Rider anxiety- ever experience this? BTW I'm engaged!

This is a serious posting.

To give you some background on my riding experience, I started riding motorcross at the age of 12, and I am now 40 years old. Aside from a 2 year break in my late 20's I have ridden pretty consistently during that time. I've owned and ridden dozens of bikes of all flavors, driven tens of thousands of miles all over the US (25k+ on my S'wing, Big Red), and I have never experienced what happened to me yesterday.

Due to the weather forecasts and business travel I haven't ridden my S'wing in about 2 months. In the mean time I happened to have met the woman that I plan to marry. We are very much in love and I proposed to her this past Sunday.
Since the weather forecast on Monday in Atlanta was clear I decided to take Big Red for my 90 mile round trip commute to work. I felt very anxious for my entire ride to work and ride home, which has never happened to me before. I assume that it's because I've always felt in the past that, heaven forbid, I were to have an accident nobody was counting on me as her provider and the love of her life, and now I can't imagine the pain this might cause my fiancee if something were to happen to me. My entire perspective has changed.

I really enjoy riding- I always have. How many activities can you think of that are both fun and practical? When I was in a bad or contemplative mood, a long ride always did the trick to help me sort things out. Now I'm facing the prospect of hanging up my helmet for good, which I would really hate to do. In most of my dating history, marrying someone who was against me owning and riding a bike would have been a deal-breaker. I've found someone who, besides from being an amazing, beautiful strong woman, says she would never insist that I stop riding (not that she is a fan of riding herself, but I was hoping to change her mind eventually!)
Has anyone else ever experienced anything similar to this anxiety and overcome it (I assume you would have if you are a member of this forum and have a significant other). If so, what did you do to return to normal?

All my best,
Jesse in Atlanta

I was in a similar situation after I got out of the military and met my, later-to-be, wife. I stuck my helmet on a shelf in the garage where it gathered dust while we raised our family. Eventually the kids graduated, we paid off the loans & mortgage. I had to buy a new helmet and a couple of scoots before finally buying my '03 Silverwing. Momma still isn't too thrilled about me riding. But after this last 75000 miles she's much more confident. She still won't ride though.

Oh BTW, Congratulations on this life milestone. It's a good thing to know that your mrs realizes that riding is a part of you as much as the your other good qualities which attracted her.

Shelve the helmet if you need to. Hopefully it wont be much more than a couple of months before you put it back on.

With increasing responsibility comes increasing anxiety,so long as your good lady is happy with you riding carry on,possibly adjusting your riding style a little
I've had various motorbikes since meeting & marrying Mrs Bern,she would not even consider getting on one.
I still get the "ride carefully & don't go speeding" lecture same as when we met over 30 years ago,but as she brought my Swing as a 60th birthday present she must be fairly happy for me to continue riding even though she still will not come out for a spin.

First off congratulations on the engagement!

Got to say, my wife is very much in favour of riding with me on the Wing - so much so that she would rather have a day out as pillion than go in the car!

Give her time, she may well come round to the idea of riding with you - my other half had never been on any sort of bike or scooter until four years ago, now she loves it!

Congratulations, Jesse.
Every time I get on my Silver Wing - daily - I have the same thoughts. Mrs N has never had any desire to ride with me. So I always leave her behind.

She always tells me to be careful, and that she loves me. We both accept that life is finite and 'things happen', but with those thoughts I ride with the objective of doing my damnedest to make sure I get home at the end of the day.

My attention is therefore focussed on riding safe. Could be just the focus you need to make sure your riding is as good as you can make it.

We can't avoid every risky situation - but we can be aware and take appropriate safeguards.

Good luck for the future - do what is comfortable for you.

This past july 2nd my wife and i celebrated our 25th anniversary. I too have always had different bikes over the years before and during marriage. My wife has never tried to stop or discourage me from riding/owning these bikes, even as our three kids were born there was never a rant about selling bikes or staying off them. Maybe im lucky this way. She would never consider herself as the biking kind, and rarely rode with me, but since buying the comfortable silver wing about a year and a half ago we have covered lots of miles riding together. This past anniversary we rode from Canada to upstate New York where we toured around and stayed overnight, returning home the next day. We both enjoyed this trip very much. The weather was picture perfect. We plan on doing this trip again someday, hopefully sooner than later. When she rides with me im always aware to keep the speed down and just meander along at a leisurely pace. So Toolboxjesse congratulations on the engagement, dont let the helmet (or the marriage) get dusty, and keep the faith you'll both be riding together!  

At age 26 I sold my bikes. It was 32 years later when all the kids were grown and doing fine with their gangs that I told my wife I would like to get a trike. I had a stroke and was forced to retire so I figured when I got better I would get one. I now am 65 and have 2 trikes, one a Silver Wing the other a Chino 300cc and than there is the Yellow fellow the Honda Reflex. Now the good part...The wife loves to ride with me on the Silver Wing with Voyager Trike kit and the kids think I am crazy but are now used to it...

Good Luck...

Magoo

Only once after a RTA back in the 80's when I sustained a broken left femur and compound fracture to my left wrist. It had taken 6 months to get fit again but my femur was still pinned and I was walking with a limp.

I was anxious because I'd bought another motorcycle and on taking delivery I'd have to turn right then ride down a steep hill into busy traffic for the ride home. I had a sleepless night thinking I might panic or freeze up and lock the brakes if a car pulled out in front of me when riding down the hill.

So after suiting up and starting the bike I decided to turn left onto quieter streets and ride to a nearby petrol station to fill up. Then I got back on and rode the few miles home and all the anxiety and tension quickly disappeared, and it was if I'd never had a long lay off.

That was in a January, and a few months later in May I was touring on my new bike in the old East Germany and Czechoslovakia.

Hi there
 
After I came back from a particularly arduous tour in Iraq in 2009, I felt pretty low and kept having anxiety/panic attacks at the most stupid of situations. I just put it down to post detachment adjustment, however, over the next year or so I got worse and worse and riding my scoot (non Swing at the time) brought me irrational thoughts of gloom and doom, terrible sweats and panic attacks. Eventually I saw the MO and had blood tests, I really thought there was something really wrong which had yet more adverse affects on me. The pathologist found out that my body was not processing vitamin B12 (the happy drug) and I now have regular B12 jabs (every 80 days). I feel on top of the world!! Gone are the attacks etc. Apparently B12 deficiency is really common (not pernicious anaemia) and can give you irrational thoughts and anxiety attacks. Anyway I’m fixed and cannot thank the medics enough!!
 
Just my pennyworth
 
 
BTW – Congratulations!!
 
Best Wishes and happy riding
 
Mark

toolboxjesse wrote:

This is a serious posting.

Due to the weather forecasts and business travel I haven't ridden my S'wing in about 2 months. In the mean time I happened to have met the woman that I plan to marry. We are very much in love and I proposed to her this past Sunday.

So you are blaming the engagement on the weather! Hope your future 'Good Lady' doesn't read this forum.

Congratulations but keep the Silverwing in the garage for a while at least.

Cheers,

Thank you all for your feedback and well-wishes! I hope, with time, my nerves will settle.

All my best,
Jesse

toolboxjesse wrote:

Thank you all for your feedback and well-wishes! I hope, with time, my nerves will settle. Jesse

Keep in mind that just about the time your nerves settle, the "Let's do" list gets lost and the "Honey do" list comes out.

That's the time to dust off the helmet and go for a 'road test'

Best wishes.

Tim

When you ride, make sure that all your daily woes are locked in your topbox. Concentrate entirely on the ride. If you ride worrying about what MIGHT be, there's a greater chance that it WILL be!

That probably sounds pompous: I don't mean it to be.

I've been riding since I was 18 (am 40 now), and all through my relationship with my marvelous wife who occasionally goes riding with me but not often. I also ride ATVs, sometimes in dangerous places.

I occasionally have similar thoughts, about all of my customers (I run my own IT business), and about the financial well-being of my family should anything serious happen.

But I can't let fear of what might happen stop me from living, and riding bikes and ATVs is the main thing that brings me joy in life.

There are a great many bad things that could happen to you, on or off the bike. You probably aren't going to stop walking across the street just because some inattentive driver could cripple or kill you. You probably aren't going to stop eating because you could be poisoned by bad food. So why would you stop riding a bike? Get on the bike, drive carefully, and live your life!

Congratulations Jessee.   I was once told "It's me or the bike". Sometimes I miss her, but I go riding and the feeling goes away.  

Congratulations on your engagement.

I hope that you still find happiness riding, but if you do continue to ride I suggest you consider purchasing disability and life insurance. Since you will soon have someone somewhat dependent on you, protecting yourself (and her) against the possibility of injury or death is prudent.

We all hopefully know that we take a risk when riding, but things will be different now that you are engaged.

First congratulations! :-)
Second, get a generous life insurance policy!

Third, consider why you ride, are you an adrenaline junkie?
Do you keep trying to take that sweeper, or switchback S-curve just one mile an hour faster?
If so, then maybe you should consider finding a hobby that can get your heart pumping without the potentially deadly penalty for mistakes.

After I had a few wing-men go down, and one seriously and tragically passed away from post-surgical complications, I chose dirt-bike riding (with a 250cc bike). Although I still ride street-bikes, I don't try to scrub my knees on the pavement anymore, and I never gauge my pee-pee size based walking away from other people in the twisties. When on the street, I try to put others in front of me, and not lead the way; if they insist I ride first then I purposefully ride extra cautiously.

Ironically, other than some small road rash, I had never been injured on my street bikes. However, the first few months I had my 250cc dirt-bike saw me spending weeks in physical therapy with a badly busted up knee. Although you can definitely injure yourself on a dirtbike, it is MUCH less likely to be fatal, and more likely to just be bruises, sprains and fractures. On the dirt I hardly ever get over 20 MPH, and not even that fast over the exciting parts. Some people can run that fast, and they aren't wearing all the armored gear that I am.

On the other hand, if you enjoy riding for the scenery and the breeze, and you are happy to wave the squidly's on past... then make sure you pay your premiums on time and ride-on! I would suggest getting very good riding gear, head to toe, and a good full face helmet. I have seen lot's of riders get up and walk away from bad looking crashes because of the quality of the gear they had on at the time.

On the other subject, I have been married just shy of 13 years. LISTEN to your bride with more than just your ears. Just like myself, my wife often doesn't even consciously know what she needs to say, but her actions and body will be screaming it. Every year I have been married has been a blessing, but it took me about 9 years to think that I was getting the hang of it.

Well said, Ben. Very good points especially the one about top-notch gear. As we ride more (get experience) the more situations we can avoid. However at some point, accidents can be unavoidable, that is where having good gear is essential.