Oilhead, versus Battle Scoot Brigade?

[Warney]

Don't sell it! In a moment of weakness and to this day I regret selling my beautiful 1985 BMW K100 Standard. I worked long and hard to afford and enjoy that BMW and I'm sure yours didn't come easy either. Don't sell it!

[CaseyJones]

Originally Posted by vortexau

Are you certain that you'll want to be still taking corners fast in your twilight years?



And then, there are Threewheelers which bank into corners!

The same thing with sidecars - - - - some types retain the"Lean":

I wasn't sure myself until I got a fast bike.

Now, in a cage...I drive...like an old man. I'm in my fifties, so I guess it's natural.

On that BMW...two summers ago, I was working out in South Dakota. All those empty roads...some of them even curve. I'd never have thought I'd want to do it; but I was bumping up on triple digits pretty regularly when on the road.

But then...last year this time, right here...I was free for the summer and planning to team up with a group going to Alaska. Culmination of a life's dream; and a return for me from 22 years earlier...back then I made the trip in a pickup. I wanted to go in style this time...

Instead, first my back kicked up and then I got gout. On a business trip/ride to Dallas; I got gout outside Joplin, Missouri, four days after those tornadoes. NO PLACE I was gonna get medical aid, for 300 miles...everywhere facilities were overwhelmed.

As I struggled to get on, and struggled more to keep going...I had a whiff of the future for me.

[vortexau]

Bad - those health issues!

Angel Lee, a designer, has come up with a great solution. Using a motorcycle, he has attached an ambulance trailer to the motorcycle. Inside, there's space for medical equipment and for a paramedic. And of course, the patient. This way, the patient can be transported quickly, and reasonably safely, to the nearest hospital. The ambulance is called R-aid.

Imagine being able to take medical aid along -- on a tour? I'd say that the Paramedic would be riding pillion. Complaint acts up, you pull over, and you get into the 'trailer' where the Paramedic wacks in the intravenous and the pain-killers.

There would need to be a Two-Way link to call in the Medi-vac Copter if its THAT BAD!

[CaseyJones]

Originally Posted by vortexau

Bad - those health issues!


Imagine being able to take medical aid along -- on a tour? I'd say that the Paramedic would be riding pillion. Complaint acts up, you pull over, and you get into the 'trailer' where the Paramedic wacks in the intravenous and the pain-killers.

There would need to be a Two-Way link to call in the Medi-vac Copter if its THAT BAD!

Cute.

But most people have no IDEA how isolated the Al-Can Highway is; or how far away from help you can be on the road to Watson Lake, Yukon.

When you're a kid, or even in your thirties, you just go with it. When you're two decades older, and you've had warnings...and you're looking at sleeping on the ground, sometimes in the rain, no help around and nothing but other bikers nearby...and the machine and gear you'd have to abandon if you get aid from a stranger for 200 miles..

...it's a no-go. Even in central Missouri in a crisis, I was pretty much helpless. I could go to a hospital and wait, maybe a full day or longer...gout isn't life-threatening. Neither is a compressed disc, even if it causes sciatica.

So I could wait, or I could ride to Dallas. I chose to ride; and probably got aid quicker for it. But, again...when crap like that keeps coming up, maybe you should ask what the hell you think you're doing.

[Brooktown Geezer]

One other possibility is to trade the GS in for one of the new BMW scooters to be released in September or October.

I bought a G650 GS which was a great motorcycle, but it wasn't comfortable for me, and I was getting pain in my left forearm whenever I rode it for more than a couple of hours. Sold it and now have a Burgman 650. No more problems in my left forearm.

[vortexau]

Originally Posted by CaseyJones

. . . you're two decades older, and you've had warnings...and you're looking at sleeping on the ground, sometimes in the rain, no help around and nothing but other bikers nearby...and the machine and gear you'd have to abandon if you get aid from a stranger for 200 miles.. . . .

Why, this? I gave up sleeping on the ground (not even an air-mattress) after my very first foray to the Easter Races at Mount Panorama in the mid-seventies. That FIRST trip, I bedded-down under a plastic flysheet pulled over two motorcycles ,-- but never again! Bit-by-bit I upgraded my camping equipment (over the decades), and my current equipment includes a Sleeping Stretcher like so:



. . . and a lightweight tent tall enough to stand erect once inside. I've given up on those crawl-in (hands and knees) tents some Twenty Years ago.

Now I have a trailer - I'm not prepared to forgo basic creature comforts.




At the very least, any senior-aged rider should have some above-the-ground dry sleeping comfort . . . . to this kind of standard.




Even the tents today can be self-erecting!

[DandyDoug]

Interesting posts to your dilema Casey.

I will be 68 in august and am riding an airhead BMW, like most of us at an age, I deal with some health issues and find myself looking at maxi scooters for many of the same reasons as you.

If I don't win one of the raffle bikes at the BMWMOA rally this summer i will be taking a much closer look at a maxi by the fall.

At this point in life I don't care much what anyone says or thinks about what i ride.
At least I continue to ride.