hfbill

Lucky you! I can't imagine leaving my wife home alone for a week. I'd come home to a very unhappy wife and have to hear endless stories about all the hardships she had to endure alone while I was off "amusing myself". That's why I told the O.P. to be very mindful of the red flags he's seeing now.

PedalingWalrus

My wife loves bike touring...after finally agreeing on the right bike 😀

alan s 

The only thing worse than coming home to a nagging wife is having her right behind you the whole time.

PedalingWalrus

lol - mine is much more pleasant when she is happy, scratches my back and swats away the horse flies during our bike rides :-)

djb

memory jog this caused
possibly my first bike trip or thereabouts, tried to ride from Ottawa to Kingston, about 175km but I think my dad maybe drove me out of Ottawa to save a bunch of kms, and my friends in Kingston picked me up early too---but anyway, back to the memory....

riding along a straight marshy bit, no houses, and being chased by a group of horse flies. Feeling and hearing the "pings and plunks" as they hit my helmet over and over, speeding up and speeding up in an attempt to drop them, looking back over my shoulder and seeing the group of them hot on my tail....holding this (fast for me) pace until I couldnt anymore and then finally spotting a house and rushing up to it, knocked on the door and pretended that I needed water.
The rouse worked, and the little (big actually) ba s t a r ds had left by the time I came out, probably off chasing some poor horse or deer around.....

funny how a little visual thing or reference can trigger memories

also makes me think of how back then, pre bike computer days, I would use a little piece of string to follow a road on a map, accumulate it and then line it up against the mileage scale thing to figure out how far to go to get from Xville to Yville or whatever, and then guesstimate how fast you'd be going and sort of what time it would take....

Oh, and didnt have a girlfriend, so didnt have to worry about any of that stuff (alas alas)

Carbonfiberboy 

As is pointed out so well above, the simple solution is to get a tandem. Actually it's simpler if you have the tandem before the GF or wife. I know a few single riders, male and female and even hetero, who troll for stokers. Good fun that sometimes ends in marriage. Other tandem teams bought their tandems after they already had things worked out. Touring on a tandem is really nice - one only needs one of everything in the way of bike and party equipment, only need 2 sets of various clothings. Tandems are well known as relationship accelerators. Wherever your relationship is going, a tandem will get it there faster. Life is short, no time to waste on things that don't work.

Darth Lefty 

I don't share my wife's hobbies. We have both been adults long enough to recognize our own hobbies shifting. Right now I'm on bikes but it's been R/C racing cars and airplanes, beer brewing, charities, motorcycles. My wife's hobbies have been crafty things, most lately stained glass but she also did pour paintings, candles, sewing. We have kids and I set a lot aside for that, too. I'm not doing things that would leave my whole family behind for days or weeks. Bike touring is something I might do when they're all able to make their own breakfast

Doug64

Heck, if I wasn't interested in bike touring, my wife would probably just go touring without me

Somewhere in Illinois on our ride from Newport, Oregon to Boston, Massachusetts.

veganbikes

Usually old lefty and I take a little break while on tour hopefully my readiness to mingle might pay off on my next tour. I probably wouldn't date someone who is not interested somewhat in cycling and camping at least occasionally. If my partner wasn't interested in bike touring I might have them meet me to camp or for lunch/dinner or something like that or just do a shorter trip.