They who ride together stay together?

psling for president!

😆

Madame has a solution to that, psling, she goes out to w**k and leaves me at home to clean the bikes, do the housework, DIY and mess around on the Internet. If her bike isn’t spotless when she gets home from work she ties me up and… .

I am Gnarr! Right (and 41 seconds is quite significant…):D
Seriously though I do believe that although you may want to ride seperatly from time to time, days spent out on the bike are good times together so keep it up. However should psling decide to run for office…Tandems for everyone!

you are Mrs yunki and I claim my £5..

family rides should be added to the riding schedule.. not incorporated into it..

In fact.. for balance you should probably encourage him to ride alone more too.. say perhaps at least every day that you’re not riding as a family.. maybe more

Tandem is the way forward tj speaks the truth (on no what have a written). If hubby is a racer then then strength training will do him good. Also as a racer he has easy recovery rides go out together then if a tandem is not your thing.

I actually can’t think of anything worse than a tandem for riding together/getting started riding. 😐

you are Mrs yunki and I claim my £5..

family rides should be added to the riding schedule.. not incorporated into it..

In fact.. for balance you should probably encourage him to ride alone more too.. say perhaps at least every day that you’re not riding as a family.. maybe more

This +1

I’ve only been on a tandem once, I’d describe the experience as ‘unnerving’ and ‘uncomfortable’! 😆

I ride with my GF, who is slower for a variety of reasons but it never gets annoying. The only habit I insisted on breaking was that of pushing up every hill.

Although I do still need to shout out shifter and digit combos to get her in the right gear and she has to stop to pick up her bar end tassels a bit too often I really enjoy every outing; but I’ll caveat that by saying *I* ride for fun, never enter any events, I don’t weigh myself, my food, or the bike, or ever time or measure anything I do (outside the bedroom).

I bought Mrs a half-decent MTB a couple of years ago but sadly it doesn’t get much use as she’s decided she quite likes riding except when it involves up-hills and definately not down-hills. 😥

We rode the Preston Guild Wheel cycle path a couple of weeks ago. That sort of thing’s fine together but I know there’s no point in going to eg Calderdale together. We’d both just get frustrated with each other.

A bit selfish maybe, but I wouldn’t like to introduce “together” rides as being at the expense of “my” rides, but if it’s additional then its all good.

DGOAB – want a shot? You can have the front seat 🙂

Julie had not really done much offroad riding beyond canal paths before we got the tandem but now has got here own decent MTB and rides occasioanly including enjoying a day at GT now and then. One thing for her was to discover just what was possible to do

I know there’s no point in going to eg Calderdale together. We’d both just get frustrated with each other.

this is where the tandem is good so long as you remember the cardinal rule which is to make sure the stoker enjoys the day out. It is perhpas the most fun vehicle I have ever had in terms of smiles per mile

Open invite for a loan of the tandem if anyone wants to try it

just had an email from mrsconsequence demanding we go out to ride tonight 🙂

best way we’ve found to avoid getting tetchy with each other is for her to lead the ride and set the pace… its rare i’ll go and ride without her, if so its usually in bad weather/winter. she doesn’t like riding in the cold so this gives me about 5 months of the year where i can mess about with the guys at our own pace, the first 2 months of her riding again after winter are a struggle but she’s always determined to build up her fitness again and is now at the stage where she beats certain friends up hills 🙂

I was the mtb-er in our relationship – I got the OH into it.

We now ride mostly together on weekend rides but in the evenings I ride with other ladies and he plays football or rides with his mates, so he gets to do the testosterone-y things that lads do like hurl themselves off stuff.

I’m not as fast as OH up hills, especially as I do have the odd bit of time off because I have Crohns and can get unwell from time to time, that can stand in the way of me building a lot of fitness/stamina. OH rides for fun mainly, I don’t think his main goal is “go as fast as possible” so it doesn’t tend to be a problem, unless it’s me getting frustrated that I can’t go as fast as I’d like.

Thank you all for your honest, occasionally sexist 😉 comments! The general consensus seems to be that those who do ride together enjoy it, but there needs to be a balance between family riding and the riding Mr reluctant needs to do for his racing and man points! Your replies have reaffirmed to me what a generally nice bunch you MTBers are and I look forward to trying not to run some of you over in the countryside near me soon! Btw Mr Reluctant, don’t even think about Yunki’s every day riding comment….. It is not going to happen 🙂

Get your own bike then buy a Bicycle Bungee, which converts your bikes into a tandem and evens out a strong and a weaker rider. I saw one in South Africa, it works brilliantly:

Don’t Call It A Tow Rope, It’s The Bicyclebungee!

FWIW a tandem would be a one way trip to the divorce courts – Mrs B told me so specifically. We used to race together, but to be honest she was always a bit fitter than me, coming from a cross country running background… different speeds on the ups and downs was never an issue, just kept together 95% of the time.

These days the major arguments are who tows the trailer, and who tows the tag-a-long 🙂

You need to concentrate on your role as captain – which is to give her the best ride of here life – smooth gentle and fun – with lots of warning of what is going to happen next

It’s all gone to the dogs here. 4 hours since this was posted and no innuendo response. I despair, I really do!

Slightly dissenting point of view here, but I can’t imagine anything worse than my GF taking up mountain biking. I’m very happy to go on pootles round the lanes and on bike paths with her, usually as part of picnic / sightseeing trip. And I love going out with my nephew on his first bike.
But mountain biking is my time and an entirely separate ‘thing’. I’d find it very unsettling if she professed an interest in thru-bolt forks or how to ride a rooty drop-off. If you have one of those blokes who eat, sleep and breathe mountain bikes then you have my sympathy.

Redwoods and I ride together. I’ll also occasionally ride on my own. She commutes by bike but tends not to ride for fun on her own. We ride in the peaks a lot. We regroup at the top and bottom of each hill.

What made a massive difference to her was getting a course with Jedi. That’s closed the gap a bit.

What made a massive difference to her was getting a course with Jedi. That’s closed the gap a bit.

+1squillion

mrsconsequence went through a long stage of having enough fitness to keep up on all the fireroads but would get left behind on singletrack, the day she spent with jedi means following her through singletrack is now a fun and sometimes exhausting experience 🙂 she’s so much smoother and her confidence means she rides stuff that i sometimes over-think and stumble down!

I think a lot depends on how he reacts to the idea. I started biking because it was the only way I got to spend any time with Jon, and at the time he rode with a club, so I could be at the back with someone to talk to, and he was a few miles ahead racing the faster guys…

Then his riding evolved, and so did mine, but as he says, we went in different directions. He thinks he’d love it if I enjoyed the same stuff as he does, but I can’t see that happening, so we’ll go out at the same time and maybe meet for lunch, but not ride together. I’ll generally clean the kit afterwards and he’ll wash the bikes.

If one of you is always pushing the other to ride things they don’t enjoy (whether it’s slow easy fire roads or rooty rock-fests) it can take a lot of the fun out of it.

As far as the courses go, yes, they can make a real difference, but only if you want them to. If you’re sent on a course because “it will do you good” but you’re not keen on the idea, it won’t help.

See what he says to the idea, but make sure he really does realise that you won’t be blasting through technical singletrack after half an hour on your new bike.

Family rides – good

Rides with Mrs Please – good on a tandem.
Off road – DO NOT TAKE TO CO ED Y BRENIN.
Nothing with a number on the front.
On road – good in small doses.

Sandwich – i agree

It may or may not work out for you…

mrs xiphon quite likes the fact I do the slightly more extreme side of MTB’ing (part the original charm, apparently…), and bikes are part of my life…

When we met, she had one old shopping bike – now she has 3 lovely cycles (Pashley Princess…. Orange Patriot…. Specialized Dolce). Thought she might as well learn to love the 2-wheeled world if we were to stay together…. and now we’re married…

Eventually we’ll get a tandem – great fun…

I do ride on my own a fair bit and get to blast off and generally let off steam, but the best riding for me is with Mrs O. I’ve really enjoyed watching her develop as a rider, and so long as I don’t tell her what to do (as if!) or inspect which gear she’s in, it works really well for us.

I’ve really enjoyed watching her develop as a rider

looking over my shoulder to see mrsconsequence popping off a drop on a downhill and landing smooooooothly with a big grin on her face makes it all worth it 😀

mrsalias likes to ride with the following caveats.

no hills, well no up hills
no sticky horrible muddy bits
not too far, not too fast
more rest breaks than riding

to be fair this would all be fixed by increasing her bike fitness, but she just aint that interested. So i ride on my own a lot and my missus gets on her bike for a pub/pootle a couple of times a year.

I like to think I’ve helped Mr Toast develop his skills, such as running at speed in SPD shoes when looks back and realises his wife has fallen off the side of a hill! 😀

Another couple here who own and ride a tandem off road.
It really is a case of trying one out as it’s not like any other form of cycling I’ve ever done before. It could be divorce for some couples as it’s a real case of trust on gnarly stuff, in the main its good fun.
Luckily mr bunnyhop doesn’t mind me coming on rides as he enjoys a wee rest at the top of climbs and its our joint hobby, after all I was the mtber who persuaded him to have a go.
There are many times though that I do just think, ‘nah the weather’s naff’ he can go out with the boys and ride his socks off and boost that ego on the technical stuff.

Edit – mrstoast your man sounds great. I’m thinking that although mr bh. would never intentionally leave me lying in the mud, bleeding and moaning, it has been a while before now, that he’s noticed I’ve gone missing 🙂

lots of incredibly sexist comments in this thread suggesting that a big part of riding for men is boosting their egos….

*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*

high5 philconsequnce and onzadog 🙂

I love the contrast you see with guys riding with girls at trail centres…

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

my wife will happily (foolishly?) follow me down most trails/routes – be it red, black or ungraded…

Great OP.

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.

Mrs BJ just reminded me of a trip to the Austrian Alps a few years ago (we were only in our EARLY 50s then) and we hired a couple of downhill bikes (Kona Stab Supremes) in Leogang, and bought a couple of lift passes.

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.

Why do you call her Mrs BJ?

😆 @ grum

Will agree with the comments about skills courses (specifically with Tony), Chloe didn’t want to do one for a while, but then came down to herts with me and met tony and some of the other guys.
Then she decided it was a good thing for her after a fair bit of riding.
I bought her the course and I am glad I did as she is so much happier on the bike now.
However it has to be her who makes the decision about doing the courses as being forced to go on one would not help I suspect.
It is great riding with your OH when you are both enjoying it.
Makes the whole thing even better

Go for it – I hadn’t ridden a bike for ten years when the bf managed to wangle his way into my life, subtly left nice bikes lying around it until I took the bait and now complains about the speed at which I climb hills 🙄

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.