GOING STRONG
Senior bikers roll into Sturgis, a little slower but with the wind in their beards
STURGIS, S.D. – Frank White had a heart attack while riding his motorcycle. A year later, he cracked his ribs when he crashed at 80 mph.
White shrugs it off as part of life and getting older. He’s not about to quit anytime soon — and he’s been riding for more than a half-century.
“Over the years I have totaled more bikes than I can count,” said White, who lives in southern Indiana. “But even after all the wrecks I’ve been through, I don’t feel like I’m in my 70s.”
White belongs to the Older Bikers Riding Club, a national group that aims to keep seniors in the saddle well past the day they cash their first Social Security check.
There are thousands of senior bikers at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, which runs through Sunday in Sturgis, a bikers’ haven in South Dakota’s Black Hills.
The rally used to be a rowdy affair known for drunkenness, drugs and nudity. Hundreds of people were arrested every year, only to come back and do it again.
There’s still some of that, but older bikers say they’ve mellowed with age.
“With experience comes wisdom and pain. They go together,” said John Christopher, 72, from Cleveland.
“I’ve slowed down. I don’t go over 80 now,” he said.
Christopher’s been riding for 47 years. He’s got a pinched nerve in his back, metal screws in one foot and some arthritis.
But he’s not about to park his 990-pound Harley-Davidson touring bike that’s loaded with creature comforts.
“I just love the freedom of being on the road,” Christopher said. “Take your vitamins and keep riding.”
Most of the Older Bikers Riding Club members are in their 70s. Forty is the minimum age to join, and some members are in their 80s.
White had his heart attack when he was 68, while leaving a motorcycle rally in Illinois.
He pulled off the highway and passed out. A fellow biker, who was an emergency responder, got his heart beating again.
White, who has “do not resuscitate” tattooed on his chest, wasn’t thrilled about that.
“I would just as soon they’d let me go,” he said. “I mean, think about it, you’ve just left a rally where there’s been all these naked women, booze and bikes. And half of your rider chapter is with you. It’s the way to go.”
A year later, while on his way to Daytona Bike Week in Florida, White cheated death again.
He and his wife were going 80 mph on their Harley when the back tire blew, sending them crashing into the highway guardrail and onto the pavement.
White cracked a few ribs, but that was about it. His wife broke a bone in her back.
“It wasn’t real serious,” he said.
White says he’s learned to deal with the aches and pains that come with getting older.
Still, he no longer chips the ice on his quarter-mile-long driveway to get his bike to the road in the winter.
“I don’t ride when it’s below freezing anymore,” he said.
Older riders, more crashes
The average age of a motorcyclist in the U.S. has risen steadily as fewer young people have stepped up to take the place of baby boomers easing out of the saddle.
With that has come a higher injury and death rate for older bikers.
The age group with the most motorcycling fatalities is now 50 and older, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Of 158 biker fatalities in Wisconsin in the past two years, 92, or 58 percent, were riders 45 and older, according to the state Department of Transportation.
Senior road warriors are losing the battle, said Mark Gestring, associate professor of surgery and emergency medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.
Gestring published a study showing that older riders were more likely to die from less severe injuries than younger riders.
“Treating a 60-yearold who has been in an accident is very different from treating a 21-yearold,” he said, because the older rider probably has other medical issues as well.
Age-related changes, such as weaker bones, make senior bikers more vulnerable.
“As you get older, you get less bolder,” said John Miller, a longtime Harley rider from Milwaukee.
Wisdom gained from years of riding experience could lessen the chance of crashing. Yet the risks of severe injury or death starts to increase with people as young as 40, according to Gestring.
“Your ability to weather the storm is less as you get older,” he said.
Making accommodations
At the Sturgis rally, Bob Huddleson wears a black T-shirt that says: “AARP, Aged Adults Riding Proud.”
Huddleson, 67, is from southern California. He’s been a biker for about 40 years and travels from rally to rally selling helmets adorned with animal skulls.
Yeah, it’s strange, but he makes a living at it.
“To be honest, I am slowing down with the riding. The bike is in the trailer a lot now,” he said.
Jack Vinson, from Jacksonville, Tenn., rode 1,375 miles to Sturgis on his 2010 Harley-Davidson Road Glide.
He’s 64 and has barely put the kickstand down since he retired two years ago.
It helps keep him young.
“When I look at people in the retirement home, I keep riding,” he said.
Vinson has nine motorcycles in his garage and a sidecar that matches his Harley.
“My son, now 21, started riding in that sidecar when he was 2 years old,” Vinson said.
Don and Jackey Pratt of Kansas City rode to Sturgis on their threewheel motorcycle, a 2014 Harley-Davidson TriGlide.
They love the additional stability the extra wheel provides, especially as they get older.
“I rode two wheels until 2011, and because of some physical issues, I thought it was better to go from two to three,” Don Pratt, 69, said.
He hopes to ride another 20 years or so.
“I am going to give this trike to my grandson when he turns 16. I will get a new one then and ride it until it wears out or I wear out. One or the other,” he said.
Henry Longbrake of Garden Grove, Calif., brought two bikes to Sturgis in a trailer. He’s 62, and his son, who he’s riding with here, is in his 40s.
Longbrake says he has a bad knee, arthritis and spinal stenosis.
“I got all kinds of ailments, but it doesn’t matter. I got to live with what God gave me. You get busy living or you get busy dying,” he said.
Struggling with balance and weight issues, some seniors use a small set of wheels that drops down when a bike is stopped.
But Longbrake says he’s not taking things to extremes, and he won’t fret over the day when he’s no longer able to get on his bike.
“If I am going to ride, it’s going to be on two wheels. Otherwise I just won’t care anymore,” he said.
When that day comes: “I will just stop, throw my German Shepherd in the car, and off we’ll go.”