….when she insists on coming biking with you but then gets too nervous to ride yet too stubborn and proud to turn back! That’s not fun for mr or mrs!

We live in south wales and i can’t find a good run in the usual places (Brechfa, Afan, Cymcarn etc) to gradually build her confidence and skills on i guess flattish flowing stuff. It’s kinda all or nothing.

There must be tons of mr’s out there in the same position? I can’t just ban her from coming – or maybe i could?! She’s so keen and competitive – just hasn’t got a clue – and whenever i try and give her pointers she thinks I’m patronising her!!

Any missus’ out there that have overcome this stubborn fear or better still want to take my missus out riding so she can build her confidence and skills away from bossy impatient old me!!

Gentle forestry tracks. Then up to aviemore on easy graded trails. Then I introduced her to the seven stanes. Now I can’t get rid of her. She’s been having a jealous look at my new five. Thinks it cost £1000 haven’t let her near a bike mag for fear she finds out the truth. She even likes my other passion rugby. Can’t go there on my own either. 😯

under the patio

lesson with jedi…

The end of the blue/green at Brechfa is a really good “learner” trail. Nice climb up to the picnic table, and then a roller down to the car park. Repeat as necessary. Is that too much for her?

Have you tried Brechfa blue / green? Apologies if that’s a silly question!

*edit* d’oh! Too slow

Skills course (not run by you!) – get her confidence built up in the company of other learners (preferably female) by someone who knows what they are doing.

Personally, I do my harder rides alone or with the lads or even smash a lap solo first while she sorts herself out if its a trailcentre, then just keep it chilled when i ride with her, take pics, practice manuals, let her go first on decents and then play catch up.

Mind you its not the other way round when we go surfing, she rips and I look like a chump to the point where im kind of dreding our snowboard trip later this year, “have you got your own folding shovel honey?” “no but I can use my fist just as well, if you make me look to bad, darling”

Third response in a row but it’s worth emphasising as surely Brechfa Green/Bue is perfect?!?

*EDIT* Well it would have been in a row if I wasn’t slow! Is CyB in range – the new blue there is very smooth and flowing.

She’s so competitive (shoulda seen her at beach bat on hols recently!!) she thinks that run at Brechfa is too slow (!!??). Her standard, or should i say competitive nature, allows her to have fun on all of the red run at brechfa apart from the last bit where she fell off last time we were there! She said she was “letting the bike go…” when i found her in a battered and bruised pile!!

She said she was “letting the bike go…” when i found her in a battered and bruised pile!!

when you eventually caught up with her..?
Sounds to me like sour grapes cos she’s quicker than you..

She’ll grow out of it, my missus is keen but timid and gets narky with helpful pointers. Give her occasional genuine praise, let her lead and go at her pace. If you can figure out her ‘thing’ (does she like climbs/descents/jumps etc) and find a place where she can show off, that will boost her confidence and maybe help things level out.

I thoroughly believe in challenge by choice (I’m studying adventure education), so let her raise the bar as she sees fit. There’s loads of literature about matching someone’s ability to the risk they perceive and the demand of the task. Get this right and she’ll excel without the frustration.

Oh, and don’t show off so it trivialises her efforts. It won’t impress her!

chicked

Tandem

she thinks that run at Brechfa is too slow

Nonsense, she’s just not riding it fast enough. I had a RIGHT laugh on the blue and the green there, you just need to hammer it!

I rode with Mr S when I first got back into mtbing after kids. Probably didn’t help that I was on a 80mm cross country race hardtail, which came with sketchy tyres, but I didn’t realise they were sketchy until Mr S rode it about a year later and told me this was so. While he was on a quality 5″ full susser.
It got to the stage where I knew I needed someone else to ride with and launched after a lady riding on her mtb when I was walking my dog. That was brilliant, we started riding together regularly and stuff I found difficult with Mr S, I found that because we stopped, looked and were chilled about it and saw each other riding it, just encouraged us both to get better and faster. Mr S was quite surprised how much I’d come on when we rode together again.
I ride with a group of girls on a weds night every week, but can now happily go out with Mr S as well, but I wouldn’t want to go out with him all the time, because I do slow him down (both in the speed and skill department),but not too much on a good day, but he does tell me he enjoys riding with me, but I do wonder sometimes 😉
If your missus is determined (and big respect to her for keeping trying, she will probably be using about 20 times your effort and be at the limit of her bravery, which can make you quite cranky at times) then helping her to find other women to ride with would help, or a nearby womens skills course, where she will hopefully meet some other women she would like to ride with.
I did mention in those early days that maybe some of my problems lay in the bike I was riding, but it took a male friend to say to Mr S, maybe if she was riding more than a cross country hardtail for the message to sink in. Moved onto a Scandal with 130mm fork and then an Orange 5 as well, it did help, as well as getting some decent tyres, although I don’t regret for a minute the skills that I built up whilst riding that 80mm hardtail.
I was in the dark about the cost of bikes and the one my Mr S had at the start was double what he told me he’d paid for it, but I know exactly how much stuff costs now and he still buys it. The same amount is going out your bank account, no matter what you pretend it costs.

Where are you based? I live in the Afan valley and there’s quite a few bits of singletrack around (as in not part of the waymarked routes) that suit my partner, who is climbing-phobic and not into anything too technical. Would be happy to point you in the right direction.

Alternatively, bits of Y Wal at Afan (Nant y Bar, Picadilly, Graveyard, probably in increasing order of difficulty) are relatively flat, relatively non-precipitous and can be sessioned easily be pootling back up the fireroad (take the MBWales map +OS and its simple to figure out the way back up).

My wife had skills lessons from ian Potter of AQR and she has never looked back since then, be patient and only offer advice when it is asked for. She has now ridden most trail centres in the uk plus loads of natural stuff along with biking hols in the alps,pyrenees,italy and canada.

I’d recommend one of these courses MTB SkillsPity you’re not in the Peak area, Emmy Hoyes has given a couple of worried women I know lots of confidence.

I agree flyingmonkey, nonsense, I’m just gonna tell her to get a bldy move on next time!!

Herman, she won’t be showing off in a hurry – thought her ‘thing’ was climbing until we got a 1/100th of the way u whites level climb in the wet on tue! Disaster.

My wife will only ride with me on quiet country lanes or on smooth cycle tracks. She doesn’t like anything remotely bumpy or muddy.

She prefers a chilled potter and a stop at a nice country pub (there is a place for that sort of ride from time to time though).

Can’t recommend dirt divas enough. My Mrs has done the back to basics and the singletrack skills courses. Not only has she picked up some handy skills in a testosterone free (well nearly) environment, but she’s keeping in touch with some of the girls and there are girly rides planned.

TandemJeremy – Member
Tandem

walking down together, thats pretty good of you!

1. Make sure she has equivalent equipment to you so that she can’t complain that your bike is better than hers.
2. Don’t try and coach her during a ride – talk about technique and stuff before and after, then let her try stuff out for herself (except for yelling Heals DOWN every so often).
3. Short break to Glentress might help (I called it an anniversary present!)
4. Concentrate really hard on being patient when she’s having a strop on a ride. Have emergency sweets/chocolate.
5. She’ll be better than you at something – find it and point it out.
6. Remember, if she likes it, you get to go riding more!

Get her pregnant, then she won’t ride for years 🙂

Going for the first (road) ride with my missus this weekend in about 4 years.

Tried to get my oh into mtb a few years ago bit she decided it wasn’t for her. ( horse riding is more her bag). She kept her Gary fisher ht for family jaunts along the canal though. The only problem now though is that she’s quite clued up on bike parts so if I get anything new for my bike she spots it straight away. “And how much did that new rear mech cost?”.” I got from the stw classifieds love. Honestly.”

Benc, you have my sympathies fella – your missus sounds virtually the same as my wife. My wife turns into a kind of perfectionist control freak on a bike (nearly as weird as some of the local male mtn bikers I know 😉 )

My c**p method of shouting instructions from the sidelines possibly doesn’t help 😳 and with me on helpful hints duties we’ve had a couple of bike thrown on ground, rock throwing tantrums – mainly because she gets super frustrated when she can’t ride descents or things she finds scary. We live in an area with similar ‘all or nothing’ terrain, so finding intemediate routes that she can progres on is difficult, and a ride that I’d normally zip round in a couple of hours can turn into what feels a marathon.

The approach we’ve found most helpful is for her to have one to one lessons with an instructor, then (on the advice of one of the instructors) I just leave her to it on some bits of a rides and let her session stuff where and when she feels comfortable. She has had several skills sessions with different instructors, with differing results. She’s now found a couple of CTC trained instructors who seem to be able to get on her wavelength, as they focus on some of the psycology of riding off-road. She has a refresher lesson about every 6 to 9 months and then works on improving her riding between lessons.

Personally, I think Herman Shakes advise above is also very good and, with patience, I’d be very surprised if you didn’t see some improvements with this approach.

Best of luck.

I agree flyingmonkey, nonsense, I’m just gonna tell her to get a bldy move on next time!!

😆 and shout some stuff like ‘drop yer heels, get your arse back, stay off the brakes’ at her 😀 …….er…then run off into the trees and take cover from incoming

Get her pregnant – that’ll keep her busy.

Sadly you may never be able to afford another bike for 18 years.

Verderers trail in the FoD. Not too far from you, and you’ll be very surprised at how much fun you also can have on a blue trail.

Or not. It could just be me…

Partners should never try to teach each other how to ride; it inevitably ends in an arguement (I think I managed to get my wife to cry at one point).

She went on a skills course on her own, which improved her riding a bit. But it was riding with other people without me that has improved her riding the most. She won’t have me “shouting at her” (as she puts it – I’d consider it advice 😉 ) & equally she feels a little pressure (in a good way) to get over stuff for fear of holding the group up & has grown to realise that she’s quite capable of riding stuff she’s have told me “there’s no way I’m doing that”.

The result is that she’s gone from struggling on basic flat singletrack in Bristol to doing a weekend at Brechfa, a lap of Cwm Carn and a day on Afan’s W2 within the last 3 months. Not bad for someone that hadn’t ridden a MTB 9 months ago.

Why only trail centres? Maybe try some local bridleways, trails etc.

Why on earth would she want to go charging around an artificial route in the woods? Buy a map and work out a nice easy route in mixed terrain for her with a cafe stop near the end.

Why only trail centres?

Its a good point. One of the things that used to freak my missus out was the fear of holding people up on the singletrack behind her (she fell off once cos she knew someone was following her, albeit at a safe distance.

Head out onto the hills involving wide open landrover tracks for starters.

I have a really annoying thing with my GF sometimes – when we ride in a bigger group she is quite plucky, rides more challenging stuff and generally has a positive attitude. Sometimes when just with me she can be quite whingy and has quite a negative outlook.

I dunno if I am just an awful man – but I was talking about this with my gf and some friends of ours, and they said the same thing happens with them.

I just think there is a dynamic in most relationships that isn’t necessarily conducive to a more experienced one teaching the other – I bet teaching your partner to drive (or vice versa) could be ‘interesting’ too. As someone else mentioned above, we also got guided by Ian from AQR, and my GF got some skills training along the way which I think has really helped – as did the fact she was riding some stuff that normally she would have refused to ride if just with me, but didn’t want to look like a wimp in front of others. 😉

Oh, and sadly she much prefers trail centres…

Why only trail centres? Maybe try some local bridleways, trails etc.

Yep, I’d agree with this. My wife reckons she can find some trail centre routes a bit like an unremitting assualt on the senses, whereas she reckons even the some of the more nadgery natural trails have longish easier ‘rest’ sections that are not as technically/mentally challenging. Also less likely to get some ignorant c**t trying to force their way past on natural trails.

My wife and kids started MTB’ing a while ago and the solution that worked for us was to get a skills lesson from Harry at the bike school at Cannock. This has worked brilliantly, the kids have increased their ability massively and my wife is taking on more and more technical routes. We went from bridal trails at the start of the summer to; my wife heading off on her own to do a Coed Y Brenin black route on her own, my 12 year old did the Ski Run dh course last Saturday at the FoD on a HT and my 9 year old seems to want to get air off even the slightest jump now!

One tip that also worked for us; get a set of knee and eblow pads as it helps hugely with confidence.

One last (and final) tip, don’t try teaching your partner yourself, it never works!

Good luck!

I’m a big fan of the Quantocks for beginners – you can ride along the top with a great veiw but not too much climbing. Might be a bit far for you though…

My mrs doesn’t like hills, doesn’t like starting on hills [anything up to 10miles from the start may be included!], doesn’t like downhills and doesn’t like riding on the flat as it’s boring. She is gettting better though but I’m taking her on easy bits around my area. My sisters both ride Brechfa although my oldest sister is now riding the raven with my Dad – both riding the raven make me nervous! Think it’s the same as when you started riding, start gently and build her up and try and give advise which unlike what I apparently do doesn’t sound patronising.

As a girl MTBer myself, may i recommend Air Maiden at Glentress to her? It’s a women-only freeride weekend, usually in June each year. Coaches are on hand to take you through the usual array of skills, and the female-only environment is incredibly encouraging and supportive. Improved my trail-riding no end, and it’s only about £50 for the two days. Oh, and as a bonus, you can head off to Innerleithen for a spin!