dam your arms look like they can rip heads

 

I like Bambam's reply: "until I can't see the road anymore", and I agree. 39 here, just picked it up two years ago, and did an untintentional power slide around a corner last week that made me KNOW I ain't too old for this yet. Ain't no squid. Just a right hand turn down a side street which looked newly paved, but turned out to be "paved" by what was later diagnosed as oil covered grains of sand.

The diagnosis came from the silt inside my right boot when I got home. It was that loose.

But I cranked it out, and pulled it through, and not a spot of her touched down in that sh'iit. Naught but a well planted right foot saved Shadowfax that day, after all the times She's saved me...

"When the steed must lead the rider, then to walk 'er would be wiser"
-Chris

 

Ah well, age is relative. At eighteen I met an ancient of 35 or so driving a Corvette and just knew he could benefit from my advice as to how to drive his car because he cruised so slowly. Kept it at eighty, he said. Now, at a still young but mature 65, I know for sure those eighteen-year-old squids could benefit from my experience and knowledge.

Seriously, too old isn't based on physical age, but on factors that keep one safe on the highway - vision, ability to focus on driving, reflexes, experience.

My uncle rode safely until just months before he passed away at the age of 78. A friend of mine gave it up at in his late sixties because of vision problems after an eye operation. Another in his 70's still hops on his Wing and rip off a 700 mile day to go visit a buddy.

So far (and knock on wood) I feel able to continue riding although I'm not as aggressive as in the past. I hope to be able to for a long time to come. But if I notice reaction times really slowing, difficulty picking up on possible danger spots in the road, an increase in close calls, etc. I'll give it up.