I feel real guilty about the roadrash on her chin right now. She crashes at least once a ride, and it’s always something a complete beginner would do. She spends more time taking photos for the local version of tiktok than actually learning to ride.

I bled her brakes last night, we were on stony tarmac and she stood up to pedal up a slight incline, touched the front brake. Disaster! Chin, right knee, right elbow, left shin and smashed smartband. Helmet completely unscathed!

She spends more time taking photos for the local version of tiktok than actually learning to ride.

Does she want to learn to ride or do you want her to learn to ride?

Hope she heals up quickly 🙂

Does she want to learn to ride or do you want her to learn to ride?

Let us examine the evidence:

I feel real guilty

– Mr Destructo

Case closed.

I bled her brakes last night,

This makes it 100% your fault. 🙂

When I was teaching my kids to ride on discs, I purposely set them up with a ‘bad bleed’ so brake-grabbing wouldn’t have these consequences.

This sounds like you are doing the excuse groundwork for the trips to casualty.

“she is so clumsy… honest”

When I was teaching my kids to ride on discs, I purposely set them up with a ‘bad bleed’

and they will go through life complaining this isn’t how brakes are supposed to be, imaging the embarrassment they will suffer complaining about a proper set up brake . Hope you are happy.

She crashes at least once a ride

I used to do the Saturday training ride with the local Tri club. The coaches wife, an ex-GB traithlete, would end up going over the bars most weeks and ending up in a ditch. I just figured triathletes were road riders who never managed to work out how to ride in a group…..

and they will go through life complaining this isn’t how brakes are supposed to be,

Just like their dad.

‘What do you mean, you don’t have to pump up your brakes every five minutes?’ 🙂

get her riding clipless.

I went for a ride on new brakes on Saturday, came over a small rise, saw that I was on target to hit a tree stump, hit the brakes applying old spongy brake pressure, hit the dirt. Kept my face out of it, but shoulder, knee and elbow all with gravel rash. Still can’t lean on my left elbow, so she’s not alone.

Not sure the brake bleeding was the issue. Pulling the brake levers when standing up to ride up a hill is a bit more basic than that. Should probably ride around on some grass and practice standing up on pedals and other basics before another accident.

She obviously needs to learn some bike handling skills. She needs a 20″ competition trials bike.

My missus is similar, it’s more a reality Vs expectations thing… For me.

She “likes riding bikes” but her concept of “riding bikes” are more:

Wafting about wide-open, car-free, flat spaces, with the wind in her hair and a picnic at the halfway point…

Where as my ideas were a bit more focussed on “uneven ground” (her words), close proximity to trees and wheels leaving the ground, that or grinding out miles on B-roads while dodging Range rovers… The first time I took her to some tame local trails she shrieked while riding directly at a tree and roads scare the shit out of her because all drivers are Jeremy Clarkson in her head…

I simply had to adjust my expectations of what a bike ride with the missus entails.
It only happens if the sun is out, a tow path trundle just above walking pace, I’ll carry all of the picnic bits, there will be complaints about tiredness after three flat miles, I will be required to give at least two refresher tutorials on how the gears work. But it’s enjoyable, she’s out on a bicycle that’s the main thing…

She’s never going to be a gnarr shredderist and attempts to turn her into one will just put her off cycling, it’s better to just let her enjoy the sort of cycling she wants to do.

Sorry OP but your missus isn’t going to turn into Rachel Atherton…

Cyclists use less care when choosing a partner for life than when choosing a bicycle for the foreseeable.

Cyclists use less care when choosing a partner for life than when choosing a bicycle for the foreseeable.

Are you saying you could only choose a life partner who shares your enthusiasm for bicycles?

This sounds like one of those ‘dad’s living vicariously through their kids’ thing. Over-enthusiastically forcing them into football when they absolutely hate it and would rather be playing xbox or getting high with their mates. Except with women and bikes. 🙂

Life’s too short. You get some alone time on the bike, leave her at home taking photos of herself for social media. Everyone happy.

Okay, had a talk and I’ve discovered exactly how she faceplantd into tarmac now.

She is following some stick insect roadie on the local Tiktok and has been admiring this way this girl does inclines, standing up and “rocking the car”. Local term for tipping the bike left and right like you’re on a single speed/bmx. Only, her finger reached and pulled the brake lever, and down she went without anyone to film her.

I hope this is one lesson she has learnt. Although the front brake isn’t working too good now.

Are you saying you could only choose a life partner who shares your enthusiasm for bicycles?

Tongue-in-cheek. Mostly 😉

And, I never did. If I did even that would be weird. My enthusiasm for bicycles is weird by most standards. I wouldn’t wish to marry another me! Would probably settle for ‘Honest, open, tends towards competence and shares enthusiasm to be outdoors’!

Have chosen with less care and criteria more than once. To be fair have also bought a few bikes on impulse, but less so.

OP, still unanswered:

Does she want to learn to ride or do you want her to learn to ride?

?

I used to get frustrated with my ex braking going downhill. She just didn’t enjoy the childlike joy of speed like I did. Took me a while to get used to it, some people just don’t like going fast! It scares them more than it thrills them.
One day she did go fast on a borrowed mtb, mis-adjusted brake shoe rubbed a hole in the front tyre which burst at probably 25mph down a road hill. She went down hard. I can still see it now. She didn’t own a helmet and luckily had borrowed mine and I wore this piss-pot lid we had knocking about. Saved a good deal of damage that did, cos she landed on her head. Clumsy cow 😛
My current partner only rides if she asks. She does enjoy it, but tends to scream on the downhills. 😆

My current partner only rides if she asks.

the front brake isn’t working too good now.

after a little stack like that….

I bled her brakes last night,

clumsy, you say 🙂

What is Billy Joe saying? 😆

I’m not a monster! She definitely likes riding. She even chooses routes and asks to go out.

I got her clipless pedals and shoes and she liked them for long distance and uphills. But after she crashed on tarmac, doing a tight 180, (well, she crashed quite a few times, because she’s clumsy!) she asked me to refit the flats, and I bought her some 5-10s.

I need to persuade her to watch some instructional videos on the local version of YouTube before going out again. And/or kit her out in full body armour. But it’s getting hot here,it’ll be 35c in another week.

ex-GB traithlete, would end up going over the bars most weeks and ending up in a ditch

mrsmf has much the same sort of praise for many triathlete’s swim technique… jack of all trades, etc.

Out of interest have you brought the brake levers inwards to adjust to her hand size, or do you notice if she is having to use her middle finger to brake rather than index finger? Women on average have shorter hands than men and on average have a shorter torso-arm length ratio to inner leg, so we tend to have odd adaptations to riding stance. It might be she has to have an odd hand position in order to cover the brake lever, which meant she couldn’t just take her fingers off the lever to pull on the bars when she stood up? And also why she went over the bars – I can’t have my forearm perpendicular to the bars, I have to rotate my arm up and outwards at the wrist in order to cover the brakes, so when you do slow suddenly it is much harder to stop yourself going over the bars because the force is twisting your wrist. Or is this on a road bike, in which case it seems perfectly normal to me if you had your hands on the hoods – that’s how I have to ride and brake because I just can’t reach the brake levers if I am on the drops.

I sorted her cockpit out for her. I do all maintenance and check it before rides. I wanted to make sure, of all problems that could exist, at least an ill-fitting, i’ll-maintained bike wasn’t one of them.

Maybe teach her how to do a emergency/hard stop with both brakes. You know the throw your arse all the way back and stop in the shortest distance type. It imprints the rearward body movement when hard braking in your brain!

It’s part of better brake control a long with learning to brake with minimal wheel lockups, the opposite skidding, biasing your brakes in steep sections, picking safe braking sections of a trail, wheelies and stopies.