Watch Some Octogenarians Tour Thailand On Scooters

5 years, 8 months ago - 12 February 2019, RideApart
Watch Some Octogenarians Tour Thailand On Scooters
Now that's a good retirement.

To most of us, a thirteen-day tour around the island of Taiwan might sound like a grand adventure and we might not think too hard about having any troubles completing it. Then again, most of us are not eighty years old!

Here's your heartwarming movie of the day: it's called "Go Grandriders" and it promises to be adorable and funny and probably sad, but worth it. The filmmakers follow a group of seventeen senior citizens, with an average age of 81, on their journey. The riders have made it their goal to circumnavigate the island of Taiwan together, covering 1178 kilometers (that's 732 miles) in thirteen days. They are mostly riding 125cc scooters and small displacement motorcycles, do not don much protective gear, and their helmets do not cover their faces. Brace yourself for some cringey moments.

As expected the riders are not all in the best of health (one of them falls asleep while riding!) but they exude pure joy along the way, appreciating their accomplishments all the more for the hardships they endure.

They stop in for visits at nursing homes along the way and spread cheer wherever they go. Several of them are cancer survivors, many have coronary disease, and they all have joint problems.

While the movie was released in Taiwan in 2013 (and it was the highest grossing documentary there ever!), it's not on Netflix or Hulu or any streaming service yet. It has however recently become available in the correct format for the USA, and you can buy it from Amazon right here. If this film doesn't inspire you to realize that whatever aches and pains you have are no big deal and to get back on that motorcycle you have (or sell it and buy something more reasonable, like those scooters they're all on!), I'm not sure what else will. Never stop living, everybody.