Rip Van Winkle

Woo Hoo! I retired about seven months ago. Spent some time travelling, some time riding, and some time fixing things around the house.

Now I get to do what I really want to do, which is to start refurbishing and restoring the fifteen bicycles I have in my garage. I've been following this forum for several years, and have always been in awe of you guys. Now I get to share the addiction along with the rest of you.

I have a pretty good collection of tools, including bottom bracket and headset tools and two truing stands. I'm pretty good at fixing anything built in the eighties or nineties. I just never had the time to do all that I wanted to do. Most of what I know I learned from a good friend who was a master mechanic here in L.A. back in the old days.

Seriously, riding and wrenching was a big part of the reason that I pulled the plug on a thirty-five year career. I can't wait.

I started my first serious project tonight, which is an old mid-eighties Schwinn Traveler for my college bound daughter. I bought it for ten bucks, and can't wait to see what it looks like when it's done.

I know that I'll be bugging you guys for advice. Thanks in advance.

Ross K.
aka Rip Van Winkle

kc0yef 

congrats ross

mkeller234

Congratulations! Sounds like you have one busy retirement ahead of you.

Dawes-man

How cool! All the best for your 'riding & wrenching

calamarichris

Gratulations Ross!
This is also the year I pay off my mortgage. (Somewhere between June & August.) Not only that, I'm also fetching my Grail Bike from Utah in about two weeks from Jan Nikolajsen.
Here's to 2012: the year when everything came together!

ftwelder

I think about retiring some day but sort of doubt I will find anything more interesting than work.

randyjawa 

I retired about seven years ago. My retirement lasted for about two hours. I bought an early seventies Fuji The Ace on the way home from my retirement lunch and have been randyjawa ever since.

I love my retired life, except for the lack of pension ravaged resources and the impact of the aging process on my wonderful body:-(

First word of advice to you as you begin your restorations - prepare the bike for the road and then test ride it, before spending too much time or money. You do not want to make the mistakes I did with my first attempt at restoration - Big Green!

photogravity

Congratulations! With about 17 years to retirement I am truly envious. I can't wait to see what you're working on.

Rip Van Winkle

Congratulations on the mortgage and the new bike!

Rip Van Winkle

Thanks Randyjawa. I think I've actually stumbled on your Big Green web page before, but it was worth reading again. Good advice!

Rip Van Winkle

Thanks all for the kind words!

wrk101

Yeah, I retired almost five years ago. Took about a year to sort out what I was going to do for my next phase. Now I am pretty settled in. And being retired, you will be able to "scoop" all those working for a living pickers.....

The neat thing is that you can go from doing what pays the best, to doing what you enjoy the most. I do have a saying: "Now that I am retired, I need hobbies to be self funding." Flipping bikes has taken care of the bike hobby. For my motorcycle hobby, I teach motorcycle safety, which pays all of my motorcycle expenses. And so it goes.

pastorbobnlnh 

Frank, I sort of wonder if when I retire can I give up writing and preaching sermons? We'll see. It's just what I do every week and I usually work on a sermon everyday.

Of course Frank has the most amazing shop and suite of tools and machines that any red blooded male would long to own. When you can create or fabricate nearly anything out of metal, what's not interesting!

Rip, a big congratulations on your retirement. My wife reached eligibility in December. Yesterday her boss told her about adding more work to her plate and she reminded him she could retire! He immediately backed off!

I'm still 11-12 years off, but once my daughter is out of college in 4 years, I'll consider a smaller church and a slower pace for less money for the remaining years. The bike projects are piling up in my basement as well!

Dawes-man

That's really a cool thing to do!

I smashed my right ankle socket in a motorcycle accident and when the doctor told me what I had to look forward to it was so dismal that I considered giving up riding... for about 5 minutes. I quickly realised what a huge chunk of fun would vanish from my life so I decided to learn how to ride more safely instead. I then found that my enjoyment increased the more I learnt about riding safely. I even took up racing.

4Rings6Stars

Well I finish grad school this summer and START my career....only 40 years to go

Congrats!

wrk101

I had a serious crash in 2001 (the dreaded high side, at interstate speed), and had surgery on my shoulder. Anyway, I go to the surgeon's office, lining his walls were all of these pictures of sports stars (mainly football) that he had operated on, with messages like: "thanks for getting me back to play", etc. So I meet with the surgeon, and he starts in with his anti-motorcycling speech. "Well, I am sure you have learned your lesson and won't ride again, after all, people get hurt on motorcycles all the time." So I just responded: "Gee, I watch a lot of football, and I see players getting hurt all of the time, and the stars I grew up with, a lot of them are barely getting around anymore. I couldn't help but notice all of your pictures in the hallway. So I guess you tell all of the football players you operate on, to never play ball again. Right?"

BadBack

Fantastic. I am close behind you. I retire in April and I have a 1967 Holdsworth that has patiently been waiting for my attention. Really looking forward to it.

bikemore 

And his response was ?

wrk101

He actually was pretty good about it. He admitted, something like: "Yeah, that's a good point."

Rabid Koala

I say I want to retire, but since I am only 54 it won't be anytime soon. Well, my stock investments got decimated in 08, they have a long way to go to recover. In reality, I need to have somewhere to go and someone who needs me to do something. I would like to become a lot choosier about what I do (I own a small construction company), or just give that up and do commercial door and lock repairs. I got a locksmith license a while back, I am still learning that trade.

I do want time to do the riding I have little time to do now!

jimmuller 

The closer I get to retirement the more I look forward to it. Maybe in a year or two or three.

But RVW, you claim to have 15 bikes in the garage. No pics? Without pics we don't believe you.

sykerocker 

Loved hitting this thread today for the first time. Due to the downturn in the motorcycle business (I work for a Honda/Yamaha/CanAm dealer), we're on a mandatory 32 hour maximum week. Which means Tuesday's are my 'layoff day'. Spent the entire day in the shop, working on the late-80's/early-90's Nishiki Cascade I picked up at the county transfer station on Saturday. Boy, it's amazing what you can get done to a rusted, abandoned, dirty bicycle if you can put a solid 12-14 hours on it in one day. I'll probably be doing the first trials on my personal trails by tomorrow morning.

And five years from now, I get to spend the rest of my life in the shop.

sykerocker 

You were too polite. A nice, specific, "**** off" followed by a right fist to the jaw would have been the appropriate biker response.

noglider 

I'm envious. I've managed my money badly and fear I won't be able to retire, ever. I'll either work until I die or cause my death by working.

toytech

I will work until I die likely Auto mechanics never retire anyway, we just go out on disability at some point...