Somewhere in between he bought us a tandem which I absolutely loved - gave me plenty of opportunity to admire his manly shoulders as he steered us down stupid stuff I'd not have done on my own (except when I had my eyes closed in sheer terror, of course).

I love being fitter than I was - I ride on my own or with other friends when he's away, sometimes he goes off riding with his friends. It's all good.

During the course of the day she went from timid to terrified to having fun to massively bruised (she should have let me swap the brakes over) to exhilirated, as we threw ourselves down the steeep mountain slopes.

Worth trying everything once. She absolutely loved it. Not much pedalling, and no pesky sitting on the saddle helped.

Mrs Tyred describes me in similar terms. I ride to work every day, race or TT on the road at least once a fortnight, couple of chaingangs a week, the odd bmx session, that sort of thing. We all ride in our house, and the house is littered with bikes.

To be completely honest, I want to ride both with and without her. I love taking her to trail centres, teasing her when she moans about "endless climbing", "stupid rocks in the way" and so on - its time spent with her just the two of us, something we don't get much of having two young children. So its always a total treat for me when she agrees to come riding, and if we've an overnight babysitter then I'll choose a (bike) ride with Mrs Tyred over most things.

But she doesn't love cycling like I do, and I know that in many cases (the races, chaingangs etc) its something I do for myself. We're always careful to make sure each other has time for solo pursuits, so I don't feel bad for racing etc just as much as I genuinely like riding with Mrs Tyred, as much as that's a gentle pootle and a thinly-disguised excuse to eat cake in nice surroundings rather than 'a ride'.

I'd ask him what he'd like if I were you. Chances are he'd be thrilled at the idea of you joining him sometimes. Its a chance to show you how talented he is at something - never underestimate how appealing this can be to the male psyche. If he isn't, you'll soon know and maybe you just need to accept this is something he doesn't want to share with you (or anyone else apart from his riding mates), and there's nothing wrong with that.

You can tell the blokes who want their Mrs' to get into it and the ones that don't!

*tuts and shakes head*

everyone i ride with does it for endorphins and the fact we get to play in the woods like kids

*grins and starts hyping myself up for a ride with the wimmin tonight, if i let her out of the kitchen of course*