Essthreetee

I have been married to the same woman for almost 24 years. And in that time I have had many....er...obsessions. Motorcycles, 4x4, playing in a rock band, bicycles, then motorcycles again, but still bicycles.

Through all of it, my wife has been supportive and has never had any problems/complaints about any of them. (I always make sure that we do stuff together and not pertaining to my interests).

But what I am getting at is that she has NO INTEREST in riding, other than the occasional ride around town.

Doea your SO share your interest for riding?

gugie 

I tried to get my wife to ride first year of marraige. I took her on the tourist route from SF to Sausalito and took the ferry back. When we got off the ferry in SF we had maybe 2 miles to get back to the starting point. After 50 yards she started crying. Outside of riding with the kids a few miles on trails when they were little, she hasn't been on a bike since.

Up till then just about every girlfriend I'd had past high school either rode, or I got them into riding. None of them lasted.

It's ok for biking to be "my thing".

Juan Foote

My wife certainly doesn't mind the hobby. She has been interested to some degree, off and on. In particular she liked our Catrikes. We got really bored of all the places we could ride them and the seat started hurting her spine and she quit riding. So, in spite of balance issues I attempted to go back to a DF bike and I practically have to pull teeth to get her to ride much. Always "busy" or something she "has to do". Unfortunately I let that be a part of my excuses for not riding and basically I haven't been for the last year or so either (of any consequence).

Piff 

Mine wants to go riding, and I fixed up an okay bike for her, but finding a nice older frame with proper dimensions for a woman is difficult. She has the usual lady proportions of long lower body and short upper. I'm sure the perfect bike will pop up one day... just not yet.

This is on the local Craigslist. If only the top tube was shorter by a couple inches.



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bargo68 

My partner of 14 years will only get on a bike if there is brunch waiting at the halfway point!

52telecaster

My gf rides for utility but she says "bike culture" should be destroyed. Its not that she doesnt like bikes, she just wants them seen as everyday common appliances that get used for a purpose.
she doesnt ride as often as i do but while it has to do with how we met it isnt the basis of our relationship.

After an errand run.

daverup 

Get a short stem and maybe slide the seat forward?
Good hunting

daverup 

My wife of 38 years and I have biked together most of those years. Our kids grew up in bike trailers and "trailer bikes".
We both spent our adolescent years on Varsity's, although separated by geography till college.
Going out for a ride this afternoon together at 45 degrees, because sunny is nice.

Piff 

I can agree with that, to a degree. I'm caught up with the fetishization of bicycles as much as anyone else, and it definitely does create a barrier between yourself and the bike as a tool.

clubman 

I met my wife in my LBS. She was putting a stem riser, city bars and a sprung saddle on her Yokota mtn bike because of chronic shoulder pain but she charmed me immediately. She had done a loaded tour from Montreal to PEI in earlier days so she's got the spark. As our relationship grew, I took full advantage, 1 bike for her, 8 bikes for me, 1 bike for her etc.
We towed the young kids in trailers, a couple of charity rides, commuting and general urban riding. Eventually she had to reduce her riding to shopping in town on an upright roadster, which she's now had for 20 years. I'm riding alone these days and I like it, always have. It's meditation.

Lascauxcaveman 

The first few years of our marriage, my wife happily rode a crappy Stehr Sears 3-speed we picked up at the neighbor's garage sale. Terrible brakes, indifferent shifting, weird, lumpy sprung saddle. This was in 1995.

That bike is long gone, but in the 10 years I've bought a second hand beach cruiser for her, built up a little mixte and just last year, a Terry-geometry road bike for her short and feminine physique. Have not been able to get her to actually try riding one of them yet

noglider 

My spouse likes cycling though not as much as I do. We had a difficult moment yesterday. The virus crisis is causing a lot of stress, and it's hard to know when mild symptoms of any type might mean the start of something very serious. She's been feeling fatigued and on the verge of a cold. We had planned to ride, but she just wasn't feeling the energy, and she was so sad that she needed a hug. Then we came upon a compromise. We were meeting friends for a socially-distanced hike. I put her bike in the car. I rode to our friends' place. She drove there. We took her bike out and tooled around some flat-ish streets for a couple of miles. Then we went back and hiked with our friends. She drove back, and I rode back. I'm glad she got in a little riding, and I'm touched that riding meant so much to her.

Riveting

I bought my wife a road bike and upright cruiser, but she has almost zero interest. You can only bring the horse to the water.

Dfrost 

I met my now-wife in the middle of the 1993 Seattle-to-Portland 200-mile organized ride, just before the 100-mile overnight stop in Centralia, WA. We got to know each other better as friends during the 1996 cycling season, when we were part of a group all training to do the STP in one day. We started dating after that season that included doing the STP together with those cycling friends. One of her early admissions during that phase was that she, usually extremely conservative in her spending, had decided to splurge on a custom Erickson frame. Glenn Erickson and his fiancé shared ideas about getting married in France as the frame with its unique snowflake motif was being finished.



They did marry over there, while we elected instead to stay home for our wedding in 1998, but did honeymoon with three weeks on bikes wandering from Geneva to Nice. Glenn shared a lovely afternoon beforehand giving us extremely valuable map planning highlights from his tour leadership experiences, and we did meet for an evening in NW Provence.

Sadly, those snowflakes contributed to that frame’s demise after 18 years that included another three-week tour in Italy right after 9/11 in 2001 and many, many other rides. (It now hangs with many other classic beauties overhead at Recycled Cycles.) She now has a pretty Independent Fabrications hydraulic disc bike that works much better with her hands that are arthritically challenged after decades of cooking professionally.



One of her biggest complaints when she suffered a severely torn rotator cough a year ago was that she wouldn’t be able to ride for a long time. I am so happy that she is riding again after a “reverse shoulder replacement”. We’re getting out several times/week for successively longer rides.

With our garage-less and storage space-limited house, we have a rule of two bikes each. But in our recent interior refresh, she was very generous in carving out space to improve my bike service space.

katsup

My fiance is more of a leisurely rider and only rides about 15 miles once every 2 months. It does help that I found her a bike in a color she loves, which is ironically, the bike I want to find for myself.



I may change back to flat bars one day just to see how she likes the different feel, but she is happy with how it rides now.

merziac

Ms. merziac loves her bikes, riding not so much, really need to work more on that as her ability to do so is likely waning.

I struggle to find enough motivation for both of us as rides with her are at a very "relaxed pace".

She would greatly benefit from said rides and I need to step way up for her.

Spaghetti Legs 

My wife and I met in San Francisco and one of our first dates was mountain biking in Tahoe. She didn’t have a car so we rode bikes most everywhere around the city, including the Sausalito/Tiburon/ Ferry loop Gugie! Now she still enjoys riding occasionally, always the same route on her red Tommasini Tecno, but she refuses to ride with me, always by herself. She did an Ironman about 5 years ago but probably hasn’t ridden more than 20 miles at a time since.

She has always been a good sport about the bikes showing up on our doorstep.

canklecat

Nope, neither of my wives had any interest in bike riding. They rode bikes once or twice with me, never again. They weren't really into exercise at all. They bought the whole jazzercise getups -- stirrup pants, layered tops, ponytail scrunchies -- and wore that stuff maybe three times.

Part of the problem is both were country princesses, rural gals from backgrounds where sweating was associated with hard work like chopping cotton and shearing sheep. IOW, something they never wanted to do again after leaving home and marrying. Even walking was undignified and associated with "being poor."

But several local friend-couples have mutually compatible interests in cycling and fitness so it works for them. And I see one couple in particular often on their tandem. They've been a tandem couple for 20 years or more.

MRT2

My wife isn't as much into the gear part of cycling, but she actually has been into riding longer than I have. I actually bought my first bike as an adult back in 1997 so I could ride with her.

non-fixie 

Married life is easy for me, bike-wise. She likes riding, I like bikes. We both like touring vacations and C&V events.

Mrs non-fixie at L'Eroica in Tuscany last fall:

obrentharris 

My wife and I have been riding tandems for about 25 years. Now days we ride once or twice a week for between 20 and 40 miles. She has a heart condition that slows her down some, so she seldom rides her single bike. She calls the tandem "The Great Equalizer."
I stole the following line from a contributor to the Tandem forum: Our tandem riding is a very communist enterprise "From each according to his ability. To each according to his need."



Brent

Spaghetti Legs 

A success story! Somewhere around here once I heard tandems referred to as “divorce machines”.

debade

My wife and I have been riding bikes together for about 45 years, touring and exercise. While dating, we rode from Detroit to Toronto. We always biked some before 1993 when our children were younger but running was the primary exercise. Beginning in 1993, when our kids were old enough to go to camp or something similar, we toured every year together for one week somewhere in the country. Since 2011, we have taken multi-month tours in USA, Canada, and Europe. Her birthday gift when turning 50 was a Waterford. She still has it and still loves it.

We own one car but our bikes are nearly always our first choice for commuting. We also advocate for for active transportation. Bicycling and fitness is a lifestyle we share.

obrentharris 

Another common saying about tandems is "Whatever direction your relationship is headed, a tandem will take it there quicker!"
Brent

ramzilla

My wife has a serious case of FOMO. So, of course she likes rides & occasional kayak trips. (Just make damn sure that the equipment you give your SO is top notch stuff). Be good. Have fun.