Hear hear!!


Anyone can run away from their responsibilities in a cloud of self-indulgence, but it takes commitment and balls to raise a family and pay the bills. You'll have plenty of scope for adventure later on, and what's more you'll be wise enough to appreciate it in a completely different way.

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Exactly my thoughts. Nothing wrong to put the kids and missus on a sidecar bike and take off for two to four weeks, but until the kids are grown up, count your blessings and don´t be miserable about being unable to go on an expedition. I´ll be 55 by the time the kids are out of school, and then I´ll take a year off (I´m an attorney in the chemicals industry and will offer to work online two days a week for that year from somewhere in the world, e.g. from any of our subsidiaries; but if that offer meets deaf ears I´ll just take a year´s leave) and will hit the road together with my wife and any kids who want to join us. You won´t be older than that if your kids are grown up and 55 is far from being an old fart if you don´t let yourself go totally.
Cheers
Chris
(with a missus, a career, a mortgage and two kids 13 and 15 who have done their first 10.000km as pillion each throughout Europe).

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Nail, head...

I too have always had a wunderlust, which is how I ended up here , which is how I ended up with wife, house kids etc etc .
the wife & kids scenario isnt the end of travelling... it's part of the voyage, it simply means that the pace of the voyage or the overall timescale has slowed down. It may have appeared to have slowed to geolocical proportions but you have to re adjust to that.

I have spent the last few years almost not using the bike due to kids & stuff, now the eldest is big enough to ride pillion it's starting again, the mrs has lost interest in biking but N°1 daughter is starting, so I will adapt, shorter trips to start with, stuff that will interest a 10yr old, communication system, etc etc...

None of this has stopped me from planning the big trip though, & whenever work or family ties start getting me down, I dig the plans out & go over it again, or plan some more , or plan another trip...

It will happen, but as life throws sh!t at you you have to dodge & weave, the weaving makes the road longer, that's all.

Bonne courage

MooN

Wheelie - Where do I start with this one. I'm a bit older than you (61 now) and have been wrestling with this conflict between travel and family for the last 40 yrs. I still don't have an answer but what I have learnt is that a relationship breakup over this can have far more serious long term consequences than postponing a trip for a year or two or changing your wish list of plans to cope with your circumstances. The reality is that your available horizons shrink when someone else is involved and they shrink even more when children have to be taken into account.

In my case three serious relationships have covered those decades. The person in relationship one (70's) started referring to herself as a "motorcycle widow" over my persistent absence on trips and eventually she found someone with "better prospects". I regret that breakup to this day. Relationship two (80's) was happy to come with me on the bike but it foundered over the issue of children.

With the current Mrs B.O.B. (90's onward), maybe I got maturity at last or something but we've built up a family life that includes two children, homes, a career (she has one anyway) and a lifestyle that does enable us to do short trips (a month or two) every now and again. All of this is really important to me. I would dearly like to do some longer trips (I'm still healthy enough!) but still scarred by the outcome of relationship one I've had to decide where my priorities lie. My wife is aware of the conflict and does whatever she can to indulge me but there are limits.

Twice bitten, thrice shy means I'm conscious of the relationship consequences of dumping her with a demanding stressful daytime job and coming home to demanding stressful children, a pile of final demand bills and the endless depression of UK winter weather while I'm riding round Africa or somewhere in the sunshine. She has put up with me doing that a number of times over our 25yrs together but "payback" has been me taking up the strain when she has wanted to do something equivalent. It's not been easy and your circumstances may be (almost certainly are) different so you need to work out what's most important for you. With my two kids and your sidecar idea my son would have loved it but my daughter would have been traumatized by it.

Sounds like you are getting a decent amount of riding in, even with a family. I'm single with no long-term obligations and I can't get away for that long!

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Bruce Clarke - 2020 Yamaha XV250

In that case, hit the road! It only gets harder ...

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More malformed, irrelevant opinions here.

Going on the big one, without my family is out of the question for me... but dealing with just that isn't easy...

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