How can I train with my husband???

My riding partner is usually my husband but we are at two different athletic levels. He is much more powerful then me and is carrying around a bit of extra weight while I am a light weight and tend to slow on hills but have no problems with steep or long climbs due to lower body weight.

My question is, how do other pairs ride together and each get a good work out when you are at different levels??? If DH leads I am like a squirrel just trying to keep him in site and not 1/4 mile ahead. :eek::eek: When I lead he is just kinda peddlin like it is a Sunday slow ride..............

Any tips on training or riding together would be GREATLY appreciated!!

Jo Ann

"Train" separately. "Ride" together.

It's tough. DH and I have been back and forth with one of us being stronger over the years. when we started riding, I was significantly faster, for a few years. Now it's him for sure - on flats and hills. I can't keep up.

We're both pretty competitive. It's tough to be unequal and be competitive as we are. So what we do is basically do training rides separately (with training partners) and then "fun" rides together.

You could also do rides where it's a recovery ride for one person and a training ride for the other. I find it hard not to let the competitive spirit get the better of me in this sort of situation, though.

Hi, I sympathise.

Mr Mo is much faster, fitter and leaner than me. We've been riding a couple of times a week together. We usually do one long ride on the weekend, and he uses it as his recovery ride. We go at my pace which is really slow for him.

Once a week, we will ride about 15 miles together, which is enough for me, He will them go and do an additional 10 or 15 on his own, and usually incorporates some hills.

I ride on my own the rest of the week. I am starting to try to find a good training plan that will help me become stronger and faster. Once my MPH increases, I'm sure we will ride together much more frequently.

My husband and I are fairly close in ability. He generally climbs faster than I do, so on hills we each do our own ride. He waits for me at the top. Every now and then it will be the other way around for us and I'll wait for him.

I have a lot more endurance so once we get above sixty miles or so I have a definite advantage.

V.

My husband and I ride together even though we are at different athletic levels as well. We don't necessarily "train" together though. Generally, when we do ride together he is ahead of me and when I catch him at rest stops he's typically only been waiting for 4 minutes or so so he's not that far ahead. I do a good job of catching him on downhills as I am more aerodynamic than him on my road bike. I should mention he rides on a hybrid and I ride my heavy, lugged steel road bike. He totally kicks butt on that thing too.

I ride a lot more by myself but generally if we're riding together he rides ahead of me and we meet up when we meet up. I like it because it works for us and I'm not keeping him from getting his workout and we're still doing it together.

My BF and I live apart, so most of our rides together are while we're on vacation, not training. He's faster, so he'll pull if he wants a workout, or he hangs back if he wants me to set the pace. When we're on vacation, we use the camera a lot -- he hangs back and gets lots of action pictures of me, or he goes to the top of the climb, takes landscape shots, and then get shots of me summiting.

You can do things to even things out. Give the faster rider all the gear to carry -- pump, spares, food, etc. Give him a heavier bike -- he rides a mtb or hybrid while you're on a road bike. Have him do an hour of intervals and then come and ride with you.

My husband and I have been riding together for many years and rarely are we at the same fitness level. If we are training for an event, we work on skills together and focus on endurance.

One summer, I was more fit and could totally out-climb him :D We were training for a century and found that it worked out great- I'd end up dropping him on the climb, but he'd catch me on the downhill at which point I would latch onto his wheel and draft off him, once we hit the flat we traded pulls. Since we worked on this all summer, we were like a well-oiled machine and we both had our best times ever.

So, if possible, look at it as a team effort.

If you want to ride together, I have found its best to have the slower rider setting the pace (on the flat or climbs). If the faster rider wants to pull, then it can also help the faster rider to wear a mirror to see if the slower rider is falling back.

One way of training together is to do circuits on the same course. So lets say you both want to do a 60 mile ride but you both want to do it at your own pace. So pick a route which is 20 miles let say and do 3 laps. Whoever finishes first, does the course in reverse until they meet up with the slower rider. Then you can finish together.

This also works for climbs as well. Instead of waiting at the top, the faster person goes back down and meets up with the slower rider. And then climbs back up and back down until the slower person is done. This way the faster person doesn't have to wait a long time at the top and can get more training in over the same period of time.

My DH is 10-20% faster and stronger than I am on a good day, and I don't have as many good days as he does! :p

One thing that has worked for us is attending the weekly time trial event. We each do our all out effort for the 13km track and compare our experiences at the end. This racing has greatly helped us both in speed and power. It's very cool!

We also have each had to find other riding partners. I think it is very important for each rider to train with riders who are better (stronger, faster, more skilled), and riders who are about the same skill level and speed, and with riders who are slower or who are learning. If you're not training for something specific, I think it should be a pretty even split between the three types of rides (this is not based on any science or training knowledge, just personal experience / opinion). So, when DH and I ride together, I'm getting my faster rider experience and he's getting his slower rider experience. It works.

He does "vulture" (go on ahead, then double back), but rarely does he keep going after we ride together, or start sooner then come get me, but we're thinking about those options. :)

We act competetive with each other, and have high expectations of each other, so I'm really glad that we use heart rate based training. :D The system we use is that 80% of our riding should be below the lactic balance point, and only 20% should be above. When I ride with him, most of my ride is above, most of his ride is below. And the cool thing is, I can prove that I'm working harder than he is. This is made expecially easy since our LBP is the same BPM.

At the beginning of each ride, we usually try to discuss what the pace and type of ride it will be so we both can have realistic expectations. It seems to be working. :)

I'll send you lots of butterflies so your rides together are always a pleasure and always accomplish what you want them to!

Hugs, too,
~T~

Tandem!

Too funny Tulip! In my relationship, a Tandem would be the fastest way to divorce court!:D

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Originally Posted by Mighty Mo

Too funny Tulip! In my relationship, a Tandem would be the fastest way to divorce court!:D

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mine, too, but it works for alot of people.

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Originally Posted by tulip

mine, too, but it works for alot of people.

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Us, for example. We got a tandem several years ago and have put about 5000 miles on it. We do our single bike rides separately, if you see what I mean...I like to ride my single alone; he rides alone or with groups. This works out really, really well for us. We have a blast on the tandem and never have to sort through the individual riding differences.

I thought it said 'how can I train my husband?" and I thought, 'you can't, men are untrainable' :p

There's a mis-matched (apparently) couple who ride together on local training rides who even out the differences by having him ride on a single speed townie cruiser (while the rest of us poke along on our fancy little road bikes). He must be strong as an ox! Usually rides up in the front near the leader, and doesn't seem to be slowed in the slightest by his big ol balloon tires. Usually. I think he was actually hurting on the century ride this weekend, but for shorter distances, it is an effective means of "handicapping".

I think that hubby and wife should ride together, but not necessarily train - also set some "ground rules" like do you want him to comment on your technique? cuz he's gonna, and if he isn't a trainer "teacher" he will just say whats on his mind, and you may end up on the defensive and end up arguing (not that i have ANY experience with this, really...:rolleyes: hahaha)

So when riding with my husband, i tell him this is a) ride - not teaching or b) please help me, i want to session some things or c) start together, but we're doing intervals, we'll meet up on recovery.

its hard to ride with someone who is fitter/faster/more experienced - because they want to feel they are getting some "workout" too. So its important to agree on what you both want to work on during the ride.

I'm looking at the same situation.

I'm thinking "tandem." Ping-ponging is groovy sometimes, but I'd like to ride with my sweetie sometimes, too.

Due to height differences and strength differences between stoker and captain, we're considering a Rans Screamer recumbent tandem. (about $4,000-5,000)

(besides, I kind of miss my BikeE recumbent, and want another 'bent!)

Everyone has had some great suggestions. One other thing my DH and I have done is for him to ride on ahead for 3-4 minutes, then turn around and ride back to me and/or past me. He can ride his speed, I can ride mine, and we're always fairly close together. He likes this a little better than stopping and waiting for me because he can keep on riding. I like it because I'm not looking at him in the distance all the time and yet I'm not riding totally alone.

Now that I'm running and swimming, and riding a little less, he does hard rides alone, and easier rides when he's with me.

None of our rides are "training," so maybe this won't work for you. When I started riding my husband was at his fastest. He just rode at my pace or a little ahead of me. He did his fastest rides with other people, who he no longer rides with. I got faster just by going out and riding alone, getting faster and getting lighter bikes over the years. Now we are more evenly matched. If we are going out for a long ride, we stay together. Since most of our riding involves hills, we usually average around 14-15 on these days. Flat rides we average around 16-17. Now, when he rides to work (maybe 2 days a week) he'll average 17 even 18 and my average alone on a hilly "training" ride tends to be in the high 15's, including the 15% climb at the end. I will never be as strong as my husband, but there are times when I can climb faster than him. It's usually when he is pacing himself because he is tired. He descends like a rocket and that's my least favorite part of riding, so he waits.
We usually do our weekend rides with another couple. He is a bit stronger than my husband and sometimes takes off ahead, but they usually stay together. My friend is slow; hence I often end up in the middle, riding alone. At certain points in these rides, though, my husband stays with me and is perfectly happy. Our goal is to ride together until we keel over and drop dead....

Great suggestions here! BF got me riding a few months ago when he was just getting back into it after 2 years. Right now I am quite a bit stronger and way more fit. I have a hard time staying on his wheel but if I go ahead to pull I leave him behind. :( I feel bad cause this was something of our 'together' time and the poor guy has to hear about it from people that see me way out there in front of him all the time.

I had someone experienced people tell me I should race and he was quite proud of that but I am sure his ego has been taking a beating. Yesterday I sat behind him for 75% of the ride and barely broke a sweat so I let that be a light day for me. We averaged 17.9 and my best ever on the same 20 mile loop three days prior was 19mph. I am going to take some of the advice of posters here and find a riding partner that is more at my level for some of my rides. I ride solo a few days a week and I just remembered there is a group ride at LBS once a week that I could do too.

It sounds like he could eventually be faster than me so I better not let this go to my head!

Great thread!

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Originally Posted by zencentury

I thought it said 'how can I train my husband?" and I thought, 'you can't, men are untrainable' :p

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LOL! I read the same thing too. Mr. Silver might disagree, however. ;)

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Originally Posted by Veronica

My husband and I are fairly close in ability. He generally climbs faster than I do, so on hills we each do our own ride. He waits for me at the top. Every now and then it will be the other way around for us and I'll wait for him.

I have a lot more endurance so once we get above sixty miles or so I have a definite advantage.

V.

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Hehehe... this reminds me of my ride last sunday. The BF and I ride to a group ride- round trip 73 miles. During the "hammer" portion of the group ride, he was up front when I got dropped (sometimes I can hang, sometimes not- it's prettymuch a race-intensity pace with some cat 1/2/3 men for several miles over large rolling hills). So, to get back at him, on the way home- about mile 65, I dropped the hammer on him... he didn't complain at the time, but later admitted that it hurt him worse than the earlier effort :D

TANDEM, TANDEM, TANDEM!!!!!!!!!

The tandem is the best way for you to ride "with" each other and not worry about either one of you being left behind or not getting the workout they really want. You can each push as little or as hard as you want.

My husband and I ride both singles and a tandem. Most of the time we ride separately on our singles, but when we want to be "together", we ride the tandem. It's also a great way for me to get to hang with his faster riding buddies. We have friends who ride tandem as well, so we do rides together, all four of us, which would be completely different if we were all on our singles. The guys wouldn't be getting as much of a work out and the girls would be huffing and puffing to keep up. The guys have said over and over again that it's like a dream to be able to ride "with" their wives like that.

As for riding together on singles, my husband does ride with me from time to time. He will usually stay on his big ring and do a different sort of work out. Climb a hill slowly on his big ring, with the goal of keeping his heart rate as low as possible (while I'm dying, of course!). Sometimes he'll get ahead and then turn around and come back.

I've been training for a century with a friend lately, who is stronger than me. Sometimes she stays with me, maybe on a harder gear, and sometimes she'll just stop at some point and wait for me to catch up.

However, I often just ride alone. No worries about holding anyone back. Don't have to feel bad about myself that I'm not going faster. I like the variety of doing all three. Sometimes the tandem, sometimes on my single with someone or a group, and sometimes all by myself.

This is a helpful thread. My last ride I decided DH and I should ride together- a bit of company is nice, right? He's inherently stronger than me and has been able to ride more- he's on sabbatical and I was having issues finding a saddle I could stand. He's been doing 30 mile rides (and when he exercises, he's insanely driven) and I'm about to keel over at about 10-12 miles. So this last ride was probably the least relaxing bike ride I've ever been on- either watching him power away from me with ease (and never look back) or when he wants to let me set the (snaily) pace, all I hear behind me is the ratchet of him coasting whilst I'm pedaling my tush off. I guess I just need to go out alone since he can't just spin and enjoy it.

I can't ride with my husband on anything under 50 miles, because otherwise he is off like a shot. But on longer rides he likes my steady slower pace because it keeps him pacing himself and then he doesn't "blow up."

So for those together rides, plan on longer ones and work together to practice things like pace line training and stopping at antique shops and bakeries. :D

For the actual training rides, do group rides. Husband can go blow up with the leaders, and you (and I) can find other riders more our pace.

If you do want to do a fun trainer with your fast guy, do something really really short and play "chase the rabbit." We do this occasionally. We'll do like, eleven miles and I chase him over hill and dale. It hurts like hell but it really is good for training - you'll see improvement.

Wow, I guess I'm really lucky. We are pretty evenly matched, though we do use different-bike handicapping.

I ride my cross bike, he rides SS on longer, hilly rides and we're pretty evenly matched, though he was consistently pulling ahead on descents until I got new rims. They were totally worth it to pass him :D.

We also take turns in front, so there are no excess drafting accusations. Over the course of several rides, it all seems to average out. I really appreciate DH's patience, though admittedly, I think of it as training and he thinks of it as riding. (He's non-competitive.) So attitude is as much a factor as fitness (or sweet new rims!) in happy co-riding.

That's funny that I read this thread today as we are having a marriage challenge day....He could ride into the lake and it would be all good. HAHA

Tandem would be nice – no competitive streaks coming out…not that any of us have that problem.

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Originally Posted by Pedal Wench

My BF and I live apart, so most of our rides together are while we're on vacation, not training. He's faster, so he'll pull if he wants a workout, or he hangs back if he wants me to set the pace. When we're on vacation, we use the camera a lot -- he hangs back and gets lots of action pictures of me, or he goes to the top of the climb, takes landscape shots, and then get shots of me summiting.

You can do things to even things out. Give the faster rider all the gear to carry -- pump, spares, food, etc. Give him a heavier bike -- he rides a mtb or hybrid while you're on a road bike. Have him do an hour of intervals and then come and ride with you.

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yea, the stronger rider, if the person would consider cycling with extra weight, as a form of "training" which it truly can be if you plan to go long-distance touring through mountains...you had better first try grocery-shopping with panniers on a long route with multiple long hills at home.. :D

I think the above reason is that's probably the reason why my partner doesn't get bothered lugging more groceries, but often only if I OFFER initially to carry my share of the weight first. It gives him the option to turn me down. And I have no problems if he turns me down....after all I had to lug all the grocery weight on bike for 16 kms. for several years when he and I lived in different cities.

He is the one is stronger rider , and has done several rides across the continent.

We ride together but he does tend to ride ahead because he is stronger, and on quiet routes, does loops for me to catch up. Each of us also ride solo, so he gets to train at his pace and I ride to please myself or do stuff on my own.

It's truly important for the weaker rider, to become strong, independent rider mentally by not feeling "left behind", particular if the stronger rider already in good-spirit, does reliably wait at different points ahead or slows down abit. The weaker rider should also try riding some long routes at their own pace, at 50-120 kms. solo, to become more indpendent and self-reliant. Then riding with stronger partner still ahead on a different ride, the whole bike ride will be enjoyable for both.

Often I do lose sight temporarily of him..usually on routes that I know already. So no point worrrying nor feeling left out. If you are touring in an area you don't know, it is important that a couple try to stay within sightline of each other somehow. Otherwise, lots of wasted time, backtracking/hunting for each other.

by the way, as a couple, we don't talk much while we are cycling. Yelling and not hearing each other while trying to cycle at a fit speed, is not ideal to loving communication. We have a wonderful unspoken cycling language together!

My BF and I ride together a fair amount, but when we "train" (hammer) together, it's usually a group ride, where he is having fun contesting the county line sprints and I am hanging on for dear life. He's really happy when I can hang with the big boys, though I'm usually suffering. But hey, cycling (well, racing) is all about improving one's ability to suffer, physically and mentally. So I do those rides, because they are good for me, and fun in hindsight :o. When we ride solo together, I can just get in the draft if he wants to work harder. Or, I'll let him fly up long hills and then we regroup. It can suck always feeling like you're just having to try to keep up, but at the same time, he says that I make him work hard too. For example, I'll want to hammer on descents and some fun, flat sections to reward myself for going uphill to get there. He likes climbing better. So, we're each stronger/faster/more motivated on different parts of the route and can challenge each other that way. If he really wants to train hard, like when he does his big sprints workouts with the area hammerheads, he goes alone, which is fine with me.

And tandem...we rented once, tried it for about 20 kms. That was enough....about 14 yrs. ago.

I sat behind-- I'm 5'1", he's 5'10".

We've been together long enough..that competing each other in anything we do, doesn't work. I don't recall an activity where we even compete one another for fun or any...probably a sign that our different strengths are significantly noticeable and presumably complementary. :) Encouraging one another works though.

If I want his opinion / help related to cycling, I ask for it. But even unsolicited, he knows when to nicely drop a casual comment on the odd occasion. And just leave it alone with me to ponder over.

He knows my weakest point is my weak geo-spatial , wayfinding capabilities. ..which really isn't solely cycling-related.

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.

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!

On a good day DH is Dear Husband. :D

On others, well you can decide what the D stands for. ;)

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.

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

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.