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Married for 39 years, my wife is a casual rider at best.
She currently rides an E-Bike and enjoys short rides occasionally with me but more so with her girl friends. They have this little 'bike gang' and all the gals have E-bikes that they've named and they like to ride them to the local park to play tennis or pickleball. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d805c90f_b.jpgOur turnaround at Fairholme C.G. by Matthew Pendergast, on Flickr |
Ah, photos. Good idea. This is my fave, us on a pass climb, coming back from Leavenworth up 97. We took the Old Blewett Pass road over the top..
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...bdeb2ae343.jpg and heading out for a group ride on a typical PNW winter day - in graupel. We actually had fun! It didn't stick, too warm. https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...de218e5311.jpg |
My wife and I ride together 6 days a week and she can stay in my draft unless I really push, but she’s good for 20mph if she stays close on fairly flat roads/trails.
I bought her a Time Alpe D’Huez for Christmas and it made a difference |
Met spouse/stoker in 1978 when we both biked to work at the same hospital in Indiana. I was a nurse and she a laboratory technologist. Married a few months after meeting. Still together and still riding bikes together. Took up tandem riding in 2000. Still doing that but riding single bikes together more last few years - she on e-assist Trek bike and me on recumbent. She told me after our ride today that she had the e-assist off for about half the ride to get a better workout! I did persuade her to become a recumbent tandem stoker in 2010. Most of our tandem riding these days is on tandem club rides or events like Midwest Tandem Rally.
Pic at Midwest Tandem Rally 2023, Fort Wayne Indiana. Route included stop at Sweetwater music gear headquarters, where I bought some guitar strings. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...dc8138f4_z.jpg Today on an 18 mile local ride together. Took pictures of cement truck to show young grandson who loves vehicles, trucks and construction equipment especially. https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...e2b873e5_z.jpg https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...5c096207_z.jpg |
We ride together frequently and we also ride a tandem in complete harmony. At one time she had accumulated around 17-18 bikes that were mostly vintage. Colnagos, Pinarellos, DeRosa, she really has an eye for nice bikes.
Much of that collection is gone as she came to the obvious conclusion that she could not ride them all. Now her vintage bikes are limited to a near-new condition 84’(?) Wilier Triestina in the gold chromovelato finish completely original and a reproduction Team Schwinn Wheaties built on a period correct Paramount frame. As wives and bikes go, I’m living the dream. https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...dbd3abb04.jpeg |
Boy meets girl. Boy buys bike. Boy gets girl,
50+ years later, they're still riding, |
49 years riding together.
Went recumbent trike 20 years ago Went tandem recumbent trike 15 years ago. |
My wife had her second knee replacement last fall and is just now starting to feel chipper. She gave her really nice mtn bike to our niece so if she gets back to riding it will be electric. She's currently my support team for traveling to gravel events - first one coming up in a week. We started riding together in HS, bought our first 10 spds in college, then a tandem when we were first married (lasted one summer, not our thing), then really nice road bikes, years later towpath bikes to ride with our kids, then mtn. bikes mostly because of big tires and dropper post. 50th anniversary coming up the end of the month. In our 50's she worked a lot and I worked and rode a lot. Now, in our 70's, we enjoy traveling and hopefully doing a bit of riding. Addendum: She got a new Gazelle Arroyo step through eBike on our trip to Colorado a week ago. We've got a Quikr light weight hitch rack with a ramp ordered so she can load/unload her bike by herself on babysitting trips to the Boulder area. Figuring out best way to transport both bikes in our Sprinter van.
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
(Post 23114630)
50 years together, but only riding seriously together - on a tandem - since '07. Getting there was a long and interesting process, at least to us. I'll talk a little about it as it might be of interest to others.
SNIP I'd been doing Sunday group rides with a fun group for about 10 years by then, so I suggested that we buy a tandem and then both ride with the group. She said, "I can't keep up with you." I replied, "On the back of my bike you can." After a couple years of doing weekday rides on the tandem, we did our first group ride and she was hooked. So that's how we coped with being two different people who both liked the same thing, particularly being together. |
Originally Posted by jadmt
(Post 23114513)
while I have only been with my wife for ~35 years she was only an occasional rec bike rider. she however has put about half a million miles on the back of my motorcycles with me..rarely complaining and has spent literally 100's of hours sitting next to me in a jeep doing some insane trails and sleeping on the ground in freezing weather....with nary a complaint....she is a keeper.
BTW - to keep it bicycle related, we recently upgraded to a new (to us) tandem from my old one and are going on a tour of Bryce, Zion and Grand Canyons next week! https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...8089ce7b7.jpeg Tandem bought in '95 to ride with kids. https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...84e63644a.jpeg Tandem in 2023 on a Christmas ride with GF |
Originally Posted by jadmt
(Post 23114513)
while I have only been with my wife for ~35 years she was only an occasional rec bike rider. she however has put about half a million miles on the back of my motorcycles with me..rarely complaining and has spent literally 100's of hours sitting next to me in a jeep doing some insane trails and sleeping on the ground in freezing weather....with nary a complaint....she is a keeper.
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Originally Posted by MinnMan
(Post 23122058)
I wish. Having riding in common would be a wonderful gift. Not that I'm looking for another spouse or anything, but she's just not interested in cycling. She owns a bike and for a few years, she rode it a bit, but she hasn't touched it in maybe 5 years, and I'm not going to push.
She's very tolerant of my cycling obsession, but on some level, she just doesn't get it. She prefers gardening and walking. I help with the gardening and we frequently take walks together after dinner. Were she a cyclist, we'd be more in sync for planning vacations. It's also an issue when we talk about where we will live after retirement. She wants to be in a city, I want to be in a place that's good for riding. With other constraints, that narrows the choices. considerably. |
Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
(Post 23239016)
Redmond, WA
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My SO and I met skiing, and that and hiking are the physical activities we share. Long ago, she rode bikes with me ... even went for a short tour or two. But the cycling bug didn't bite her the way it bit me.
I would say that she "tolerates" my bike obsession, but it is more than that. I used to feel guilty when I would leave for an entire Saturday to ride with my friends, leaving her at home. But no more. On the rare weekend Saturday I am not riding and staying home, I think I am more in the way than anything else. She needs her alone time in the home too, and that is what she uses Saturdays for. And it is nice to have a weekend day only with friends. Honestly, it's all OK with me. It is one of those things that long term couples do ... adapt to one another. |
Originally Posted by MinnMan
(Post 23239085)
Retirement in the Seattle area? Interesting thought. My wife and I met in Seattle, back in the late 1980s. At the time, I probably would have considered no better place to live than some of our favorite Seattle neighborhoods - Green Lake, for example. But Seattle has changed.
https://patch.com/washington/redmond...ital-northwest I have about 150 road cycling routes all originating in a particular parking lot in downtown Redmond. Redmond Cycling Club puts on the famous RAMROD, 154 miles at 9000', which I've ridden many times. It's worth a visit. The other big attraction of course is the Cascade Mountains. My wife and I hiked our legs off up there today and rode our tandem in a group ride yesterday of which I'm the organizer, even though I live in Everett. We drive down to Redmond and sometimes ride back up to within a couple miles of our house, then ride back down, have a beer, and drive home. Because Redmond really is a great place to ride out of. |
Originally Posted by MinnMan
(Post 23239085)
Retirement in the Seattle area? Interesting thought. My wife and I met in Seattle, back in the late 1980s. At the time, I probably would have considered no better place to live than some of our favorite Seattle neighborhoods - Green Lake, for example. But Seattle has changed.
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My wife doesn’t go with me on longer rides, but she does go on shorter rides with me and our daughter. She’s a career woman with a rather serious position in finance, and is quite busy. My work is not so demanding, and my schedule is flexible enough to be able to fit it around my riding, and not vice versa. Our daughter (who is 9) is becoming an excellent cyclist, and we hope to do some longer rides in the summer.
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Married 34 years, and I’ve been cycling for ten, trying to get my wife on a bike more than twice a year. Well, we finally got her an e-assist bike three weeks ago, and she’s starting to join me on solo and group rides. She’ll do part of the rides, BUT SHE’S ON A BIKE WITH ME!!! It’s a miracle, and I love it.
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My wife and I have been married for 20 years and have cycled together for a majority of that time, except after her knee replacement, which kept her from cycling for a few years due to complications. At first we rode racing style bikes then purchased a racing style tandem. We took the tandem to Italy and toured the greater Sienna area. We also have done a century on it - probably 15 years ago and rode many thousand of miles where her competitive side reared its ugly head - and we had to overtake just about anyone and everyone. Today she riders her upright e-bike due to severe R.A.while I ride an endurance style bike and a racing bike and….. We currently have our bikes with us on vacation, while the house is being looked after by our pet sitter. We plan to ride the roads bordering Puget Sound/Salish sea out on the peninsula for a few days. She still likes overtaking people. What a gal.
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I met my wife in High School and we got married right after we both graduated from college in 1990, so we’ll be celebrating 34 years married this October.
Around 2008, we were both somewhat overweight and wanted to get back into shape. I returned to cycling (which I’ve always enjoyed but had fallen away from over the years) and my wife took up running. Since then, she’s completed eight marathons! We do occasionally ride together, and recently bought her a nice Trek FX2, but cycling is unlikely to ever be “her sport.” I also run with her (however, my longest run is 8.5mi.), but it’s not “my sport.” |
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