jerseyJim

Great answer and awesome list. Do your riding by yourself or with your regular riding buddies. Approach these situations like it is a social outing not a ride.

Also I try to be supportive and positive and just focus on having a good time. Who knows some of your habits and skills may rub off on him in time and he may become more serious about the sport.

Dagamon

What the hell is 12th gear?

banerjek

Tandems require the right personalities.

I tried a tandem with my wife a few years back. First, the good news. She's very strong. We were dropping a lot of roadies on significant inclines which was a source of major aggravation for them. The bad news was the descents and flats. She cannot stand speed and is fearful. Anytime we'd break about 15mph, she'd reverse pedal as if the tandem had a coaster brake.

Worse still, she would not follow the lean of the bike, sometimes actively leaning against what I was doing. Her explanation was she didn't see any need for the lean/turn/whatever. On flats, she totally had the legs for us to maintain an excellent cruising pace, but she would get all crazy every time the bike sped up.

Climbing with her is fun, but the other parts aren't. I've run into similar problems skiing to the point that we don't ski together anymore.

Condor637

If Bianci10's co-worker reads this thread all Hell is going to break loose .

photogravity

And here I thought they were supposed to be pretty good bicycles. Aren't they steel-framed bicycles?

ThermionicScott 

I was going to say the same about Dallas's wife.

PatrickGSR94

Shoot, I finally got my wife out on a short group ride recently, on her new mixte-frame hybrid (first adult bike ever, first geared bike ever, first bike in 20 years). She was going up those hills faster than me in some spots. But then again she's 80 lbs. lighter than me.

bianchi10

lol!! He doesn't read this forum. I've tried to get him on it but he doesn't care, just like when i try to get him to ride, he doesn't. BUT, today he called me while working and all he could do was talk about how much more fun it was after I adjusted his bike for him and he couldn't wait to get out on his bike again. He sounded super excited, but I'm not holding my breath. He already asked if we could ride again together next week and i said we would have to see what was going on, but if we did, we would be taking a flatter route.

we will see.

Kurogashi

Yeah, what's up with this. As soon as we get yapping, they keep up. As soon as I mention they're keeping up, they 'notice it' and begin to slow down. Blows my mind, haha.

Nick Bain

some people just need to start with smaller steps than others. Last year a guy showed up to a group recovery ride, who probably had not exercised in years and it was his first day on clipless pedals and needless to say had a horrendous fit on the bike. The 1.5-2 hour ride was torture for him. People were so jazzed to teach him all these things not realizing he was already overwhelmed (falling within seconds, cause the ride always starts up hill), but what he really needed was some alone time just to get used to the pedals, or even without to get used to the bike and even the most basic of fit would have helped.

Gerry Hull

If you not problem,
No solution.
Screaming aloud
Because some poor slob seems to be no great talent on a bicycle-
..well, that's a little weird, if you don't mind my saying.

eja_ bottecchia

I have a friend like that. Many years ago we used to ride at the same level. Since that time, I have become a better rider. He only rides once a week, for short distances and avoids hills like Lindsey Loham avoids sobriety. When he calls me to go riding with him I find myself looking for excuses not to go riding with him. It makes me feel sad for him because he is otherwise a real nice guy. But he refuses to make any efforts to ride more or improve his fitness. Incidentally, he has a very nice bike but the "poor thing" doesn't get to go out much.

Oh well.

Gerry Hull

Sorry, that was not very respectful. And, the fact is ive found myself near to yelling over many similar situations.

they all revolve around trying to help someone

which often leads to disaster. That is normal.

Then you have to figure out how to escape. That's where you are.

Honesty works best, always.

It does not appear you have tried that yet.

I typically save it for last, myself, and always wish I'd used it sooner.

BoSoxYacht

All of my friends that ride are pretty hardcore about it. I have some friends that don't ride, but even my slowest riding partner does a few century rides every year.

When I ride with him, I wait for him after some climbs, but it's never because he's not trying to keep up. When he and his 22 year old son are on one of his tandems, I'm always wheel sucking on the flats.

Fox Farm

tell him to meet you on the bike at a location where he will have to ride to first.

the fly

Some people are just like that.

I have a friend who constantly bails on going to the gym. Facebook, family, extended family, aquaintances with emergencies, all suck the time out of his life, meanwhile he sits around 150 lbs overweight and is taking years off his life.

I would bet your friend likes the idea of riding, but it's just way down on his priority list. I'd keep trying if he needs to ride to get into shape, otherwise I'd just regale him with my tales of fantastic times on the bike. If he doesn't get the bug, that's not your problem.

island rider

Hey cal - I'd like to know more about what your coach has you doing. Mine has me riding much more, but easier. I'm trying to figure out how the extra time is going to work this summer.

As for the rest, I try to limit the time I spend on the bike with the friends who can't hang. They also know that I have limited time and different goals. When I do go, I know what it's going to be. The frustrating part is doing the centuries with them. I want to be there to encourage this activity that I love and which I can share with them, but damn... 6+ hours in the saddle and 8+ from start to finish to go 100 miles is a lot of time I'll never get back.

Hiro11

This comes down to expectations.

If I want to get a workout in, I try to ride with people I know are experienced and about my strength level (preferably slightly stronger than me).

If I rode with a friend who was a beginner, I wouldn't expect to get a good workout in but I would expect to be teaching them what to do. I would establish this expectation before the ride: the distance, the pace and the fact that they should listen to me. I'd emphasize that I take cycling seriously and don't necessarily see this as exclusively a social opportunity. I would emphasize that the ride will probably be harder than they expect. If they didn't agree, I don't think I'd ride with them and that's absolutely fine. If they did agree and then ignored me like the OPs friend did, I'd probably immediately stop the ride and refer back to these expectations. I know friendship makes this tricky, that's why expectation setting is critical. It's best to be clear up front.

caloso

Without going into too much detail, right now it's a heavy diet of 3' on-off intervals and 15" all-outs. 4 days of hard riding/3 days of recovery or off the bike. Sharpening the sword as we get into NorCal crit season.

njkayaker

He's just not that into [strike]you[/strike] biking.

WhyFi

BB code 'strike' now works on this board.

longbeachgary

I have never said to anyone "Let's ride together" and rarely do I say yes when someone says it to me (the last time I said yes was maybe 8 years ago). This is my time and I don't care to share it with anyone else except my wife whenever she wants to go but NEVER with anyone else.

JamieElenbaas

Ha, ha. My wife's not so strong, climbing is hard work for me on the tandem, but boy does she love speed. She's disappointed that we haven't topped 50 MPH in a descent yet. In the flat, once we're going above 25 MPH, I swear her output goes up by 30%, she just gets off on the speed. She really powers up when we're passing other bikes...

I guess if I had my choice, it's more fun to ride with the speed daemon.

BTW, we too ride a tandem because of our speed differential on singles. Without the tandem we'd never ride together.

gaucho777 

I don't mean to be overly critical, but you should have helped set up your friend on the Ridley when you first sold it to him. Now that he's more comfortable on the bike, he'll be more inclined to ride. I think you owe it to him to take him out again, at least to show him the ropes and teach him how to pace himself. Flat recovery ride sounds like a good idea. Maybe he won't always be a noob.

This thread reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw once: "Just because I'll sleep with you doesn't mean I'll ski with you." Cycling can be like that, too. Personally, I wish my wife was more interested in cycling, but she has no desire to go for any long/hilly rides--or any exercise that might involve sweating.

bianchi10

I DID! then he went out andthought he needed the seat higher. Didn't like the bars so he rotated them up a bit. I set it back up for him this second time and told him to leave it alone since he didn't know what he was doing.