Last Ride of the Season

Mid-October my husband and I enjoyed a gorgeous Fall day, here in Southern Ohio, by taking our last bike ride of the season. Bike, in our terms, means our 2003 Kawasaki Voyager XII touring motorcycle.

We consider ourselves lone wolves out there on the road. We ride alone, not in a pack. We took up biking back in September 2002 when we jointly decided to buy a touring motorcycle instead of a pop-up camper. We'd been discussing how we wanted our empty nest years spent since our two sons were growing up and going their own ways. We'd been tossing around the idea of a pop-up camper or a touring bike. We'd always enjoyed our camping adventures with our two sons during their growing up years. We'd camped in tents,slept on the ground, cooked meals at a campfire, the works.But naturally, the older we got, the less either one of us found sleeping on the ground that adventurous or romantic anymore. More like torture. We thought the camper might be a good idea. We didn't really want to go the full RV route. To this day I am glad we chose the touring bike. Even on the short two hour rides we may get in over weekends, or on summer evenings, we've gotten more mileage and enjoyment out of that bike than we ever would have the pop-up camper. I don't think camping would have been the same without our sons anyway. It was something we did as a family. The bike would be for the two of us.

Touring bikes are considered old folks bikes, but that's OK. After all, I'm at that half century mark anyway, while my younger husband, by fifteen months, will hit the milestone in 2012.We've discovered that because we appear more "friendly" on our non-threatening, non-Harley, bike, people like to talk to us. We're not necessarily invisible when out there riding, but we're not intimidating either. Now come on, when you're honest about it, you know that people who ride Harley's have an image they enjoy. Period. We weren't going for image, we were going for a leisure hobby we could enjoy together.

There's really nothing to compare to riding along the rolling hill roads of Southern Ohio and Northern Kentucky. Beautiful scenery. No traffic to worry about. Back roads to investigate. Time becomes unimportant as long as we get back home in time to feed our animals.

So, when your "invisible" years approach, find something to do that you can look forward to. Something that gives you a spark. For my husband and myself, our shared hobby in our Age of Invisibility is a touring bike.