Europe has granny bikers, America has grampaw trikers:
MOUNT AIRY, N.C. — In his nearly 50 years as an avid motorcyclist, Grady Howard has roared down the tobacco roads of North Carolina and through the mountains of old Kentucky, all with his wife, Barbara, tucked behind him. But with a balky left leg and myriad other maladies, he knew the only way to stay wild was to add a wheel.
Mr. Howard is one of a legion of aging bikers — suffering from aching joints and slowing reflexes — who have abandoned their traditional two-wheel motorcycles in favor of three-wheelers, the super-steady and seemingly safer machines commonly known as trikes. Equal parts “Easy Rider” and easy chair, the trikes have grown in popularity in recent years, expanding from a do-it-yourself niche to a potentially lucrative market for major manufacturers.
Industry experts say the sale of tens of thousands of trikes, whose sticker prices can rival an upscale sedan’s — a new three-wheeled Harley starts at $30,999 — has helped buoy a slumping industry and kept a generation of born-to-run riders on the roads….
With two bad knees, Mr. Ross, 71, switched to trikes about a decade ago but says he has seen the Brothers grow quickly in recent years, with about 250 new members, worldwide, every month. The group now counts chapters in 45 states, and not a feud among them. “We have a pact with all the gangs,” he said. “We don’t interfere with them, and they don’t interfere with us.” …
Somebody alert Joe Biden’s Secret Service detail… Seriously, though: I’m a back-end boomer, and I cringe every time I see yet another local news story about an elderly driver endangering themselves or killing someone else because they can’t or won’t give up their land barges. Don’t know what the national statistics are, but if I can think of two local deaths and a close call off the top of my head in just the past week, then I have to argue that any mode of transport — three-wheeled motorcycles, electric-assisted recumbent three-wheelers, souped-up golf carts — that cuts down on the carnage has to be considered a positive development. At least until we get those self-driving robot cars Google promises!
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