Dan Lorey of Mount Lookout on his '96 Harley Davidson 883 Sportster. (Tony Jones photos) | ZOOM |

        The generation that once hoped to die before it got old is living to hit the open road.

        It's a race against time, as more baby boomers with empty nests and large discretionary incomes are riding motorcycles to feel the freedom of wind rustling through their hair. Or what's left of it.

        Dan Lorey of Mount Lookout is one of them. Four years ago, as he confronted a looming 50th birthday, he sold a car and bought a Harley-Davidson Sportster. Eight hundred, eighty-three cubic centimeters of engine. Black with orange trim.

When not riding his Harley, Mr. Lorey keeps it in tip-top condition | ZOOM |

        “It looks pretty sharp,” he does say so himself.

        “Almost every nice day, I'll take a little ride in the evening,” he said, “Depending on the weather, I'm pretty much a fair-weather rider.”

        Like much of the motorcycle market, he had enjoyed biking in an earlier life.

        “I got rid of the first one, a smaller Honda, a 350 or something like that, right after college (1971),” he said.

        Jan Dyer, who hasn't owned a motorcycle in almost 25 years, now has a new one. He and his wife, Cheryl, ride the back roads around Radcliff, Ky., on a Yamaha V Star 1100 Classic.

        “My wife's brothers are all into bikes — Harley riders,” Mr. Dyer said. “We got bit by the bug.”

        You can hear similar stories in almost any upscale neighborhood around the country.

        Dallas Laffoon, 54, of Shawnee, Kan., recently bought his first motorcycle, a Yamaha, right after the last of his six children graduated from high school.

        “I figured, 'Well, what the heck',” he said. “Either it's my midlife crisis, or now I can afford to do it.”

ACCIDENTS

Motorcycles were involved in:     3,961 of 387,075 traffic accidents reported in Ohio (2001); 1,310 of 130,190 in Kentucky (2001); 2,149 of 217,340 in Indiana (1999, latest year available).    Sources: Ohio Highway Patrol and Indiana and Kentucky state police.

AREA RIDERS

If you're noticing a lot of two-wheelers with engines in the traffic lanes next to you, it's because there are a lot of them to be ridden in the Tristate — 33,285 in 10 counties surrounding Cincinnati. Here's a breakdown. OHIO     Hamilton: 11,599     Butler: 6,590     Clermont: 4,306     Warren: 3,773 KENTUCKY     Kenton: 1,975     Boone: 1,423     Campbell: 987 INDIANA     Dearborn: 1,997     Switzerland: 341     Ohio: 294     Sources: Ohio Highway Patrol, Kentucky State Police, Indiana State Police, the Kentucky Division of Motor Vehicle Enforcement and Ohio and Indiana bureaus of motor vehicles.

REQUIREMENTS

Motorcycle operator requirements in Ohio:     • Road tests for operators' licenses     • Eye protection while riding     • Helmets for riders younger than 18 and those licensed for motorcycles for less than one year     • In Kentucky and Indiana, bikers must ride under a learner's permit for 30 days before getting an actual motorcycle license.     • In Indiana, helmets are required for the permit period only. To get the learner's permit, applicants must have a regular Indiana driver's license or pass a motorcycle education course.     • In Kentucky, applicants must take a road test or complete a motorcycle safety course. Helmets are required for riders under 21 and those licensed to ride motorcycles less than one year.

LADY RIDERS

The Queen City Lady Riders, the local chapter of Women on Wheels, invites men and women with motorcycles to the group's 2002 Poker Run, Sept. 22, at V-Twin Bar & Grill, 7220 Dixie Highway (Ohio 4), Fairfield. The route: about 90 miles, including a cruise through Miami-Whitewater Forest.     Registration: 10:30 a.m.-noon; $12     For more information, go to the Web site or call (513) 563-4044.     Proceeds go to the Komen Foundation for breast-cancer research.

        It was his first experience with biking.

        “As soon as I got on it, it was something special,” he said. “I felt like I knocked 20 years off my life.”

        If the urge to travel on two wheels is a natural one, it is being supported and prodded by the folks at Harley-Davidson, who are celebrating the firm's 100th anniversary (2003).

        Their efforts apparently have been successful.

        “When we bought the dealership 25 years ago, Harley-Davidson was making 55,000 bikes a year,” says Thelma Meinor, owner of the manufacturer's Norwood store. “Now they're making 260,000 a year.”

        While the clientele grew, it changed.

        Contrary to popular belief, the typical rider on a 666-pound Harley “Fat Boy” is likely to be a fat cat, not the beer-guzzling brawler often portrayed by Hollywood.

        And these days, 3 to 5 percent of the bikes sold go to women, Ms. Meinor says.

        Vicki Abbott, membership director for the Queen City Lady Riders, the 6-year-old local chapter of Women on Wheels, says members are “all ages — from all walks of life.” There are about 70 of them.

        Many “just got tired of riding on the back of a motorcycle with their husbands and boyfriends,” she said. They wanted to drive.

        “I wanted to ride a motorcycle when I was about 15,” she remembered. “My mother said, "Girls don't ride motorcycles.' ”

        At 43, after raising a family, she bought her own 500-pound Kawasaki.

        Harley owners have an average age of 46 and an average annual salary of $78,000. They see midlife more as an epiphany than a crisis, a time to feel rebellious again, if only for a few days or hours.

        “My wife is the one who actually encouraged me to get a motorcycle,” says Mr. Lorey, 53, who retired last year from a seven-state sales job.

        “I'm glad I did.”

        Average price for a Harley is $15,000, the company says. Some models go for more than $30,000. Most other brands are less expensive, depending on the model of bike.

        Mr. Lorey said he paid less than $7,000 for his.

        As for the wind in the hair, he confesses to riding without a helmet, sometimes, but rats out his colleagues in the process.

        “I bet 75 percent of the people on bikes don't wear helmets,” he said.

        “It's foolish, I know. But it feels good.”

        Both his wife and his college-sophomore son have ridden with him, but the motorcycle, he says is his own personal hobby.

        “It's kind of my little thing,” he said.

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