Oh drat, this is long, but I'm hoping it's insight into where his head might be when you ride together, even though I'm telling my side of the story. (though I think he's being stupid insisting on towing the kids -- if he had you do it, they'd slow you down and make it easier for him to keep up. That's why I had HIM tow the trailer with our grandson riding in it!)

It's HARD to be the one trying to keep up.

When DH decided a few years ago that we were going to take up biking TOGETHER "to get ready for ski season," little did he know that he was unleashing a monster. Not that I'm trying to suggest that I'm really good at this riding thing, mind you, but it turned out that I love it! He rides "to get some exercise." Exercise is a side benefit for me.

Biking, for me, was love at first crank, so to speak. That doesn't mean I've always LIKED riding. From the first, he could go faster than me. Trying to keep up was frustrating. His method of "waiting up" while I caught up to him was to ride down and back on side streets, ride way ahead and come back, and that was demoralizing. Or, he'd get out of sight, and expect me to know where I was supposed to follow. Plus, I hurt. Lots. My body was overwhelmed by the new activity.

Still, I loved it. I wanted to ride. I would go out by myself, because it helped me hurt less to ride gently in the warmth of the day, so my muscles would loosen up from the day before.

Then DH would come home from work and want to ride. We would ride. Inevitably, at some point on our rides "together," I would find myself crying in frustration. Since I did NOT want to give up riding, I knew I had to solve the issue. The problem was NOT DH, it was in me. Just because he could go faster than I could didn't mean I couldn't do it, but

I needed to figure out how I could ride with DH and enjoy it.

I needed to learn that it was okay to not be as fast as DH. I needed to learn to ride my own ride. The hardest thing for me to do, though, was to help him understand what I needed from him.

He would yell at me for following him down a cul de sac that he was using as a time filler while I would catch up to him, but he expected me to follow him. Following him meant riding the cul de sac, right? We had to figure out some other way.

I had a hard time with him doubling back too. I had to learn to accept a certain amount of that, becaues stopping to wait for me is not in his nature. He hates to stop once he's moving -- and he's really hard to get moving in the first place! He agreed to learn to slow down enough to be sure he could see me in his mirror after I ended up way off course one day following the wrong person in a same color shirt!

Riding with DH was more fun, particularly as my fitness level improved. We got so we were paired pretty well, though he has this thing about riding behind me on busy roads, and blocking my view of traffic, which makes me nuts. He takes a little pushing to get out the door, but he always enjoys a ride once he's moving.


This year is different. I need to keep those days in mind. This year, I'm smoking him on the hills -- not that I'm going fast! and in general, I'm a stronger rider than I've ever been. He's not riding as much this year as he has the past few. Granted -- it makes me feel pretty good to beat him up a hill. It's new for me, and it's been YEARS in the making. It's pretty cool to fly past him on a flat too -- that never happened either!

But his ego is taking a bit of a bruising (not that he'll say so). It was getting hard to get him out riding with me. I learned some new tricks -- I ride my heavier bike when I ride with him, and I ride in the spinny gears, pedaling like a madwoman and getting nowhere. He's still leading the way, setting the pace, and determining how much of a ride we're going to have, which makes him happy. I'm spinning, loosening up the muscles that I have been abusing in the gym and torturing on the road when I'm alone. We're riding together, both happy, and that's a good thing!

My fast, long, hard rides are on my own -- me time. Or, there are the group rides, where I'm somewhere in the middle, scrambling to catch the fast riders to let them know they're losing us slow riders! Oh -- and the trailer does grocery duty these days. I get to tow it, and he's glad he doesn't have to!

Karen in Boise