Friday, January 10, 2014

Mature Motorcyclists: Violating Age Norms and Loving It

I'm sure riding a motorcycle would be excellent therapy, balance, cognitive, wrist, fingers, It would map quite well with Peter Levines;  What if you made it harder? And I like the idea of being deviant, I'm sure women over 50 riding motorcycles would be considered super deviants.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01639625.2013.822232#.UtAHkhC7_XY 
DOI:
10.1080/01639625.2013.822232
William E. Thompsona* & Mica L. Thompsona
pages 233-242

Publishing models and article dates explained
Received: 12 Apr 2013
Accepted: 4 May 2013
Published online: 08 Nov 2013
Article Views: 27

Abstract

Age norms tell us at what ages members of society consider it appropriate for us to become potty trained, enter and exit school, start and stop driving a car, get married, have children, retire from work, and even die. So, at what age, if any, should a person start riding a motorcycle? More importantly, at what age should a motorcyclist stop riding? The author conducted ethnographic interviews with approximately 90 motorcyclists over the age of fifty. Findings in this study indicate that just as society has established “social clocks” for other personal and social activities, informal norms operate to establish age boundaries for riding motorcycles. Today's Baby Boomers, in their quest to be “forever young,” however, seem to be stretching and breaking those boundaries, redefining previous limitations on a wide variety of activities, including motorcycling. Although the stigma once associated with motorcycling is waning rapidly, some people still view motorcyclists as deviant. Even those who see riding a motorcycle as a non-deviant mainstream activity, however, tend to view motorcycling as the domain of the young and view motorcyclists over the age of fifty as violating age norms.

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