Still Riding After All These Years

Joey Almerico is celebrating seventy years on a motorcycle—and counting. A retired dentist who turned 81 in July, Almerico got his first scooter when he was eleven. Last month, he rode cross-country to Utah for a BMW rally.

Almerico and his younger brother grew up in Norco, a small industrial town in St. Charles Parish. Their father was a dentist; their mother managed his practice. “There were three or four thousand citizens,” Almerico said in a recent interview. “The adjoining spillway had an encampment for German prisoners of war. I can remember standing on the side of the road returning waves to truckloads of prisoners as they passed through town on their way to the spillway. We had whaling ships come into port. My father was frequently called aboard to treat crew members who were not allowed to leave their ships.”

When Joey was 11, his dad brought home a Western Auto Doodle Bug scooter. “I had been begging him for one,” says Almerico. “I had seen people riding at the Shell Refinery in Norco. The staff rode Simplex scooters made in New Orleans, and they were allowed to ride them home.” Without benefit of helmet or protective gear, young Joey regularly rode his red Doodle Bug from Norco to Kenner (about thirty miles round trip) in a T-shirt and shorts. “This was the source of travel for me,” he said. “I rode it on the River Road. It gives you a sense of freedom. That was when the motorcycle bug bit me, right there.” 

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He rode less while attending high school at Jesuit and studying dentistry at Loyola in New Orleans. “I was a commissioned naval officer in my junior year of dental school,” he said. “I graduated in 1959 and immediately went on active duty for two years as a full lieutenant attached to the marines at Camp Pendleton, California.”

While at Loyola he bought his first “real” motorcycle, a BMW. He finds the German-made machines “mechanically superlative, for their time. I became so enthused that, while still practicing dentistry in the early ‘eighties, I became a fifty-percent owner of Crescent City BMW in New Orleans for three years.” 

He has stuck with the brand ever since, with a few exceptions. “About five years ago I was lured into the Italian line by an Aprilia Caponord,” he said. “I loved its engine sound, aesthetics, and performance. Then came the [Italian-made] Ducati Scrambler, followed by the [English-made] Triumph Tiger because in the 800cc [engine size] range BMW did not offer a competitive model. 

“I recently added a BMW R1200R LC to the stable. I have never gone longer than six months without a BMW in the garage. I’ve had at least seventeen models.”

Almerico estimates he has ridden about 400,000 miles altogether. “I’ve had many, many rides of six, seven, eight, nine hundred miles in a day. But the longest was a one-day ride from Omaha, Nebraska, 932 miles, that my wife Kit and I made returning from a trip out West around 2001. I wish I knew how many miles I’ve put in,” he said. “I usually take one cross-country trip a year. I’ve done more motorcycling since we moved to the Northshore twenty years ago.” Many of his trips have been with local friends, including a Baton Rouge-based group that calls itself The Scorpions.  

I’ve never stopped being a student of the sport, reading and applying what I’ve learned. I always try to be mindful of the risk-reward balance.

This past July, Almerico rode from his home in Folsom to Colorado, took a back-roads excursion through southern Utah, and ended up in Salt Lake City for a three-day BMW rally. He led a group of motorcycling friends from New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Wisconsin, and Atlanta. Almerico estimated he covered five thousand miles during the two-week trip.

He and Kit have also traveled all over Europe by motorcycle. They are most fond of Italy, where they once visited the Villa Almerico in Verona, a World Heritage site designed by Andrea Palladio. “When we bought items in the gift shop, I proudly told the elderly cashier, ‘My name is Almerico,' but he just grunted,” he said. The excursions are arranged by an Austrian tour group called Edelweiss Bike Travel. “You choose the motorcycle and they suggest places to stay. We’ve been on five trips with them, to Ireland; Spain and Portugal; Sicily; Italy and Switzerland; and Italy and the Dolomites.”

A fan of fine dining, he searches for good restaurants and recalled a memorable meal in Milan. “We asked a girl on a scooter to recommend a good restaurant,” he said. “She led us to a small family restaurant with an open kitchen where we had an incredible pasta with artichoke sauce.”

Considering the number of miles he has ridden, Almerico has had few injuries, noting only one accident, around 2009, in which he sustained a badly bruised shoulder. He attributes his nearly unblemished record to “some luck, some skill. But I’ve never stopped being a student of the sport, reading and applying what I’ve learned. I always try to be mindful of the risk-reward balance. Most important, I try to maintain constant situational awareness when I’m riding. Your eyes are surveying what’s far ahead, to the side, and immediately ahead. You are always trying to recognize potential problems, like the driver ahead or behind. You’re projecting outside of your immediate space, acutely aware of your surroundings. As in a game of chess, you are constantly analyzing your opponent (automobiles, animals, road hazards) and anticipating so that you can predict his moves and act in advance. You’re controlling what can be controlled, not leaving things to chance.”

He has had a few close calls. “Kit and I were in the Hill Country in Texas when a guy pulled out right in front of us,” he said. “I jogged around him. I felt totally in control, but Kit was a wreck. It’s terrible being a passenger. That was it for her. At that point she thought she wasn’t going to get on a motorcycle again.” Although Kit later changed her mind, she is strictly a passenger. “I don’t want her to learn to ride,” Almerico said. “I’d be too worried about her.”

Remarkably, Almerico continued riding after suffering a botched hip replacement that affected his left leg. “The only time it didn’t hurt was when I didn’t move,” he said. “I was in ten years of pain, but I kept riding.” In October 2015, he flew to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he had surgery to repair the damage. “There was a loose cable and some metal filings floating around in my leg,” he said. Pain-free for the first time in years, Almerico said, “It’s like being let out of jail. It’s like a new life. The surgeon gave me more length in my leg. I still am learning to walk.”

He attends annual BMW rallies. “This summer I traveled with friends I met at a BMW rally a few years ago. I’ve met a lot of great people through motorcycling.”

Another annual event is a trek to the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum in Birmingham, Alabama. “Every October they have a three-day event. There’s a swap meet for parts, an auction, and a vintage motorcycle race. People come from all over the country. It’s probably the best motorcycle museum in the world. Everything Barber does is first class,” said Almerico. “He’s got a racetrack there. You can sit under the pine trees on a hill and look down on the track. It’s beautiful.”

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After retiring in 1994, Almerico moved to Folsom, where he and Kit oversee a menagerie of barn and house cats; a Border Collie named Hank; an inside rabbit named Bugsy; three quarter horses, the oldest of which is 34; geese; ducks; and a flock of hens with glamorous names like Marilyn and Zsa Zsa. One hen, a Buff Orpington named Ava, recently appeared in BMW Owners News magazine, admiring her reflection in Almerico’s shiny motorcycle. "Outside guests have included deer, hogs, bobcats, foxes, turkeys, eagles, and every variety of winged and pawed creature,” he said.

Almerico has planted dozens of trees and shrubs on his property, including oak, cypress, magnolia, azalea, sweet olive, and gigantic crepe myrtles, but riding remains his favorite activity. Rather than a hindrance, his age seems to be an advantage, allowing him to draw on decades of experience. He has a good role model in his mother Esther, who lived to be 94. “Next to her chair, she always had some self-improvement book. She always considered herself a work in progress. Her grandmother spoke German, so she learned from her. She also spoke Spanish because her teen years were spent in Panama where her father was an engineer on the Panama Canal construction. He was also a motorcyclist!

“I’ve gotten such a return from motorcycling. The fire still burns. I enjoy it, I love it, it’s a passion. 

“Right now, life couldn’t be better.”