Touring - Significant Other

Anybody out there tour with friends or even solo as opposed to with their significant other?

Mine is going to give it a try with me, but I have a feeling he'll hate it.

It seems like such a great thing to do as a couple, but since I'm not willing to find a new husband, I think we might be vacationing separately.

How horrible is that? :(

I do go solo and leave my SO, SOL while I'm AWOL. I didn't so much want to leave her, as the 3 kids. She has done more touring than me, in earlier days. One of the kids is 5 months and the other end is 9 years. No sign of teh 9 year old ever touring so I figure I'm on my own for about 20 years. I'm in Pickering so I"ll wave if I pass.

Anybody out there tour with friends or even solo as opposed to with their significant other?

Mine is going to give it a try with me, but I have a feeling he'll hate it.

It seems like such a great thing to do as a couple, but since I'm not willing to find a new husband, I think we might be vacationing separately.

How horrible is that? :(

During my summer as a bicycle tour leader, the happiest people were the ones vacationing away from their non-cycling spouses. The non-cycling spouses who got dragged along were unhappy, and the rest of the group felt it, too.

Look at it this way, you'll each be able to entertain the other with stories about your vacations.

If your SO is willing to try a tour with you, make it a short one and make sure there's an option for him to bail out.

mark

I've had the problem too. How we resolved it , the non cyclists did sag and toured via auto. Our bike group toured on bike . The bikes and the car rendezvous at predetermined sites. I worked out just fine. They did their thing in the day as we did ours; and we all enjoyed each other at night.

I've had the problem too. How we resolved it , the non cyclists did sag and toured via auto. Our bike group toured on bike . The bikes and the car rendezvous at predetermined sites. I worked out just fine. They did their thing in the day as we did ours; and we all enjoyed each other at night.

That's a great idea!

I say, if your husband doesn't like touring, find a boyfriend who does! ;)

I say, if your husband doesn't like touring, find a boyfriend who does! ;)


That's more or less what I did. ;) :D

My SO and I are on different planets physically. A tour for us would be a 4 to 6 mile flat loop on the tandem with 3 or 4 wineries along it. Sometimes we will meet 10 to 20 miles from home for a meal. She drives there. Upon our hypothetical retirement (Ha HA) I have been invited to ride to my sister's vacation place in the Utah Canyonlands. The wife would drive sag. Likely by way of Mono Lake and the Interstellar Highway.

Ej and I have been together 18 years, she rides but extended touring is not her thing, so we take a vacation together and then we take one separately, I just finshed booking her a vacation to the Canary Islands while I am touring from Cleveland to Washington DC next June

When I first met Jan I told her "I love camping!" She jumped in " SO do I! My parents have a 36' Winnebago with a satellite dish, microwave, two slide outs and a hot tub." I thought to myself Well so much for that... After I told her how I camped, I guess she was intrigued. As she stuck around for a while and did our first over night trip.

She had two choices :
1) A small unimproved campground 10 mostly flat miles from the house
2) A state forest 30 miles from the house with better then 1300' of elevation gain.
She picked option #2 again I thought to myself so much for that...

Well we did the ride, we had a flat, hot and humid in the morning, rain in the afternoon, the camp ground was full.... again I thought to myself so much for that...

But I don't know she must have liked something about it shes still here, riding and camping and feeding the bugs...

My ex would not ride, camp or do much of any thing else. SO I did go solo and tour with friends.

That's a great idea!
Worked out great for us. They did their chateau hopping thing. Getting us out of that chore, and they were able to complete their agenda without us slowing them down; and vice versa. Of course with the SO other being a guy, afraid the bar scene might be a diversion. ? Another benefit of non cyclists being your sag. Do you know how much it cost to pay for sag services. Often is a lot of bucks. And you get to take all that weight off your bikes. I'd be happy to buy the SO, a couple of drinks after the ride.

My wife doesn't like touring either, therefore most of my vacations are solo. However, I stay along well-known bike routes, so I can hook up with other riders pretty frequently.

heck. I am happy when my wife rides with me at all. Yet, alone on tours. Maybe next tour, we might take along her bike, and she'll do a 20 mile days somewhere. Somewhere flat. Sometime within the next half year, we want to do some riding in Hungary.

..... and we all enjoyed each other at night.

How did you find the energy to cycle during the day? :p

well, that was a slip, guess I said that? we enjoyed each others company. Ah, most days, the tour I mentioned was usually less than one hundred miles and mostly flat at that.

For what it's worth, when my wife and I first got together, she was about to go O/S to do PBP and I was only a sometimes rider. 3 weeks later we were touring in France together! On that first trip my wife was very focussed and set long days for training and I had to struggle to keep up! Still, we had a great time and since then my fitness has improved and we've gone on to do a number of tours together involving the Alps & Pyrenees as well as trips to New Zealand... If you want to encourage your partner, set realistic distances and choose a location which you think he will most likely enjoy and you'll give yourself the best chance of getting him hooked....

Good question and great topic. I have stumbled into an enigma of a woman. We have been dating for almost a year now. When we first started talking we found out that we both love to camp and be active. She is a Boundary Waters canoe freak, and I am the Touring mad man. Well I got her on her old trek Hybrid bike and she had a blast on her first ride. Then I added a rear rack and some Arkel T-42’s... she loved it…. Since then we ride all the time together and it amazing to have a partner in crime. She also has taken me up to the Boundary Waters for a 2 week trip and I am hooked on that as well. It’s all a crap shoot but the big thing I had to emphasize was that it’s not a race and we can go as slow as we want. I attached a pic from our last tour. This was a old out of commision bridge that you can walk across but past that you want nothing heavy on it.

Cheers,

Coconut

With Erika, I got her warmed up to cycling and traveling by bicycle by doing a bunch 10-20 miles local routes. Some were just us and others with other locals. We followed that up with 30-40 mile routes with some form of an objective. After a few months we crept up to 50-60 mile rides. Now we do multi-day rides together; although neither of us cares for camping. So we ride from one hotel to another.

Long story short, in the beginning I made sure that she was never blown away by any ride. Especially in the first month, I rode a slower hybrid with her. With the extra encouragement, she enjoyed spending the time together as well as the sport.

That's more or less what I did. ;) :Dguess we will have to wait for the book for details!
:D

If I might give you a little advice?

Don't FORCE a tour on him. Work him into it. If he has to spend all day riding his ass off to keep up with you or worry about what time it's going to be when you get in and how you're going to eat and if there's any showers and where he can unload or what if he has diarhea it ain't going to be fun.

Find the length and pace that's right for him until he is experienced enough to be able to match you.

Hell, the very IDEA that he's willing to give it a try is a lot of points in your favor.

My wife won't tour with me she's into spinning and thats all the farther she wants to ride so I go with friends, I ride with a group during the week and when we go on a tour there is usually between ten to twelve of us that go.