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I just got a new bike--trying to stay somewhere close to DH. Our family rides easy on Saturdays--a stroll to the farmer's market and stop for coffee. Sunday is long--we pack food and designate a meeting point (my husband can get in a 30 min nap waiting for us to arrive with the food!) Tuesdays are my hill days on the road--this is an easy ride for him, but I don't think he likes me to ride on the roads alone, so he goes along. Wed he meets my brother-in-law for a MAJOR hill workout, while my sis and I meet at our usual 4 mile loop. Thurs and Fri is the group 4-mile loop, where the guys try to lap us--if we're in the mood, we kick it up and try to make it harder on them.
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So I'm new...what is DH?
Hubby and I have learned to "ride" and not "train" together. It was frustrating for me to get "training" from him and frustrating for him that I didn't want his help. The deal breaker happened when he destroyed his frame out of anger (chucked the bike against a hillside) and had to buy a new one. We are doing much better now. Each of us train by ourselves; maybe one day we'll figure out some things to do together. For now, we just ride together for the fun of it. This is training in disguise :p Logging miles together for endurance!
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On a good day DH is Dear Husband. :D
On others, well you can decide what the D stands for. ;)
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DH and I don't train together, but we do push each other on our rides. He rides at a faster pace, I can usually hang with him as longs as I keep a good draft. Sometimes I'll call out to him to slow it down a bit.
Another thing we'll often do is split up. He'll head down one road and then come back on the next. While he's taking his little detour, I go "all out" and we see how long it takes for him to catch me. It's a cat and mouse game for us, and it's a lot of fun. Then we take it easy and recover for a bit and do it again. It's good interval training.
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Communication is important, as stated above.
I have more endurance than DH though he always starts out faster. It takes me forever to warm up. It's important to figure out when one should wait for the other person (what if something happened?) or if the faster person should circle around and meet up. There's a really really fine line between making a ride be a nice social event and accidentally insulting ones spouse by acting like they are riding too slowly.
I guess expectations in advance are good.
As much as I like the idea of a tandem, I think we are both too strong-headed for one. Then again, you never know :D
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My suggestion is that you let the stronger rouleur pull on the flats - this makes the rouleur work harder while the weaker rider can maintain a higher speed than on his/her own. On climbs you follow your own pace, but the one finishing earlier goes down to meet the one still climbing and climb the hill once more. Going down I'd recommend that the technically best rider rides in front, and the other one tries to follow as close as possible - this way the technically more inexperienced rider can learn a trick or two.
