I worked in motorcycle shops back in the late 60s & early 70s. I saw 'em go out all shiny and new, and I saw 'em come back a week later all folded up. I'd guess per capita, there isn't much difference between 2007 and 1967 when I first started working on bikes. In fact, with the numbers sold today, I'd have to say that if anything the ratio of new riders getting into wrecks is less. I used to do the collision damage estimates and most of the repairs, and we always had a bunch of bent bikes waiting for parts or insurance adjusters to approve repairs.

Either thenews-****** arehaving a slow week or it's sweeps time again.

 

We lost five bikers here in Portland over Memorial Day. #1 and 2 were 21-year-old drunk crotch rocket pilot and his girlfriend.
#3 was t-boned by a car. #4 was a 20-year-old crotch rocket pilot who hit a barrier on one of our bridges (top deck). His bike fell 50' down to the next deck; he fell 100' down to a stairway adjacent to the bridge (pool ofblood left behind). The only boomer was a 57-year-old on a 2007geezerglide, who wason the freeway, and for no apparent reason, rode off into a guardrail. Heart attack?

 

yeah we need big brother to tell us how to spend our money, and what model and make he think suits us.

Tom

 

Why do people have to buy a bike for their 40th or 50th birthday, they never needed one their whole life, but now they feel old so the need one to feel young. We had a guy here crash into a curb and die....no one else involved, he just didnt know how to turn the bike and smashed into a curb.

 

Sad, butit's notsurprising...I'd bet the bulk of the numbersare the sport bikes.ThoseCrotch rockets really outclass 90% of the youngsters riding them these days. The 57 year old guyprobably did suffer a heart attack or something. A friend of mine suffered amassive cerebral hemorrhage a few years back about the same age. He got off the freeway, stopped at the exit and fell over dead on his Ultra. Lights out.

 

wbogley,.......When you get older, how will you make yourself feel younger? I don't believe that its that. It's just that you feel that at some time in your life, you should reward yourself for all the sacrafices you have made over the years. You know, kids clothes, food, school, boys and girls club. Work. Responsibility. That sort of thing. Then, one day, when all the dust has settled, you say, I always wanted to do this but, I couldn't. So, you take a plunge. You get a little selfish and, indulge yourself. You only go once around in life. It's better to say you did it than, to wish that you had done it. If anything, a little better preparedness on the part of those going out to buy a bike at their later years would reduce some of the problems. There's this problem of impulse that keeps getting in the way. Ride safe.......

 

So, what the hell's wrong with that?

The guy died doing what he apparently enjoyed doing. He probably would have had a "cerebral hemorrhage" anyway, and at least he got to go out on his bike, and no one else was hurt by it.

Hell, it's better than my dad, who had to lay in a cold, strange hospice about 50 miles from his house and pass away because my brother wouldn't let him go home, the a$$hole...

 

Thank God Im 20 years too young to be a Boomer...You damn Boomers...All a bunch of wreckless old men

 

Well, other than the fact he died, there's nothing wrong with that. The only reason I mentioned it is that sudden physical failures are a fact of life as one gets into their 'middle earlies' which was pertinent to the issue of 'boomers' getting into wrecks. I'm 56 and have riding for 40 years and could experience that same type of demise myself. I'll hope for that instead of gettin' squashed by some teenybopper in a car. lol

I'm truly sorry about your dad's situation. I'd just as soon come to my end at home, but I do know people who have died in hospices and were very very comfortable in their final days.

 

Careful... there's a bunch of us 'old men' out here who can run circles around you young-ungs!