It's always great to do a personal best

I like comparing the stats from my Sunday morning ride to see if I'm improving as the season progresses. I've been pleased to see the speed increase and the heart rate decrease as the season goes along.

Yes.

Married 31 years and we have been riding together for 34 years.

She has never been interested training, so when we ride together, they're my recovery rides.

Absolutely, she is my riding partner. We aren't terribly fast(8-10mph) but we are game. We usually ride three to four times a week, never more than 25 miles. We have taken several trips around the midwest and southeast just to ride, usually in early spring. She has had both hips replaced and is at times a little tentative. She doesn't like to ride on stone, because the vibration bothers the hips. I am very grateful that she rides.

torgrot

My wife would really like to ride but still is leary from a major fall as a young girl. We rode together on a local rail trail recently (pretty harmless) and she enjoyed herself. Later that day she crashed! I guess it will be step by step til she is ready again. We are nearing retirement and both feel that cycling would be a great excuse to get away and do things together.

Madame Pobble was bike-shy after a couple of minor falls, but in 2004 she was game for a week-long tour in Denmark, which was very flat and cycle-friendly with its extensive paved trails. She still wasn't ready to mix it up with the cagers or take on the hills in Honolulu, though.

Then in late 2005 I came into a bit of unanticipated extra income and Madame P decreed that it was time for me to check out the Breezer that I had been fantasizing about. Off to the LBS. To make a long story short I came home without the Breezer (although I did get one later on) while Madame P came home with an entry-level Raleigh step-through town bike. I hasten to add that this acquisition was entirely her call, not mine, and that was the way it had to be. Before long she was joining me on my regular five-mile climb on the beautiful Tantalus loop:

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...light=Tantalus

Last summer we did another week-long tour, this time in France, and Madame P noticed that our rented Trek 7300FXs rode a lot better than what she was used to. And this year another LBS visit, ostensibly for some repair work on the Raleigh, resulted in an upgrade to a more roadworthy Bianchi Vantage.

Morals of the story:
•There’s always hope
•When she’s ready, she’s ready

ps -- on the most recent LBS visit, when we needed some new brake shoes, she started looking over the carbon frames ... while I'm still on the Breezer.

Madame P knows she can tackle those Honolulu hills on the CF

Actually she already had their number on her lead-sled Raleigh --
But she might start dropping people, one of them being me, if she goes carbon

Springfield, where?
I like to go to such an event, but we are on a very busy schedule. I was expected to retire. It has been postponed.

Ten years ago, I divorced my overweight, lazy, angry spouse.

Since then, I've only dated athletic women who know how to ride and/or run (and who look good in lycra ).

Life is Good!

Hey Pobble, thanks for the words of encouragement. I haven't given up yet, just impatient I suppose. I'll just keep encouraging her until she's ready.

I got into cycling because my husband had just bought an old mountain bike. I sold my horse and horse trailer and told him I wanted a bicycle THAT weekend. We went to the local bike shop and got me a cute mountain bike (that was actually to small for me, but we didn't know it at the time). We have been pedaling together every since (approx. 9 years). We have a tandem we ride on the weekend and we have our singles. Most weekends we try to go to the bike shops to see what's NEW, or needs to be bought. Sometime I actually wish I had been into cycling since I was a kid (only rode about a dozen times as a kid) then I would be a much better cyclist today. We have many years to look forward to and in two months I will be able to ride when ever and where ever I want (we get to retire)!!!

Congratulation Litespeed on reaching retirement. I have a few more years to go and am looking forward to being able to ride every day. I too rode as a kid and only recently started back and am really bit by the "bug" to ride.
Thankfully I have a wife that tempers my urge to be a "too frequent visitor" at the LBS. With patience I know she will be ready to join me then.

Encouragement helps, as long as you don't lay it on so thick that it becomes counterproductive. But I really think that what made the difference in our case was that she saw how much enjoyment I was getting out of riding, and how much good it was doing me. Hope it works for you too...