Just because you may be arriving near mid-life doesn’t mean you can’t be happy adventuring and exploring the world around you
The happiness curve that is. Yes, there is such a thing as a “Happiness Curve,” and the good news is that most of you reading this article are on its upswing. Sure, we all have our setbacks, obstacles, and ruts, but according to the enormous amount of data collected from all over the world by author Jonathan Rauch, most humans in their 50s and older are riding higher on that U curve of happiness. The journey hasn’t been easy, of course. According to Rauch’s book, The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50, following the optimism and relative simplicity of our youth, we head into a rocky descent well into our 40s, before starting to climb up and out in our 50s. These are simply statistics, and your path may have been entirely different.
As a self-identified 50-something female adventure rider I connect with Rauch’s findings. My 30s and 40s were a long slow grind, followed by a mid-life crisis manifesting in some confusion and the sowing of many wild oats. During that 20-plus-year passage, I enjoyed the intense joy and unconditional fulfillment of raising two daughters, mostly gratifying jobs, a rise to financial ease (by simplifying my life), and then like oh-so-many of us, I closed out my 40s with the collapse of a 25-year marriage. When I found myself single, semi-retired, with both daughters in college, I reignited my childhood curiosity about motorcycling. For my entire life, motorcycles invariably caught my eye. All types of bikes: classic, sport, dirt, even, dare I say it out loud, Harleys. I didn’t know the specifics of what I was looking at but these two-wheeled machines were my eye candy. At 49, I passed my MSF endorsement test with flying colors. As I practically skipped out of the classroom I was stopped dead in my tracks by a flyer in the lobby touting “ADV CAMP!” with a photo of a guy standing up on the pegs of an enormous adventure motorcycle kitted out with metal panniers. To me, he looked like a cross between a Transformer and a Storm Trooper emerging from a cloud of dust as he slid a turn on a crumbly switchback overlooking a spectacular view of somewhere in a Pacific Northwest forest. “That’s it! THAT’s what I want to do. THAT’s why I bought a BMW F650GS twin last week!” I was going to be that rider, except for the male portion of the image, of course. I grabbed the flyer, and as soon as I got home phoned the number. I signed up for the weekend ADV camp to take place in just four weeks and went to bed that night with dreams of tackling gnarly backcountry terrain and setting up my tent on an idyllic riverside spot.
There was something about my newfound independence that launched me into the exploration of something that would eventually scare the crap out of me. I had the vision of traveling in the backcountry, along primitive roads and through tiny towns on an adventure motorcycle, camping my way from one gloriously tranquil spot to another. But I didn’t know anyone who did this sort of thing, not one single person. I had only seen images of burly-looking men adventure riding. Who was I to think I could do this too? The 500 lb. bike I had just bought scared me. I weighed in at 125 lb. At least I had a 32” inseam, allowing me to be nearly flat-footed while seated on my new beast. Because I didn’t know what I didn’t know, I thought taking a weekend class would fully prepare me for what turned out to be an overly ambitious vision.
So there I was, riding up to the property hosting the ADV camp with my month-old endorsement and six-week old, cleaner-than-new BMW GS. It’s usual to camp in a tent at ADV camp but I had not yet acquired side racks or panniers. Just having my body on this bike was foreign enough, let alone panniers and luggage. For an additional $25 they pitched me a four-person tent complete with cot, nightstand, and full-size battery operated lantern. I felt, rather unproudly, like the Princess of ADV Camp showing up with my shiny clean, unscratched, never-been-off-road-before adventure bike with street tires, brand spanking new non-ADV style suit, unarmored leather boots, and my larger-than-necessary tent and accoutrement waiting for me amongst the twelve oft-used two-person tents and well-ridden, dirty bikes. What? No red carpet?!
Gratefully, the first two people I met in line at the sign-in table were women, Kay and Jill, who to this day are still two of my favorite riding buddies. Their smiling faces and distinct, exuberant laughs calmed my racing heart and mellowed my apprehension. I exhaled a “Thank GAWD I’m not the only woman” audible breath. Surprising to me, more women showed up. Throughout the course of the weekend, I looked to them for understanding glances of, “Yeah, this is scary stuff!” when asked to ride through a deep sand pit, a rock garden, or over (GASP!) stacked 2x4s. “Wait, what?? You want me to ride this moto over that log?!” Over the course of the weekend, I found myself gravitating toward Roy, the most soft-spoken instructor of the four other not-so-soft spoken male coaches. Despite his softness, or maybe because of it, I found myself crying in the Porta-Potty, not one, not two, but three separate times. I was overwhelmed, and surprised by how hard this was. And because I’m stubborn, I tried nearly everything asked of me and only dumped the bike a handful of times in those two days, proudly earning its first scratches. I suppose I learned a few things that weekend, but my attention was narrowly focused on my elation of riding away uninjured.
When I first delved into this adventure riding journey five years ago I thought I was one of a kind. Or at least one of a very few of a kind. The more I got into it, the more I realized my backstory was far from unique. I’ve since ridden thousands of miles of rugged backcountry dirt roads, and become an off-road instructor. Through my role as co-founder of the women’s ADV resource, SheADV.com, I’ve had the good fortune and pleasure to connect with hundreds of women around the world who started adventure riding in their 40s, 50s, 60s, and even 70s. My general story of growing into this sport is repeatedly mirrored through their stories, so I decided to do my own research of what leads women to pursue this sport in mid-life. Not only are most of my favorite female riding buddies 50-plus, but so are most of the 90 women from around the world who have publicly and generously shared their inspiring stories on SheADV.com’s Women Who Ride page. This project was born out of the curiosity of noticing trends and commonalities among the adventurous women I ran into either at events or on the trail. I started asking questions like “Why did you get into this sport? What do you enjoy about it? What or who inspired you? What are your riding dreams and goals?” This is just a guess, but perhaps women who enter into other adventurous activities such as four-wheel overlanding in their middle years have similar answers.
Perhaps it was an increase in available time, money, and desire for a major distraction from my then-life situation that gave me the courage to put a leg over a 500 lb. motorcycle and think I could ride over gnarly terrain to access spectacular scenery in remote locations. A history of athleticism helped, but I’ve met many women for whom adventure riding is their first athletic endeavor. Major kudos to them! Despite my proclivity for extreme sports, I was still in fear mode for the first couple of years of riding. Undeniably, what kept me all-in, and progressing through adventure riding, were the other brave and vulnerable women who supported me in my paralyzing fear at the literal edges of cliffs, frightening water crossings and repeatedly picking up my bike. These women laughed and cried with me every step of the way. I’ve been fortunate to have some wonderful men in my life with whom I love to ride, and to whom I can attribute much of my riding and instructing skills. But there is something special about hitting the trail with my women friends, conquering fears together, surviving ludicrous challenges and, most importantly, laughing at ourselves, that in the long run keeps me interested and emotionally courageous. When I’m teaching someone to ride and they are experiencing fear, I understand where they’re coming from. I’ve been there and recognize that comments such as “It’s easy, you can do it” or “Don’t be afraid” are useless and patronizing.
As many of us enter Chapter 2, and have this newfound capacity to figure out what makes us happy, we have to follow our gut toward what we want, and sometimes take blind leaps of faith to get it. There’s something luxurious and brave about asking the question, “What do I want from this next half of my life?” It takes a fair amount of courage to actually live up to the answer. With more choice as to how we spend our free time, without the weight of career advancement and/or dedication to child rearing, and with the release of youth-oriented insecurities, we are poised to ride our rugged selves straight up that U curve into the spine-tingling sunset.
Editor Note: Learn more about SheADV and resources for women adventure motorcycle riders by visiting www.sheadv.com
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