OLD GUY ADV RIDING TIPS
Guest: Murrae Haynes, a lifetime motorcyclist who is currently 74 years old.
Episode Summary:Get ready to unlock the secrets of continuing your adventure riding journey as you age, with invaluable insights from our 74-year-old guest, Murrae. We promise to transform how you see and handle the unique challenges of maturing as a rider. Together, we examine the shifts in mindset, the importance of self-assessment and risk management, and why riding slower might be a wise decision. Discover how choosing the right bike, planning your route strategically, and conserving energy can enhance your riding experience. Murrae shares his personal experiences, offering practical advice on navigating your adventure riding in your golden years.
Going beyond the basics, we dive deeper into the significance of energy conservation and continuous training for older riders. Expect to learn, grow and be inspired, whether you’re an experienced rider or just starting out. So come along, as we explore the thrilling world of adventure riding, no matter your age.
Full Transcript:0:00:15 - Bret TkacsWelcome to Around the Wheel with Bret Tkacs. Today, my guest speaker is Murrae. Murrae is a 74-year-old rider, and so our chat today is old guy ADV riding tips. I'm 51, which by some definitions people would call an old guy, but in the adventure world I am top dead center of the bell curve, but Murrae is on the other side of it. So whether you are already in that same age bracket or approaching the same age bracket as Murrae, all of us are headed that direction. So this is a great talk, no matter what your age or who you are as a rider. So, Murrae, let's go ahead and jump into this and just talk about some of the concerns or some of the changes that are prominent in your thought and your mindset as a rider of your age.0:01:02 - Murrae HaynesSure, well I think the easiest thing is when I hit my early 60s - because I'm a rider coach and I do training a lot, I started just kind of by habit, going into some self-assessment. I think when you and I spoke the other day it started on the racetrack in terms of what are my skill sets, how are my reaction times, what do I need to do to be safe? And then that kind of bubbled over into the street and into ADV riding and everywhere else. So I would say the main concern maybe is self-assessment and risk management. How can I look at my risk offset and how, if any way, do I need to change it or tweak it to accommodate my age, to stay active in the sport?0:02:02 - Bret TkacsWe could spend all day, I think, talking about this one. So, Murrae, what Murrae is referring to is yesterday we had had a get together for all the Patreon supporters and we were discussing what sort of topics or what sort of videos they like to see on the podcast or the videos for 2023. And this one came up as a video and I thought it was a much better idea for podcasts because we can dive into the details, because once we've started talking about that on the meeting, I started scribbling down a bunch of notes and then I had one of the other riders that was on that meeting is also just approaching – he’s 72, I think now, and he came up with some ideas as well. And a couple of things that you brought up that we should bring forward in this conversation is we're talking about rider speed, how that made a difference. Thom brought up the greatest concerns that he seemed to notice amongst his riding buddies of similar age. There was way more concern about falling, especially falling with the motorcycle, and they're very concerned about being able to self-recover, to be able to pick up and recover that motorcycle. Are those kind of peak concerns for you, or do you have a different direction that you're coming from?0:03:12 - Murrae HaynesNo, I think the baseline for my concerns would be that exactly just wanting to avoid falling - an injury and being able to, as you say, recover the motorcycle, pick the motorcycle back up.0:03:28 - Bret TkacsI think that led into a couple of categories. Being an educator myself, like you, I'm always breaking things down into bite-size bits. What are the categories, as we get older, that we should be aware of? One, of course is and I'm going to run through this list I think we should go back and maybe discuss these together, because I'm not your age – 51; I'm definitely older than I used to be, but there are significant differences between 50 and 74, at least certainly from the people I've trained and the people I've ridden with. In fact, I just had a guy that rode in Nepal with me who was also 74. I'm always just impressed, amazed and envious of the stupidity at that level to be able to continue to do what we all do. Because none of us are doing this because we're smart. If we were smart, we'd sell our motorcycles and we'd buy a Volvo.0:04:23 - Murrae HaynesAt 51, just as a reference, at 51, I would say a lot of my riding… I was riding just like my hair was on fire. I was loaded up and ready to go and having a great time and being competitive and getting out there and doing it. At 74, now it's kind of my hair is at a smolder, if you will.0:04:48 - Bret TkacsI think the way to look at this is riding speed, because that's an obvious thing I see every time I ride with somebody in their late 60s or in their 70s, the speeds are much slower, and there's good reason for that. The bike choice - what bikes you ride, because you're balancing between the smaller bike that's easier to handle versus the lack of comfort of a smaller bike and the greater fatigue that sometimes comes from riding a smaller bike. Route choice, energy conservation, which is true for all of us. The tools that you should have with us. I think those are the big ones that I go, okay, these are the categories we really have to pay attention to as we're getting older. Let's just jump into the riding slower. I'm assuming that you are definitely riding slower than you did when you were 50.0:05:37 - Murrae HaynesOff-road? Definitely the case, and I think on-road as well. On the racetrack, as I had mentioned, I went from riding big bikes at high speed to riding smaller, vintage bikes which accommodate my reaction times I think, a little safer. So yeah, overall, I'd say yeah, slower, I'm trying to increase my risk offset.0:06:03 - Bret TkacsWhy are you riding slower, though? If you were to break it down to the specifics, why is your speed affected so much as you get older?0:06:12 - Murrae HaynesI would relate it to skill sets, which are good, but reaction times, which I think tend to tail off and we have to be cognizant of our reaction ability. But I also think, at least on the street, the increase in traffic density has been crazy. Off-road, I think it's obvious choosing the right road and, when you get into something that's challenging, paying more attention to your line and to your speed and just that avoidance of falling over and having the bike land on top of you.0:06:49 - Bret TkacsI broke it down what I was guessing would be the reasons for that change, because obviously this happens and I mentioned earlier in this podcast - it's a good thing - If we can only ride as fast as we can handle the situations that are coming at us. And as we get older, we know our vision changes. We can't get information as fast. It means you have less time to process the information f you're going fast, ;the only way to get more time is to slow down. That also goes with the mental processing. We know that as we get older, sometimes we can't multitask quite as well as we used to. Sometimes we have to think about things just a little bit longer. Of course, that requires time. I think you also mentioned reflex. Our reflexes change as we get older. I think there's a lot of natural aging that occurs that if you're still riding at a fast pace as you get older, you're also riding at a much, much higher risk. The only way to maintain the same risk level is to actually drop your speed. Does that sound about right? Am I missing anything on that one or - you're there, I'm not.0:07:58 - Murrae HaynesWell, I think you're absolutely right. And what's interesting is in your mind, you can still be 30 years old and saying, yeah, it's great to be out here and let's have some fun. But if you're smart, you listen to your body and listen to your reflexes and just simply step back and assess what reality is, if you will, because I think everything you just said is very pertinent, you bet.0:08:23 - Bret TkacsAnd the other one that I didn't mention here was, I think, fear. As a trainer, one of the things I notice is the greatest challenge for riders is the fact that fear gets in the way. Often they drop their bike, not because they're not capable, not because they don’t have the physical skill or strength. It's because they're afraid of dropping it and therefore they do. And I think as we get older, because we know that we don't bounce anymore, there's no cartilage left, that healing takes a lot longer, that if you drop the bike you may not be able to pick up and recover the bike, I think it's very natural for fear to come back into play where you're more concerned about these and therefore that fear can become the same challenge or the same issue as it is when you're a brand new rider.0:09:09 - Murrae HaynesI think for me, less so fear and more so caution came up. I know the recovery time from injuries and stuff from prior experience and at this point at 74, the recovery time is so much longer than it is, say, at 50, that your caution naturally goes up, and I think when that crosses the line into fear, what you're talking about is exactly what happens. People start to make mistakes that they wouldn't normally make.0:09:41 - Bret TkacsNow. So, let's talk about some of the ways to compensate for this. Right? We know what the challenges is and we know that riding slower is okay, right, that that's a good thing. So,
