Ohhhkay, so I didn't start riding seriously until I was 42 years old. During my 42nd year, two of my neighborhood buddies bought Goldwings at about the same time, and a third friend picked up a K1200LT.
So as I listened to them talk about the rides they were going on each weekend and other 'bike talk' it started to give me a little bit of an itch.....and the itch grew and grew some more.
After that I told Bev, 'maybe we should just go out and .....look...... at a bike.' Haha...yea right!
We found one in the newspaper (remember those?), went and looked at it - test rode it - then bought it and rode it home that night (the seller let us write him a check, another relic of the past!)
Aaaaaannd that was it!! I was HOOKED on riding!
I became wild eyed and passionate about anything and everything motorcycle related.
Then as the subsequent 23 years passed I ended up owning 13 bikes and Lo and Behold... this year I arrived at 500,000 motorcycle miles!
Following are the bikes I've owned during those years including my very first bike at 25 years old a Suzuki TS 125 (I only had this one for about a year and put a snidge over 5,000 miles on it)
Then after a bike-less period of 17 years I started riding in earnest.. - My first 'reentry bike was a 1984 Goldwing Interstate
6,000 miles
Next - 1984 Goldwing Aspencade
22,000 miles
1994 Goldwing S.E.
(Sweet Baby)
61,000 miles
2005 Suzuki V-Strom 1000
(Blue)
55,000 miles
2008 Suzuki V-Strom 1000
(Gen)
98,000 miles
2005 Yamaha Royal Star TD 1300
(Bel)
12,600 miles
2014 Suzuki V-Strom 1000
(Beaky)
64,100 miles
(purchased in Fairbanks, just south of the Dalton Hwy...)
2007 Yamaha Venture 1300
(Miss Take)
4,130 miles
2017 Yamaha Super Tenere 1200
(Ele)
130,000 miles and counting
So there it is.....my bike history and a celebration of reaching the 500K milestone.
Yes, those numbers add up to a bit over 500,000 but I wanted to be certain I had reached the correct number or more before I posted this.
Maybe I can talk Bev to buying me a burnt almond fudge shake to celebrate! Maybe she'll buy me 500 thousand shakes!!!
So tell me, when did YOU start riding and what is your current mileage total??
Whatever it is keep riding safe, and keep riding!
Thanks for reading. 👍
6 comments:
That’s quite the milestone! I didn’t start riding until ~2007.
Wow Richard, I had you pegged as a long time rider!
As I recall you also did a lot of peddle biking...right?
If so, that's another thing we have in common
Lots of pedal biking. ~25K before moving to AK.
Good Grief Richard!!! Thats impressive!
Wow 500K
I don't know my total mileage, never kept a log except the last 8 years when I was living in Japan and did 110,000km on a Yamaha FJR1300.
Previously my riding was weekend rides 500km maximum so even with that spanning 30 years I think I'd fall well short of your magnificent total.
Well done.
Motorcycle Paradise - I suppose if I hadn't started riding at an older age I wouldn't have thought to keep track of my miles. That and being US Air Force trained I have a habit of keeping maintenance logs on my vehicles.
Thanks for reading!
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