As I was wandering through the family room this morning on my way to dump more parts in the ultrasonic cleaner, my dear wife asked me sweetly, "What happened 30 years ago today...?"

"Er... um..."

"It was a bike ride. A very special bike ride."

My brain slammed into the stacks of semi-sorted memories strewn in my brain. Math problem. 2026 - 30 = 1996. May 1996. Bike ride. Special. Aha!
"Yes, of course I remember. You received a couple very nice souvenirs."

Mr. Peabody, set the Wayback Machine for May 25, 1996, and the sunny southern California coast. We'd owned our Santana for less than a year but had already put nearly a thousand miles on it. I suggested to her we make plans for a Memorial Day weekend out west, and she readily agreed. We tossed the tandem and stuff in the truck and zoomed west on I-10. Saturday, May 25th was a picture-perfect day on the beach, and we parked near Pacific Palisades (decades before the disasters there) and rode south.

Our tandem circa 1996 along the SoCal beachfront

At Santa Monica Pier, we stopped for some fun, and when she excused herself briefly my nefarious plan swung into action. I made a beeline for the arcade, where I knew a Metal Typer machine was (and hoped it wasn't broken). I slung my quarters in, spun the dial, and began pulling the lever to kerchunk the letters on. Just after I started, two young couples got in line behind me to use the machine and watched as I carefully selected the letters. About 3/4 of the way done, one girl shrieked "ohmigod!!" I finished my work, pulled the dispensing lever, and received good wishes from them as my plan unfolded.

Under the brilliant light of sunset, we parked the tandem in Venice Beach and found a secluded spot along the shore. At just the right moment (or so I thought), I rummaged in the pannier and fished out two items. I turned to my girlfriend and asked her on one knee if maybe she had plans for the next oh rest of her life or something and maybe do you want this thing I made for you?


A fateful Metal Typer trinket

Her response was... positive. Whew.

I then gave her the 1 carat ring I'd surreptitiously purchased earlier back in Phoenix and placed it on her hand. Her first question as I recall was she hoped I didn't pay way too much for that ring, and I assured her that I got it on sale and the visible inclusions just made it more unique and easy to tell it was hers and not some other random diamond ring. We finished the ride, enjoyed the rest of the weekend, made it home, took nearly 3 years to plan the wedding, bought a house and a few more bikes, had a kid, and other than some medical issues have lived somewhat contentedly since.

However, she will occasionally remind me that her response was preconditioned on her full knowledge that at that moment it would be a long walk through the sand to a bus stop, a long bus ride to the airport, and a 400-mile flight home if the reply to my question wasn't as expected, so she maintains that she was negotiating under conditions of coercion and duress. But the marriage thing hasn't been all that bad.

I guess she likes to bike! Congratulations. That looks like a Noventa...

When I first met her, she had never ridden a bicycle in her life. So the good news was she didn't have any bad habits. Prior to meeting her I'd dated within our club, and I'd typically get dumped for someone faster. I met my wife online, and she attracted me with her wit and intellect, not just because she was single and looked good in cycling shorts.

I may have told the story of our first tandem ride on BF, but searches are coming up empty and it's "my" thread anyway.

A few months after we met and she had learned to ride, I broached the idea of renting a tandem. There was a local shop at the time that would let you borrow a rental tandem for a weekend if you seemed sincere about purchasing one, and "try before you buy" seemed a better business practice than "sorry he/she hates it, but no refunds." We borrowed a Santana close to my/our size and took it on a 27-mile ride with the club. But it was August and it was well over 100 degrees by the time we got home, the stoker saddle wasn't a good fit for her and she was very chafed, she was heat-exhausted and sore, and the rear wheel started coming apart on us a few miles from home. She was in tears by the time we were done, and I figured that not only was a tandem out of the question, our entire relationship may just have come unglued off the rim.

After a shower, some air conditioning therapy, and a nice afternoon rest, she came up to me and asked, "So, when are we getting one?"

We bought our tealish aqua XS 1993 Santana Vision a few days later from that shop and never looked back except to change lanes.

Since then, the Santana's seen nearly 4000 miles in our family adventures. However, my wife's knees are currently kaput, but the bike is carefully hung up for storage for the day she can ride it with me again.

Just saw my wife's post on that F social media site commemorating the anniversary. For some reason, it hews very closely to the final paragraph in post #1.

Both of us have had knee surgery sometime back, so glad we did. We will ride today and a long tour this summer without knee troubles. Hoping you guys will eventually ride like the wind again.

After about 8 years of being away from my wife every Sunday on my bike, it occurred to me that we needed a tandem. I was spending too much quality time away from my wife, bad idea. So we bought a used CoMotion. We've put many thousands of miles on it over the past 20 years. That was certainly the best idea I ever had. We've never been tighter. We're still at it, getting in our Sunday group ride and a couple mid-week rides so we can participate on Sundays. We think that regular gym sessions have been a big help