After five years of lobbying with periodic pestering and occasional accessory-buying I finally got my wife to buy a bike! She bought last year's model of one of these:

http://www.specialized.com/ca/en/glo...05&sid=12Daily

It's somewhat different from the one pictured with a dynahub and a 21 speed conventional drivetrain. Bought it at one of my LBS's for about half price and she also got to use her workplace fitness credit so a C$900 bike cost us a total of $64 taxes in. So in the spring it will be the first time for her to be on a bike since she was a teenager. Now all I'll have to do is to make sure she actually rides. (incidentally it also fits me in case she doesn't )