The story of Linda Pilbeam, and how she got her motorcycle license at the age of 71, is one of those that would make it possible to make not so much a film (no need to get intense), but a documentary.
And Linda has managed to get her motorcycle license at the age of 71 because of a promise to her daughter, which she made when she decided to get her license. The promise and the reason were simple: to support her daughter in obtaining the permit and if she achieved it, Linda would get to work.
That’s just what happened, Pilbeam’s daughter got permission and Linda began her process. The curious thing about this whole story that the VisorDown colleagues tell us is that he has not come to motorcycles now at 71 years old, and it is not a passion that he has discovered at this moment in his life. It turns out that her husband, Mr. Pilbeam, has been riding motorcycles for more than 40 years, so Linda has spent half her life surrounded by motorcycles.
Before getting her motorcycle license, Linda carried out a training plan
Of course, to fulfill the promise there were no great follies. Everything was quite premeditated and there was a driving school, Phoenix Motorcycle Training, to take the necessary, fair, correct and safe steps in that adventure.
So the school, led by Mark Jaffe, designed a specific plan to move forward and prepared a lowered Kawasaki Z650 so that it could take the exam. This is how Linda evaluated her experience preparing everything after passing the driver’s license exam:
“The instructors at Phoenix were absolutely wonderful. They really went out of their way to tailor the training for me so I could progress at my own pace. They gave me advice and encouragement throughout the entire process – I really can’t thank them enough.”
While, as we all thought, his coach Mark Jaffe also gave his point of view: “Linda’s story is living proof that it’s never too late to start riding, and that with the right support, anyone can do it – and enjoy every minute.”
The best of all is that this intergenerational story does not end there, but Linda’s granddaughter, Maize, has been encouraged by seeing her grandmother and is going to do a “Try Ride”, an initiation contact for new motorcyclists between 16 and 24 years old that takes place in the United Kingdom.
We’ll see if he gets brave and decides to get his motorcycle license before his grandmother.
