded the 450 off. But I recently bought a bicycle on the advise of my doctor, get some wind back and coordination and all, and I'm thinking KTM 300 in the next several months. I don't know if I'll be able to get back to the level I was at, but hopefully closer than I was on the 450. It seems like I lost some timing, coordination, and general fitness.

I extended my off road career by going back to the Basics.

And I mean Basics, bought a Yamaha TW200, you know, the one with the fat tires.

MSF's favorite trainer, almost impossible to hurt yourself on.

Only downside besides it being a Yamaha, wish it was a 350.

I am 54 and I have a KTM 520 for dirt and a KTM 990a for Adventure &road .
I still enjoy dirt and do ride slowish .
One of the guys i sometimes ride with is 53 and will ride fast and any hill challange , why i don't know ??????
I don't ride with him much as i have slowed down , the younger guy that i do ride with is 40 and always thanks me for a great enjoyable ride as he is a Very quick rider and dam good at it .
So as KTM Junior has been told to" Rideto Ride Again "
I will look forward to riding when i am in my 80 s .
Tezza

Weight training, aerobic training, good diet (nothing processed), will take you a long, long way. Especially when you drop your ride and have to pull it out of a ditch.

When I taught my son how to dirt ride, we spent a lot of time picking through the woods on tight, slow trails.

I took chances and rode the crap out of my friends bikes as a teen. Now I am 55. I bought my first bike and started riding at 47. I discovered touring and enjoy moto-camping and I've been known to step off the pavement just a bit. So, in 7 years I've ridden over 100,000 miles through 27 states. I'm focused on minimizing risk and riding as many years as I can.. I ride 100% ATGATT in high quality gear in hopes of minimizing injury and recovery time.

I tell the sport bike kids, "I measure my exhilaration by the calendar and odometer - NOT the tach and speedometer."

I'm 55, been riding off and on, mostly on, since I was 12. Had local dealerships sponsoring my road/drag/motocross racing habit for a few years, and had a blast. Bought myself a KTM 990 for my 51st birthday, an upgrade from my KLR 650. Loved that bike, flogged it mercilessly at times.
But: Like the poster above, I found the bike occasionally getting ahead of me. I'd be reacting to the bike instead of having fun, aware that I was riding a dangerous edge. Had that feeling a few times too often, and sold that big beauty before it killed me.
Riding a 650 Dakar now, works great on the highway though I trailer it for longer trips. I'm more comfortable flogging this bike than I was the 990. Mrs1911fan has one too, and she's a dirt noob, so we take it easy.
My racing days are long gone. I ride to have fun; some days that's faster than others. Some mornings I get bad vibes and take the cage. But I plan to keep riding as long as I can, so I find myself overall more cautious than I used to be. Or than I need to be, sometimes.


1911fan

I sit here typing this with a cast from my knuckles to my arm-pit due to a intra-articular distal radius fracture (broken wrist) gotten on 12/9. I should be out of the fibreglass on or around 1/15, and if it had to happen it couldn't have happened at a better time. Roads are all fucked up with salt and grits and the woods are covered in snow. BTW.....did the wrist breakage in a nasty ass high-side off my 525 EXC, got tangled up in the bark/wrist-buster and SNAP!
Anyway, closing in on 54 and up until 12/9 was riding faster (and smoother, except for the high-side thingy) in the woods then ever, and I hope that this break doesn't bug me because I have no intention of slowing down in the woods just yet. On the street I still like to go stupid fast on curvy roads now and then, but I pick them out more carefully than I did 25 years ago. But, what's "going slower" for me, ain't to slow.
But, yes, I ride every ride like I want to ride again tomorrow.

Chris

Heated grips on both bikes will help the pain in the repairing wrist , i have them on both my bikes and it helps????
Tezza

I am 54, and found out is is NOT a good idea to ride a big heavy bike in the dirt, even at a reasonable pace.
Bones break very easy when you get older.
So I traded the dr650 (not a super heavy bike) in on a TW200 for a while, and went through swamps and mud holes, on a lighter lower slower bike.
I would like to get something light and smaller, like an xt225 or crf230, as the TW200 is different from a regular dirt bike.
My skills are just as good as ever, my eyesight is not, and the bones are fragile, but I still like speed.

I do not want to screw myself up so bad I can't ride anymore, I almost did that in my last crash, so I went mellow.

I've found that going faster in the dirt (up to a point), big 950 or little 525, is easier than going slow.
But that's just me.

Chris

I am not trying to give advice by any means.. (I'm still very young and have no business on this thread) But I thought it was funny I run across this thread right as I am watching "dust to glory" and they begin to talk about a 65 year old man, tearing it up in the baja 1000... So it looks like you guys have the right idea (finding your own pace) but in the end I think doing what you love is best. That is what this guy is doing, and at his age that is impressive to see such ballsy riding being in the baja 1000 and all, but that is what he loves to do. So I guess you can be a "old bold rider."

As a friend of mine once pointed out, the throttle goes both ways. The road /trail you are on also does and you choose where you go. You also choose who you ride with. I have always been a proponent of riding your own ride. The object of these bikes is to have fun on them..

I don't think the attitude we are discussing is to ride timidly or slow. Just slower than our limits of ability. I consider it a good ride if we've had a lot of fun and we don't need to visit a doctor during or after the ride.

There is much research done on how knee and hip injuries, late in life, can be life changing events that lead to a decrease in the overall quality of life.
These type injuries take a long time to heal and the studies have shown that many people never regain the mobility they had prior to the injuries. This often leads to an increase in sedentary lifestyle. Which can lead to weight gain and cause other complications.

Not trying to scare anyone, but as we age, our bones can get more brittle and the increase in fracture increases. Load bearing exercise and proper nutrition help fight this. But a hard fall is a hard fall. For the most part, younger riders have a better ability for full recovery.

I'm right at about the same age a the OP. I've backed off the throttle a little in recent years because I know if I go down hard, I'm breaking something. And a slow ride in the woods is a heck of a lot better than no ride in a leg cast...

There's a million different ways to break yourself, M/C's are just one of those ways. How many people slip & fall in the shower every year? Or take a header on ice? And, while going slower may lessen ones chances of a "bad"crash, you can still have one. I had one of my scariest get-offs at about 3mph, going along a short section of trail that was only about 1 1/2 ft. wide with lots of roots, a steep rock wall on one side and a about 10 ft. drop-off into a boulder strewn stream on the other, I clicked off one of the aforementioned roots a bit wrong, and I'll let you guess the rest.


It took all 6 of us to get the bike back up onto the "trail".
My buddies were like.........................HOLY SHIT! That's the worst crash I ever seen! I was like..................YEAH! At almost NO miles per hour.

I rode again!
I'll ride again!
(as soon as I get this fucking cast off )

Chris