It could be that your hubby does not understand bikes and may never understand that this is a "gear" sport. My husband and I raced bikes for some 20 years (both Mountain and Road, and cyclecross); you should have seen our stable and still we have a lot of bikes even though neither of us rides that much anymore. I have never told my husband not to buy a bike nor has he said it to me, but probably because there was a mutual understanding of the concept of "gear" sport. (He did have more bikes over our racing lifetime, but I was always happy with what I had). I took up the sport after he did and he was always the one who wanted to take all our vacations on or with bikes and they usually revolved around racing. Sometimes I wanted to do other things, but much of the time, we raced and rode for years. It worked out okay.

I took up tennis about 5 years ago. I am very into tennis and play leagues, go to tournaments, etc. I am 52 now and he is 58. He does not have the bike bug anymore. He occasionally plays tennis with me or others, but is not really into competing or playing a lot.

Now, interestingly (or ironically), he gets very angry at me when I play tennis, says I do it too much, etc., etc. I think it is a control issue. He does not have a passion so wants to control mine. I make a concerted effort to set aside weekends for time with him; and also evenings for time with him. Most of the time, I play tennis during the day when he is at work and so it does not take away from our time together. He still has issues with my tennis. So, perhaps, your husband is in a time of his life where he wants to control your actions because he is lacking in something in his life. That is the way I feel about my husband's behavior. I think he is bored and needs something more in this life besides the fact that he really does have some part of his personality that likes to control others. (this is not new!)

Anyway, I continue to compromise and he continues to grumble. So far, we work it out without too much undue stress!