if you feel the need for two wheels , try a little off road riding , see if there are any clubs to join in your area ,
im not talking Paris Dakar stuff , just a bit of fun on a weekend ,
its a great way to keep your hand in and reduce the risks that you find on the road , you will get plenty of wrenching time and a fair amount of camaraderie from the other riders as well ,
its how i started , and the skills you learn off road will serve you well if you fancy riding on road again in a few years .... all the best of luck for the future ,

 

Just my personal experience. After 25 years of not riding last year I got back on which pretty much made me a new rider again. In my first week I had half a dozen close calls. Several months and many thousand miles later I think Ive had 1 (and it wasnt really that close of a call) in the last 6 months. What changed? Surely the people around me havent become less idiotic.......its me........Im becoming a better rider.

 

At a stoplight I count, 1001,1002,1003 before I move ahead, even if I'm not first in line.

This increases the chance that the "Jackwagon" that's bound to run the light on my right or left side has a chance to do so before I'm in the intersection.

I had a near miss years ago.

 

A resurrected eleven year old thread, somehow they're like an ex-lover, they always come back to haunt us.

 

Kinda like selling your bike, unless you physically just can't do it anymore you'll be back. I've sold bikes because I decided my family needed me more than I needed the bike.

 

I'm just getting back on a bike after 20 years off, so a bit of a beginner again too. I always had a bike from 1986 to 2003 and I've got a little over 2k miles in so far this year as I return to riding. I don't remember having any close calls ever. But I live in a pretty rural area and don't find myself around other vehicles that often. My commute to work is 18 miles with only a few rural intersections. I may only see three other cars the whole ride and none of them are in my way. If I lived in a more congested area, I probably wouldn't enjoy riding and probably wouldn't own a bike. I still wonder sometimes if it's worth it even in these ideal conditions as I see FB posts from guys waiting to find out if their foot needs to be amputated or sharing pictures of the reconstructive surgery on their wrists.

 

This has a lot to do with it. I live in Orange County CA and here we have very heavy traffic on par with Los Angeles. I see bike wrecks fairly often and have had my share of close calls but I still ride. I am a pretty defensive rider though and try to not ride like a d**k. Where I live the majority of Harley riders ride like d**ks. Splitting lanes on a road king for example. I saw a guy just a few weeks ago smack a car with his saddle bag. He was lucky he was going slow and didn't go down. It was a pretty solid hit.

 

The biggest thing I watch for is people pulling out of parking lots or side streets

 

Stop listening to your wife.

 

It's a good question. Unfortunately, it's un-answerable.