mrodgers

Ha, got your attention, did I?

My coworkers all work 12 hour shifts and work Monday through Thursday for the first daylight portion of their schedule. Thus, all day long on Thursday, I hear "It's Friday!" To make matters worse, after their 4 daylights, they have 7 days off before they come back for 4 night turns. Well, a 3 day weekend coming up for me, a measly M-F 8 hour guy, and I figured, that sounds pretty darn good. I decided "It's Friday" too.

Texted my wife to let her know I would be hanging out with her all day tomorrow with no kids. She texts back, "What's the plan? Bike ride and a picnic?"

Sounds fantastic to me! She doesn't ride with me. She rides her stationary bike every morning. I've been wondering how she would do on a real bike. Unfortunately she'll have to ride my old Walmart mountain bike from last year, but it still works fairly well. Packing up some sandwiches and some fruit and heading to the bike trail after the kids head off to school tomorrow and we get ready. I'm excited!

PhotoJoe 

Nice. Love it when riding is the wife's idea! Enjoy!!!

Null66

Have fun!

Ursa Minor

Sounds great. I hope riding together become a regular thing for you both.

Charlie

ChiefTJS

My best advice, let her set the pace and the distance. I used to dread riding with my wife as I was just kind of plodding along thinking it was a time waster. I finally got my head right and really enjoy the rides with her, any time spent on a bike is great and any time spent with the wife is great too. Have a great time!!

photogeekgirl

Sounds like a lot of fun!

Turzy

Sounds like a great plan ! Enjoy !

indyfabz

I recommend not dropping her.

IBOHUNT

There is always rule #5

Doohickie

+123

Let her be in charge of her own destiny and stay in her comfort zone. If you deviate from her comfort zone, make sure it's her idea and not yours. My wife is terribly slow, like 7 mph, but she'll ride 20 miles or more on an outing. I just try to plan enough time that we can be leisurely about it. It's not about getting there fast, it's about face time with each other.

mrodgers

Well, she survived!

Poor girl, she hasn't been on an actual bike in 30 years. She was literally scared stiff. We didn't make it for a picnic lunch. She was ready to head back with her nerves before we hit 3 miles. Total we rode 4.8 miles. She says it definitely wouldn't be her choice in exercise.

If it wasn't for the fact that she is a nervous person and that affecting her balance and her trouble with stopping and starting, I don't think she would have had any problem with going faster or longer distance. We rode her pace of 8-9 mph. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to ride that slow on the flat trail. I coasted most of the way. Part of her starting outproblem was probably trying to go about 2 gears too highh, but she didn't want to mess with shifting.

All in all, I'm thrilled she tried it. If she had a different bike maybe she wouldn't have been as nervous. I think more of a comfort hybrid would work well for her. Unfortunately, we don't see very much of each other because we work opposite shifts, so we wouldn't be able to ride much together. She would never head out by herself.

Had a great day again though taking off work on a school day to hang out with my best friend without the kids bothering us with their needs. Finished the rest of the day out in the yard working on cutting down some of the old fruit trees that have died and trimming up some others. Looks like some hotdogs and burgers cooked over a fire this weekend.

LiamSkymom

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you as well as you hoped. My husband and I had something similar planned for yesterday until Thing 1 got sick. It isn't very often we get the chance to go without Thing 1 and 2 and I was really looking forward to it as was he. When riding with things 1 and 2 (the Liam and Sky from my user name), it isn't often that we make more than a pace of 7 or so. But thing 1 was able to keep that up for an hour last weekend. Thing 2 goes whatever speed I pull him using my old Wal-mart (or maybe k-mart) Schwinn mountain bike. I don't pull the TugABug with my Cannondale.

daihard 

+1. And don't make her feel like she's slowing you down. I keep telling my wife that she can set the pace, but once we're out together, she says she feels "pressured" to ride faster.

mrodgers

Indeed. I just rode beside her. She would have gone faster if it wasn't for her nerves about balancing, stopping, and mild fear of crashing. Our pace was 8 mph which she was on my old knobbie tired mountain bike which has a lot more resitance and you can actually pedal 8 mph. My current bike on the other hand, I had trouble at 8 mph and just coasted most of the ride because there is a lot less rolling resistance. I think she would have been able to pickk up a lot more speed if she wnted to. She's been riding her stationary bike hard daily for a year now.

My daughter last month was difficult to ride with. I wanted to ride beside her and match her speed but she made me ride in front. I kept hearing, "you can speed up" "can you slow down" the whole ride. She did ride the entire 12 miles, but she tears up the yard all the time on the bike and, well, she's a kid so has no fear.