A group of Taiwanese riders over the age of 80 was featured in last month’s issue of Motorcyclist magazine in the US, after they completed a ride around Taiwan last year.
The article was written by Peter Starr, an award-winning US documentary director and motorcycle enthusiast, who was inspired by the elderly “Grand Riders’” nationwide trip of almost 1,126km.
Some of the elderly motorcyclists had cancer or degenerative heart diseases, while all of them suffered from arthritis.
“I didn’t stop riding because I got old, I got old because I stopped riding,” one the Taiwanese riders was quoted as saying in the article.
Starr, 69, said he first heard of tyhe group through a commercial about the elderly riders, so he decided to make a documentary about their adventure.
The theme of the film “is about having a dream and a purpose for living out your years productively. After watching the video, I was left with a gargantuan lump in my throat and far-from-dry eyes,” Starr said.
The trip served mainly to prove to the riders — but also to others in the same predicament — that chronological age is merely a number, he said in the article.
“These people worked hard to take care of their families for almost their whole lives and then when they got old, their children and society prevented them from doing things that might be adventuresome or risky,” he said.
Starr, who visited remote areas of Taiwan during his trip to meet the group, said the scenery around the island was as good as the Alps in Europe.
After completing the trip, he said, he hopes to return to Taiwan later this year to join the Grand Riders on their annual ride and he is aiming to bring 10 US citizens of the appropriate age with him.
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