Baby-boom bikers on a risky ride

By SCOTT MacLEOD

It's a classic image of rebellion: a 29-year-old Peter Fonda cruising the back roads of America in 1969's Easy Rider, dust billowing behind his Harley-Davidson chopper.

But if Fonda was instead cruising the back roads of Coromandel in 2001 he would find himself part of a dwindling demographic - the young motorbike rider. Motorcyclists are ageing at a surprising rate and the Easy Rider has become the Ageing Rider.

Land Transport Safety Authority figures show that people who died in motorcycle accidents last year are on average 10 years older than those killed a decade ago.

In 1991, the average age of the 79 killed was 25.9. Last year there were 31 deaths, average age 35.2. While there may be fewer deaths, the older riders are not necessarily safer, say transport authorities.

The deaths echo findings in the US, where the average age of bike buyers has jumped from 25 to 39 in the past decade while the number of fatalities among riders over 35 has risen sharply.

In California, home of the "weekend outlaw" since Marlon Brando chewed up the desert on a Triumph 650 in the 1954 film The Wild One, the typical first-time motorcycle buyer is now a 42-year-old, high-income office worker.

These riders are imitating a generation of middle-aged Hollywood stars who have become celebrity bikers - George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Bruce Willis, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper and model Lauren Hutton.

A survey at a Los Angeles bikers' gathering recently showed that half the leather-clad, middle-aged bikers were on medication, mostly for hypertension.

In New Zealand, the phenomenon of the ageing biker comes as fewer young people take up riding.

The authority's latest NZ Travel Survey figures show that in the 10 years to 1998, the numbers buying motorcycles dropped by 40 per cent, and the total distance ridden fell almost as much. The biggest change was in those aged 15 to 24, who rode 120 million km in 1989 but less than 30 million km in 1998.

The authority says young people prefer cheap cars imported from Japan, leaving motorcycles to ageing lifestylers. It is 18 times more dangerous to travel by motorcycle than by car.

There is anecdotal evidence that lifestylers are crashing more than they used to because they lack the skills to handle their powerful new machines.

The Auckland branch president of the Ulysses motorcycle club, Wayne Painter, said many older people were returning to bikes after 20 years of raising families.

They had found the spare cash and time to resume riding as a hobby. But they also found they had lost some of their skills, and this time the bikes were faster and handled differently.

Dave Jones is uniquely qualified to comment - he has been riding motorbikes for more than 20 years and is a former spokesman for the authority.

He said that for a growing proportion of motorcyclists, expensive machines were more image than a means of transport.

One Sunday afternoon six months ago Mr Jones jumped on his bike after it had been gathering cobwebs for a bit. He ended up in a "speed challenge" with a WRX Subaru and was nearly killed by an oncoming Ford Falcon.

It was a lesson in how easy it was to be overcome by adrenalin.

Now aged 38, Mr Jones is nearly old enough to meet the Ulysses club's entry age of 40.

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