Do you or your partner/spouse own or ride (on a regular basis) a motorbike?

Yes, we both ride our own bikes. If you worry about everything you will go nuts and in my case it is a short trip. You can slip and fall in the shower causing a fatal injury but people still shower (I hope).

I have been riding since the age of fourteen. Competitively until about thirty, then purely for pleasure. Mostly big V-Twins nowadays – no more sports bikes. My wife love to pillion.

When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter I didn’t own a car. All I had was a Honda 90. Funny how I wasn’t scared at all back then, but now thst I’m older and realize my mortality I seem to decline more often when hubby asks me to go riding on the back of the Hog with him.

My best friend and her SO both ride. He was in an accident several years ago that scared the fool out of us. One of our neighbors got one of those monster SUVs and didn’t know how to drive it. She sideswiped him when she was getting on the freeway and just kept going. When the cops caught up with her she said it was his fault. He was on his way to jury duty so was wearing full leathers and a full face helmet. Even so he spent most of the next 12 months in pain. He kept the helmet to show kids when he visits schools.

They try to be extra careful and defensive drivers. They are both chaplains for the Christian Motorcycle Association so they go to the bedside (or the funeral) of every local biker who gets injured or dies.

I cope with the thought that the next accident might be worse by relying on their carefulness, their good bike maintenance and their adherence to routine. They are both retired military so they tend to approach tasks methodically.

Yes, we both own bikes and have for more than 30 years. As I get older I find myself riding less and less. There are many excuses. It’s too hot, too cold, too rainy, too sunny, too noisy, bad fuel economy, I have to carry something to work, I want to get groceries on the way home, too much vibration, bugs on my clothes…. etc.
I rarely worry about getting smashed. The other excuses are limiting enough.
I still take it out occasionally to get the juices flowing – both in me and the Mach III.

My last boyfriend had a Harley, and I always wanted a motorcycle. I enjoyed riding on the back of his, and want to learn how to ride myself. But now my son wants to learn, and suddenly I feel differently about it.

Still, I know he’ll ride regardless of my worry, so I am paying for us to take the course together. I’ll feel better being with him in the class, knowing what he’s being taught and witnessing how well he does.

I just taught him to drive stick, and he picked up on that pretty quickly. He’s also never been much of a daredevil, and recently was a passenger in a pretty bad accident (thank goodness he and the driver had their seatbelts on and the airbags worked). So I feel pretty confident that he’ll be careful. It’s just all the other idiots on the road…
:-/

No, I will never ride one. They scare me. My husband would love one, but I refuse.
My father’s best friend suffered an unfortunate accident, related to a motorcycle, and I cannot get it out of my mind.

For those of you that have them… have you crashed them?

@hearkat That’s mostly what worries me, the other idiots on the road!

I have had some sort of motorcycle for years. I once hit a patch of something on the road as I was turning and the bike went down and it and I very gracefully slid through the turn and under the bumper of a car that was sitting waiting to turn onto the road I was coming from. I wasn’t hurt and the bike just suffered a few scratches and dings.

I am still riding, just have a 125 scooter now and I love it. My one dog rides in a little suitcase between my feet or the other bigger one just sits on the platform between my feet. I only drive the car when I am going to the city (using the term loosely)

The most important thing is to drive defensively. You can never assume that cars see you or care if you are there or not. Always be ready to take defensive action! You can’t let your attention wander for a moment.

I fell once. I have the Kawasaki H1E 500 Mach III triple. At the time, it had the highest power to weight ratio of any production bike. A wheely machine. You can lay down as low as you can on the tank looking over the instrument panel, punch the throttle and the horizon will drop away. (That means you are lifting your front end and you had better back off soon.) I had just pulled into the large parking lot at work and decided to get on it a little to show off. As I was running up the speed with my front end up about 1 foot, I bumped over a drainage ditch. My lunch was tied to the back of the seat and it flipped up hitting me in the back. While my front wheel was off the ground, I turned around to see what hit me. What was I thinking?!?! When I set the wheel down, it was not straight any more and the bike when down. Just some minor bruises and scratches – broken turn signal and shift lever. I was very lucky.
They called it “the widow maker” for a reason. I still have the bike in my barn. It’s a collectors item.

The first and last time I rode a motorcycle I laid it down in a patch of gravel. After my skin grew back I decided I wasn’t slated to be a motorcycle rider and so set my sights on things with four wheels.

I have several friends who have various problems related to motorcycles, all due to cars hitting them when they were sitting at traffic lights. One guy has a frozen leg, another has one leg now 2 inches shorter than the other, and a third no longer has knee caps.

OTOH, I have friends who really, really love to ride and who will not give it up for anything. I even know one guy who was paralyzed in a crash and who then made himself a bike he could ride anyway (his wheelchair goes into the sidecar and it has complicated hand controls). He now makes a living building similar bikes for other paraplegics.

I ride almost every day. I had a wreck last year and broke my foot and was rashed up. I recovered and now I think about the dangers, but just try to stay one step ahead of the four wheeled vehicles. What it comes down to is, when it’s your time to go, that’s it. Whether you are on 2 wheels or 4.

@Russell_D_SpacePoet I have no problem riding a big V-Twin, the noise makes all drivers aware of your presence. Riding a modern “quiet” sports bike scares me. I was loaned one while getting some work done on mine and barely survived the day, at least six near misses. As it is now, as I come up behind someone I see their head check the mirror when they hear me. If they don’t move (a kid busily destroying his eardrums with excessive volume) I gun it past them – never stay behind them.

My only bad accident off the racetrack was when a large truck lost its load ahead of me. It was taking a bend at highway speed and the load (a crane) broke free and hit the road twenty feet ahead of me. It took a lot of grafts, skin and bone, plus nearly as much hardware as Lee Majors to put me back together.

@DarkScribe I had a Suburban try to side swipe me on the freeway and getting out of the way from him, I ended up going down. I was on a Kawasaki zr750. Not a loud bike. Maybe I need some loud pipes. Can’t afford the Harley.