How to get your wife / girlfriend to mountain bike?

Mazda-Monkey's wife - WeaselGirl

Hi All, :wave:

I guess this is a little over due, but you know how it goes with life, in a blink of an eye time has flown by. Well I just wanted to introduce myself and say HI :wave: My name is Michelle, I am Mazda-Monkey’s wife and I am new to the MTBing world.
My very first ride was in November 2007, on the Diva Demo Day for Rock and Road bike shop. It was an all girl ride and I rode a Specialized Saphire Expert. It was a sweet ride. Everyone from R&R was awesome and very supportive. I was the last one on that ride but Tracy did not let me feel left out. The supportive nature of people who MTB is what got me hooked. I told my husband that I loved riding and the next thing I know Mazda-Monkey built me (for X-Mas) the sweetest orange/black Santa Cruz Juliana with great XC components. The bike only weighs approx. 26lbs. (I am so spoiled! :-$ but don't tell anyone. It will ruin his reputation.) Second he has been wonderfully patient with me and my slowness. After having not been on a bike in 15 years, my stamina is not what it used to be. Now we are going out on Family rides to build up that stamina and have a great time doing it. (No more MTB widowhood for me. Well at least not in the afternoons, he still goes out early in the mornings to do his intense/crazy rides like San Juan.) On our family rides, my husband rides his old bike and pulls my son on one of those Tag-a-long bikes, (he has even pulled our son up Cholla) and he still kicks my butt. We have gone riding at Aliso (love that Coyote trail! ), to Cooks corner and back from the 5 freeway and Alicia and we did one group ride with the Trail Angels. The Trail Angels ride was great except I felt bad about being the very last one again ](*,). Thanks to Anna and Single Track Angel for sticking with me and all of their encouragement I did finish the ride. I don’t think the trails we did were Newbie trails. It was nice meeting some of the STR peeps at that ride.

I love this site and hope to get my skills/stamina up soon so that I can join more group rides. I just love how everyone is so encouraging and supportive no matter what level you’re at. And one last thing that I need to mention is that I am a Porter/Stout girl, :beer: so one of those group rides will have to include an after ride Lunch with a tall one.

I will also be posting this intro attached to the thread of "How to get your wife/GF to MTB" so that others can see that sometimes it does work out and that there are success stories of getting your loved ones to ride with you. I also want to thank all who gave my husband such great advice for introducing the crazy life of MTBing to me.:clap: I am loving every second it.

I saved the best for last I want to thank my husband for everything.

I just realized this post sounds like I am accepting an award at the academy awards but without the writers' guild's help. I guess I just appreciate this new road that my life has taken and want to publicly acknowledge it.

Thanks,
WeaselGirl

 

Every girl I dated before I got married and my wife as well, none were cyclist but they all got into the sport. Why? I found that if you show interest in what they like, they will show interest in what you like. If they like being active other then in the bedroom all the better.

The first date I went on with my wife we went for a ride down at the Marina. She brought this rusted old cruiser to ride. Anyways, she watched me ride up a curb that had some sand in front of it and she gave it a try as well. BAM!! over the bars she went, tore up her shins and knees, got up, brushed it off and we then finished a 2hr ride. I knew she was the one at that point

That was in July of '98 and later that year in Dec we bought her a nice new dually. When I saw how serious she was about it I built her up a sweet Kona Bear which she still rides.

Oh yeah, from one STR newbie to another, welcome WeaselGirl.

 

I think we need to work out an exchange system of slightly older womens (or just smaller) mountain bikes we can all borrow in order to get girlfriends interested in biking. It's had to talk some one into a hobby where they have to spend $700 to get into it.
Plus the problem is also that the lower end starter bikes are often harder to ride than the more expensive bikes so I find a lot of girls are instantly frustrated trying to get up a hill or whatever when you're zooming up on your lighter more equipped bike.

 

Forget all that! Just show her all the cool clothes.