ZIPP2001

Mrs. Z decided to step out of her comfort zone today on our ride. She always stays on the more predictable surface dirt roads or tared roads in our backyard playground. So after one of our regular hikes in which I took her on a trail she's never been on, she said she wanted to try it on her bike. I knew this would challenge her with the little rooted sections and uphill sections. This little trail would challenge her to learn to read the trail to help set herself up. She did great and I think this will give her more confidence to explore and step out a little more this year.

FatRap64

Nice!

Trails like that are about my max level at this point.

SethAZ 

OMG, I'm jealous as hell. I'd love to have trails like that to ride on just around the corner. Where I'm at it's flat and wide open, and from home it's all road riding. There are some hills about 8 or so miles away that I've mountain biked extensively, but we always threw our MTBs into a friend's truck and drove there, and he's since moved away. I think it would be a long time before I could get my wife into trail riding or MTBing. Your location seems ideal for it.

I'm glad to see Mrs. Z getting out there. That's awesome, and it looks like she's having fun. I'm trying to help Mrs. SethAZ get into cycling, and it's slow going. After struggling with this crappy, heavy, hybrid that's in need of some serious maintenance, I took my old road bike and re-fit everything for her, lowered and adjusted fore/aft saddle position, swapped in some platform pedals, smaller handlebar, essentially no drop for a more upright position, etc. That frame was small for me, so it's actually OK for her other than not really having enough stand-over height for her with its high and parallel to the ground top tube. She's at this stage where an 8-mile ride on the road is still a reach, but hopefully if she'll keep going out she'll warm up to it and the distance, speed, comfort issues, etc. will improve. If she gets into it enough that I know this is an activity she's going to stick with, my current plan is to buy her an e-assist bike that should help close the chasm of capability so we can ride together more and longer, etc. I'd absolutely love it if my wife ended up really getting into and loving cycling, and it turned from a me activity into an us activity.

ZIPP2001

As long as your out having fun that's all that matters.

ZIPP2001

Mrs. Z was never into riding, and maybe went to a half dozen of my races in the 15 years I raced. I've been riding for over 40 years, and just out of the blue two years ago she wanted to try a ride with me. I put my Fat bike to all it's lowest setting and still not small enough for her. But she rode 4 miles and liked it, so I bought her a trails bike for Christmas that year. She has stayed with it and has ventured out on her own a couple times, so it's building her confidence. I usually do a solo ride early in the day for 2-4 hours, and then ride with her as a cool down ride.

I've heard a lot of good things about e-assist bikes and that sounds like a good idea.