Daddo Saddles Up

Welcome to Daddo's Bike Blog!

At 56 I had not been on a motorcycle for about 30 years. Even back in my 20's my bike exposure was limited to a few years on trail bikes and a couple of short trips on a friend's large Yamaha street bike. I had had considerable experience with several other forms of vehicular transport however, ranging from many years building and driving dune buggys and sand rails (tubular VW powered off-road vehicle like those raced in the Baja 1000) and high performance snowmobiles.

For many years I had yearned for a motorcycle and the freedom its represented. To me, I saw riding a cruiser as a departure from the stress and strain of the daily grind like so many other guys replacing a stereotype Corvette with a motorcycle in their mid-life. Unfortunately, my health held this dream at bay. Three disintegrated discs in my lower back plus a bum joint in my pelvis/lumbar resulted in constant pain that often required bed rest for relief and made riding a bike look like the impossible dream. Then, finally early last fall, my insistence for a referral to a back specialist resulted in a diagnosis of arthritis. 24 hours and a few little white pills later (Arthotec) and the pain was gone.

My daughter has been riding for about 8 years and I constantly hear of her rides and silently envied her. Then, early this year (2006), I thought; “My back isn’t hurting and I can afford to buy a bike, so why not – if I don’t do it now it will likely be a dream lost forever!” I’m very fortunate in that I have a loving wife of 36 years who’s only concerns were (1) for my safety and (2) that if I was going to drop a large chunk of change, that I would use it and not simply park it in the garage.

I set myself a budget of about $8,000 for a used cruiser, but ended up with a brand new 2005 Kawasaki Vulcan 1500 Classic – a “big-ass cruiser” as my daughter calls it.

Well, have I been riding safely and using the bike? As I write this today, about 6 months after buying the bike, I’ve got over 11,000 accident free kilometers on it and I’m working out the details for a 3,800km solo ride through southern BC and Alberta the first week of September.