your girl got a fast bike??? i got my lady a nice little commuter roadie so she has no excuse not to go as fast as those legs can carry her.

i strangely find i am really liking the slower pace (though i gotta say my girlfirend pushes pretty hard for a newbie). by myself it was always a race.... me against no one in particular (cept when a smug lookin roadie passed me ).

now i have time to stretch, look around, smell the flowers (well more like the exhaust).... i not only ride but think about how to do it safely (riding for two now) and just genuinely dig the calm of riding without ever really straining.

i ride mtb's on weekends, and usually my friends dragged me around the trails because i had ridden myself to death all week. well this weekends gonna be different! it seems the slow riding is actually better training (which is whay i started this silly fun in the first plcace)!!!

plus as you say the brownie points are MAGNIFICENT! no more worry about HAVING to make time to ride with the lady on weekends (we still will, just now it won't be so important), we rode all week!

oh, and one last thing that i think hasbeen key to the commutes success; i didn't push my girlfriend into commuting. i just kept doing it and one day she said "can i ride with you?" i think since she made the commitment herself it is a much happier one than if i would have pushed her into it before she felt she was ready....