Wow, I am so impressed by all of your creativity and thoughtfulness.

A large part of it is the bike. She is riding a very upright comfort type bike, whereas we are both riding road bikes. I have offered to let her use one of my bikes but she has not taken me up on that offer. I spoke to her yesterday and she said that she is buying a bike this weekend and is committed to training on her own. I question the wisdom of buying a bike when she hates cycling, but . . .

I spoke with my other training partner today. As we are doing a metric century in 5 weeks (my reluctant riding friend is not doing this ride), we need to build up our distance. Before each ride we will let rr(reluctant rider) know if it is a training ride (what our speed and distance will be) or if it is a recovery ride. She can decide if she wants to join in. The problem is that we are doing a lot of indoor training as she weather is cold and the nights are dark, so we often just do one or two rides on the road each week. Sometimes not even that if the ground is covered with snow or if it is pouring rain (we live in the Pacific Nw).

I like the idea of a weekend ride that is more relaxed. Unfortunately, as we are all mothers of young kids, the century ride in July is really our only chance to get away without our kids.

She told me yesterday, that her husband (who is an avid cyclist) is furious with me and our other cycling friend. He said that we are not following cycling etiquette and we that we must never drop the slowest rider. We do get far ahead of her, but we usually stop every 10-15 minutes to let her catch up. When she catches up she often says something like "slow and steady wins the race". She almost never appears out of breath or as though she is pushing herself.

Anyway, our friendship was not founded on cycling. Our husbands all ride together and they have been urging us for years to take it up. I really just want to go out and enjoy my rides.

Andie