dmwill

Holy amazeballs, thanks for all that! I thought my question was maybe drifting too far off topic, but after reading all that, maybe not.

1. She's not and never has been a mountain biker, so perhaps my singletrack adventures need to remain singlebike and we'll continue to enjoy pavement and gravel where we blossom.

4. Great tip for when things feel noodly. When a maneuver goes particularly well I'll compliment her on it, and she always says all she did was nothing...just fought her urge to lean and stay centered even though her brain was telling her not to.

6. Yes fully agree that a happy comfortable stoker is key, both to the joy in the trip and the smoothness of the ride.

7. We've also had our first crash, low side on a banked sandy turn that as it turned out was way deeper and softer than it looked on approach. I don't think I could have made that turn on my single bike in hindsight. Anyway, it was soft and forgiving, we weren't going fast, and there was no copay involved so not bad overall experience. I also learned to dial back the confidence meter a notch or 3 and not try that again.

9. We've done lots of announcing to the point it sounds like a running commentary, but she never minds the extra words. Putting her in clipless has cut down on lots of the real tedious stuff (coasting...ok go.....shifting up...etc)

10. Love the picnic table story, I think we will try that out in controlled conditions next time we go out and see how it feels as a lesson and reinforcement.

11. No offence intended, we're just using the terms as told to us, but point taken and I kinda like pilot better too for the reasons you said.