Never Too Old for a Motorcycle Ride

Cecelia Chang, a 99-year-old member of the Kelso-Longview (Wash.) Church, had never had the opportunity to ride a bicycle or motorcycle. She just didn't have time when raising her family — that was, until Dorothy Miller asked her son to take a "lovely lady for a ride" on his Harley. Chang loved the ride!

Chang rode shotgun through Longview, Wash., in the sidecar of a purple Harley-Davidson. "We just rode and rode and rode. It was great," Chang says of the hour-long ride. "I couldn't believe that I was on a motorcycle. What a day … I waited my whole life to ride a motorcycle."

Chang was born in 1912 on a sugar plantation in Hilo, Hawaii. She moved to Portland, Ore., after her husband died from liver cancer in 1970, then moved to Thousand Oaks, Calif., a couple years later. She returned to the Pacific Northwest and moved to Longview in 1987 to be close to her daughter.

Chang is already planning to hit the road again when she turns 100 in April. "Lord willing, I'm going to go on another motorcycle ride," she says. "And I'm not going to be on the side. I'm going to be on the back behind the driver!"

Featured in: January 2012

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