Sixty Fiver

My wife is my favourite riding partner... after we got married we rode our bikes home after taking a long loop around Portland.

h2oxtc

I ride with my wife ... but only when she lets me. Not nearly often enough.

FrankHudson

Yes, we ride together regularly. It's one of the nice things about our partnership. Mostly short-ish urban trips: out to a restaurant, shopping trips, picking up our kid at school. Grocery shopping with two bikes allows larger loads. We also do recreational trail riding sometimes. We also ride by ourselves. She commutes some days her job on her bike. I do more early morning breakfast runs.

Currently I a slightly faster rider, so I just let her ride in front and adjust to her pace. As I age I expect I'll be slower rider someday and we'll just swap positions.

CrankyOne

Yes. Daily.

This wasn't always the case though. For a number of years we'd ride rail trails together or maybe occasionally around the block. Went through a few bikes, mostly hybrid/cross/mtn. She said she liked them but riding was too much of a production.

On my way back from The Netherlands some time ago I bought a couple of bikes and brought them back. Happiest she's ever been on a bike. She started riding much more frequently. A few years ago we moved to a suburb that has 10' smoothly paved side paths along all of the busy roads and that finished the job. Mostly we ride to breakfast, lunch, dinner, ice cream, groceries, or such but almost any day we don't do that we'll at least ride a few miles around town. We now have 13 Dutch bikes because she wanted to make sure that we had enough that when we have company they can ride with us (several times when people were coming she'd say that I needed to get another bike or two to make sure we had enough for the planned group).

Viking55803

I had quadruple bypass almost 3 years ago. I'm an old dude (66) who raced in the late 60's before returning to Northern Minnesota. Not much bike racing up here in the early 70's. I took up x-country skiing and running. Later, I did a fair amount of riding and dragged my wife along. But I was always trying to push her beyond her limits - real or imagined. I had a heart attack at age 43, and spent most of the next 20 years hiking and snowshoeing. I gained weight etc.

After my bypass surgery I lost a lot of weight very quickly. I had a mountain bike I'd been knocking around on, but as my weight dropped I started dreaming of getting back on a road bike. Five months after surgery I bought a road bike. My wife started riding with me mainly to keep an eye on me. I have a history of overdoing things. Besides, I was so weak she could keep up with me. As I got stronger, she got stronger. For the first time in my life I "trained" wisely and built a good aerobic base before starting to push myself in the hills etc.

Somewhere along the way, the cycling bug bit my wife. She'll never be as strong a rider as I am, but this year we bought her a new bike. We do about 50-60 miles a week. We're both still working so after work and weekend up until it gets just too cold to ride - usually around November. On longer rides I'll do some harder efforts - long endurance intervals, or sprint up a few hills, and then slow down so she can catch up. She likes to stop in the middle of our longer rides - 30-40 miles, but she really loves riding. The only way I enjoy riding is to keep up a steady tempo and decent speed. What I like to say is that I don't "ride a bicycle" but am a cyclist.

cccorlew

Maybe it would be more correct to say I ride with her. She's tough as nails. Tomorrow she wants to do her birthday/age ride. It's a decade birthday, and she's been a member of this forum for long time. She's picked a metric century ride with about 4000 feet of climbing. Wish me luck.


Curtis and Tricia rock old school NorCal jerseys on their pre 2015 Tour de France watching ride. by curtis corlew, on Flickr

Hokiedad4

My wife and I used to ride a lot when our kids were young, but now has given up pretty much any sort of physical activity. So her bike now belongs to my daughter. She thinks that walking around the mall for an afternoon constitutes a work-out, and that anyone who rides a bike 50 miles is obsessive to the point of clinical insanity.

JGM411

We talk about it. Last year, for our 25th wedding anniversary, I purchased a trek verve 3 for her. She likes the bike, but hasn't ridden it since last Oct. This thread serves as a good reminder for couples to do things together in order to keep the relationship healthy.

I rode 17.5 miles before 6 am this morning. After mowing multiple properties today, I am going to ask her if she would like to take a ride.

ButchA

As the OP of this thread, this sounds exactly like us. My wife and I used to play tennis, bike ride, etc... But now at 54(me) and 51(her), married for 30 years, lots of things have changed for some reason. I'm still active and out and about doing things. She walks in the mall, reads books on her Kindle, and things like that. I practically have to BEG her to go out and go on a bicycle ride with me. She's happy and content to just ride around the block, or at most, go 5 or 6 miles. She thinks I'm crazy for riding 28 or 30 or so miles. *sigh* women...

cyber.snow

For years my wife and I enjoyed many of the same things, boating, skiing, biking, hiking but somewhere around 50 she turned into a Grandma and I stayed a boy. I still love to skydive, SCUBA dive, ride my bike on longer rides...she likes to watch TV, go shopping and eat bon bons. Unfortunately, now she is very sick and it looks like I will not only be riding alone but living alone. Be thankful that you have a wife that loves you, even if she thinks you are nuts for living young.

curbtender

"Luck"

ButchA

That is AWESOME!!! Good luck and you both have a great time tomorrow!!! Wish your wife a Happy Birthday too!!

doug59

Good luck and enjoy your ride !!!

ddeand 

My spouse DOES NOT ride with me, nor is she allowed to ride . . . period. She would be waaaaay too dangerous to herself and others if she climbed on a bike. She freely admits this, and I concur!

BR46

Yesterday my wife and I did a 102 miles. It was her first century ride.
A shower, cup of coffee and she's smiling.

hopwheels

I love riding bikes with my wife. We just got back into it after taking a rather long hiatus. Not even really sure why we didn't ride for so long, life I guess. Anyway, when we were first married almost 25 years ago, we rode our bikes everywhere. So it's been great getting back into it and a lot of fun! Been riding the local greenway, but are looking forward to riding the Silver Comet Trail pretty soon.

climberguy

"Does your spouse ride with you?"

Don't have one of those any more--didn't work out. I'm hoping to get my boys to ride with me but they don't seem ready for it yet. They're 9 and 11.

Doug64

"On tour" last week with my 3 favorite riding partners, my wife and daughters.

msujmccorm

Yes!

wphamilton

Not very often. She wants to, and talks about it, and enjoys it when she does, but usually when it's time to fish or cut bait she'll futz around and then beg off.

snow_echo_NY

i love this thread! i'm not in my 50s (i'm in my 30s) but my husband and i got bikes together in 2011 when we moved to Brooklyn from Manhattan, started bike commuting together (well different routes and different times, but i have passed him on the Manhattan bridge! )

this winter was the first winter we commuted thru winter conditions.

last weekend we also did a loops in prospect park together with our daughter in the bike trailer. occasionally we ride together but the majority of our riding is strictly commuting, for work and for errands (groceries, going to the gym).

- we got studded tires and wheels for winter cycling for next year.

- we have both been in multiple minor collisions each.
o - u.s. marshall rear ended him
o - a city official rear ended him
o - van passed him and knocked his handlebars b/c passed too closely, he was taken to the hospital.
o - he self-crashed into a curb
o - a cyclist going the opposite direction drove her bike into mine while we passed (i was injured, taken to the hospital, and was off the bike for entire autumn of 2014)
o - i self-crashed into a curb because i didn't turn with enough clearance for the trailer (poor girl was scared but totally OK)

- we refuse to buy cycling specific clothing but have gotten the shoes and foot retention (but not clipless). i might get cycling clothing today with water bottle pockets tho b/c it's too hot to continue wearing the same gross commuting clothing day after day.

- my first commuter bike was a 3 shifting rebuilt commuter with a rack. i hated it and sold it within a few months.

- my second commuter bike was a road bike. the best. and the only way to commute for me.

- because of winter cycling, we both finally installed SKS raceblade fenders earlier this year.

- my road bike was stolen earlier this year and we now have matching surly crosschecks as our commuters. mine a 46, and his a 54.

- we both don't own any other bikes.

- we maintain our own bikes on the basic stuff. i've been taking free maintenance classes at my LBS, wheel truing, brakes and adjustments, derailleurs and shifters, and basic. this weekend i just fixed both mine and his brakes.

- our daughter rides. she's 4.5. when we ride together we average 3.5-5 mph.

- my avg speed is 12-14 mph, my husband's is 10-12 mph.

- i average 50-60 miles a week, he averages 60-70 miles a week.

- i joined strava and national bike challenge first (earlier this year) and got him hooked.

- we volunteer to do errands to the grocery store just to rack up more miles. he says, "you're only doing this to beat me in the challenge!" and then we laugh.

- we occasionally do family rides, but are trying to do more of them.

macbride

My wife has worked hard in spin classes for 20+ years. When we started riding 6 years ago, I could not keep up with her and I am in good shape! She is a great stoker on a tamdem.
We rode a century together last year and we are really lucky that we now ride the about same speed.

Jim from Boston

That’s a really nice post, not only about incorporating cycling into your family life, but also describing the progression of a cycling commuter. We cycled extensively before, and in early marriage, then not at all after children.

snow_echo_NY

sad to hear that Jim, i know Boston is not a very bike-friendly city. it's not very friendly here either, but more and more people are just riding b/c they're sick of it and just riding with their kids. which is great, but it wasn't like that not even 5 years ago.

and it's hard to make time for cycling together when you're working and raising a family.

it generally makes us more happy and fit tho so if we can "commute" or run an errand by bike, we'll do it.

Beic

Sadly, Not any more.

She had a bad accident a few years ago, breaking leg / knee in a couple of places which required ops plus titanium implants.

I've tried to get her to ride, but she's so scared that someone coming the opposite way on the trail will crash into her and mess the leg up completely.

So it's solo for me now.