'After 62 bikes my life on two wheels is over'

When 78-year-old Gordon Castle first rode a motorbike, Sir Alec Douglas-Home was prime minister, the average house price was less than £3,500 and Top of the Pops had just begun on the BBC.

Sixty years, 62 bikes and 600k miles (965,000kms) later, he has decided to call time on his life on two wheels.

It began with a cousin's visit to Castle's childhood home in Alnwick in 1964.

"He had a Velocette motorbike and asked if I wanted to ride pillion," Castle said.

"I really liked it, so every Sunday afternoon after that we went out and he was a skillful, polished, safe rider who really set the standards that have never left me."

Three years later, and with a job as a car salesman, he had enough money to buy his own bike, a Suzuki Super Six 250.

Bike after bike followed, sometimes three at a time and holidays with motorcyle groups.

"I was a pioneer because I bought Japanese two-stroke motorbikes but they were good bikes, very tough and they didn't break down," he said.

His favourite bike was a modified BMW GS 1100.

He said it was "comfortable, practical, totally reliable," and he kept it for many years which was "very unusual".

His passion for motorbikes and the feeling of "coming alive at speed" took him to the race circuits at Croft in North Yorkshire and Silloth in Cumbria.

"I like to think I could have been a canny hand as they say at racing, but RAF training got in the way," he said.

"I was posted to Germany and I frequently commuted from Alnwick by bike, mind I wouldn't do it now," he added.

Motorcylists are the most vulnerable road users in Britain with, on average, six dying each week, but Castle spent several decades on a bike without serious injury.

That changed in August 2014 when a driver decided to do a U-turn on a blind bend.

"I know I hit it hard but I don't remember a thing about it," Castle said.

Two army doctors in a car behind helped save his life but he was badly injured and spent several months in hospital.

Although he went back to riding after the accident, often using it to commute to council meetings in Morpeth, as time passed he realised his spatial awareness was "not what it once was" and has now lost the desire to ride.

"Normally this time of year, I'd be cleaning my kit, looking forward to the first sunny day and getting out on my bike," he said.

"But this year it just didn't happen.

"I said to myself 'Gordon, it's over, it's time to give it a rest'.

"I'm not worried about missing it, I've got plenty to do."

Asked to account for his lifelong passion, Castle says being in command of a motorbike is "one of those few things in life which is an end in itself".

"You don't need a destination, it is enough just to ride, I would sometimes be going through Alnwick on my bike on a Sunday afternoon and have no idea where I was going to go.

"Whatever age I was, when I got on my bike I was 25 again," he said.

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