I took my mom and her SO on a bike ride when they came into town last month. They are both pretty active. She swims and walks, he used to be a runner, now bikes a little and walks. Neither of them has any extra weight. They said that they wanted to do "outdoor things" on their visit in order to "see the city". To me, this meant a bike ride. I asked them and they agreed enthusiastically (after I promised them that there are no hills in chicago). I regularly ride on the chicago lakefront path. This is a 36mi ride and usually takes me 2.5 hours. I figured that would be difficult for them, so decided for a truncated version of that route would be 20miles total with a stop for lunch in the middle.

Note that I was a little worried going into it when the morning of the ride my mom's SO suggested that I eat more than a banana before such a "long ride". Umm, I can handle 10mi at a slow pace before stopping for food . . .

I think our average speed for the first half of the ride was 7-8mph and when we stopped for luch after 10mi, they complained that their legs were too sore to climb the stairs into the restaurant we had chosen. On the 2nd half of our ride (the return trip) we probably averaged 5mp. We stopped 5 times along the way, I traded bikes with my mom because she thought mine was easier to ride, and even had to wait as my mom got off her bike to push it up a "hill". And by "hill" we are talking about climbing a few feet over 0.1miles.

Her SO "couldn't" wait for my mom when she started to hurt (and slow down), because his knee was bothering him so much that all he could think about was getting home.

While he have something to laugh about now, I don't think that I would do it again :-)