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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

The “Cycling Send-Off Woman.” What the hell?

813 replies

4cats4kids · 31/05/2021 16:41

Sorry if this sounds petty, but the most terrible woman came to my house yesterday and I still can’t believe the audacity of her. My husband is in a cycling training team and one of the things they do is meet at 7am on a Sunday morning at a cafe and then they go off out of London on their various routes. This has been going on years and they are basically cycling round the world in stages (as part of a larger group).

So apparently, this weekend was “our turn” to do lunch for this lot - a.k.a “my turn” (but don’t worry, I will not be making a habit of it). I was expecting about 8 who are all men, but this atrocious woman turned up in a sports car before them and was sitting on the drive waiting until they came. I thought she must be something to do with nextdoor (shared driveway), but when they showed up on the bikes she came in with them.

My husband was kind of mouthing, “sorry” to me and they all looked embarrassed. Then he tells me, he’s really sorry, but this is “the cycling send-off woman” Confused and today she has followed them in the car. So basically, I have since found out that this nut job of a woman seems to think she is in the cycling team and turns up at the crack of dawn when they meet and in all weathers, though she never actually cycles with them. Apparently, she always says she will join them one day, but never does. She doesn’t even have the right kind of bike, her bike is apparently more a shopping bike with streamers on the handlebars like a 4 year-old! Once she did cycle with them, but only for about a mile as she couldn’t keep up. She wears really short shorts and brings them all muffins and god knows what apparently at 7am Hmm. DH says they never eat them. Also, she waves pom-poms when they leave. I couldn’t believe it. I asked my husband why he’s never mentioned her before and I said it’s fairly obvious why she’s showing up. He just said they don’t know why she comes and they all think she’s mad. On this day, she had driven to some other cafe where they stop in Surrey because it was a nice day and she fancied the drive. Then she took it upon herself to turn up for lunch because she thinks she’s in the cycling club!

She is like something from Ab Fab and really loud. They were in the garden and there I was, backwards and forwards, while she was going on about how she’s just bought a Zwift, but she can’t seem to get it set up, so could any of them come over to her house and set it up for her (nobody offered and it was very awkward). I also heard her tell my husband (loudly) that she’d really like to bring her son to his boxing club and maybe he could he train them both? It was so very strange. As if! Also, she wasn’t exactly making an effort to talk to me. How rude. I have never come across a woman like this in my life. She is late 40s - who behaves like this?

AIBU to be annoyed that this happened at all? My husband has apologised but seems to think it’s a joke. He doesn’t get it at all. These men are late 40s and collectively, should be able to get rid of this lunatic. He says it’s a public cafe and there’s lots of people there and they can’t really stop her. Well, just find a different place to meet then!

OP posts:
gelatodipistacchio · 01/06/2021 06:40
Confused
CheneHetre · 01/06/2021 06:41

Wtf Shock

ChairOnToast · 01/06/2021 06:41

This reply has been deleted

Withdrawn at the user's request

MinorCharacter · 01/06/2021 06:50

@Embracingthechaos

Also... It's bullshit that no one ate her muffins. I don't believe that for one second.
I was assuming the muffins were a metaphor...
GreenTreeLeaves · 01/06/2021 07:03

YABVVU for even entertaining the idea of making lunch for 8 men...wtf! What kind of men even expect their wives/gfs to do that Shock how embarrassing

AdelindSchade · 01/06/2021 07:10

It might be in theory easy to get rid of her but it's very typically British for no-one to say anything and allow it to go on for years.I don't think anyone necessarily has to be shagging her for this to happen. I don't really know what the problem is either. She isn't actually doing any harm as far as we know apart from being a bit weird and making other people feel uncomfortable.

A man dh knew vaguely from the pub turned up to our wedding uninvited. He was autistuc but if it was a woman I might have been thinking wtf? But it was just that dh was nice to him. On the wedding day dh had a drink with him in the bar and he went away happy.

CheneHetre · 01/06/2021 07:12

Making and serving lunch is too much, his arms and legs are worn out from all the cycling and boxing!

Does she follow them all too on Strava?

I used to have a friend who was in a paragliding club, and I went to a club social once where he pointed out a morbidly obese woman who was the “club follower”. She sidled up to him at a previous social and said “I really like sex”. One guy who took her up on her offer said he only did because he had been single for a while.

Armi · 01/06/2021 07:13

The making lunch thing....it’s a one off. And sometimes people do things for their partners because they don’t mind or because they feel it’s a nice thing to do. The OP says in her first post she’s not making a habit of it. I can’t get irate about a one off lunch.

Cycling Send Off Woman is clearly bonkers, however, but they must love the attention or they would have scraped her off like a barnacle by now.

overnightangel · 01/06/2021 07:18

@MessedOfTimes

Perhaps she had a fling/one night stand with one of the members, and things have taken an obsessive/misguided turn on her part 🤷🏻‍♀️
I was thinking one of them has shagged her and has bought her silence by allowing her to tag along (though fuck knows why she’d want to 😂) Either that or one of the guys is hiding in plain sight
MaMaD1990 · 01/06/2021 07:18

I feel quite bad for pom pom lady! She seems quite lonely to be honest. Saying this, I wouldn't like to have her in my house and trying to insert her her into my husband and child's life...hopefully she'll just get bored and move onto another club eventually.

TheRealMrsMorningstar · 01/06/2021 07:26

She must have a phone number for one of them (or they have hers) to add to whatsapp?

Macncheeseballs · 01/06/2021 07:28

Yes it's a very peculiar story all round, why can't the make a new whats app group without her on it

ChairmansReserve · 01/06/2021 07:33

You get up at 7am on a Sunday to play waitress-wifey to a bunch of middle-aged men in lycra and you think she's embarrassing herself?

Dogscanteatonions · 01/06/2021 07:40

Not everyone is a downtrodden woman married to an utter misogynist just because they make lunch. I make lunches for cricket sometimes but my DP will bend over backwards to do anything for me and my friends - when my friends are round (in the days when they could!) He'll fetch and carry all night sorting food and drinks. When he would pick me up after a night out he'll ferry all my mates home too.

SallyCinnabon · 01/06/2021 07:41

@ticktockriojaoclock

She sounds odd for sure, but if the group had an issue with her being involved surely they would say something. Its really strange that your husband never mentioned her previously though. Maybe they all appreciate her short shorts too much! She didn't get herself onto the WhatsApp, one of the group has added her.
Yes this. You need someone’s mobile number to add them in 🤣 They must love it secretly.

Either that or she’s shagging one of them, my bet is on the WhatsApp group owner 😆🤭

EarringsandLipstick · 01/06/2021 07:42

@TheChiefJo

It's a magnificent thread.
I've RTFT and I can't see how anyone thinks this.

I think the OP (opening post in this case!) is really mean, and spitefully written.

I think the batshit responses from some posters meet a new threshold even for MN. She's having an affair, and it's definitely with OP's husband 🙄 ?!?

The woman does sound a bit odd. But the world is made up of odd people, that's what makes it interesting!

I can't really see how it affects OP or the need for the harsh words about this woman.

(Now, the serving lunch to all these guys & having to skivvy around them, absolutely YES I'd be pissed off at that).

I know a few people mentioned the tone, but most people seem fully on OP's side & even think it's funny. I'm baffled.

EarringsandLipstick · 01/06/2021 07:45

@eekbumbler

They're all shagging her.
🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

WTF?

RhiWrites · 01/06/2021 07:46

It’s a weird story but I believe it. I don’t think this has anything to do with shagging.

I’ve met lonely people who try too hard and go over the top at “joining in”. This includes people who don’t do the main activity of a group but desperately want to be included.

I can understand how a cycling club doesn’t want to exclude a potential cyclist who seems enthusiastic if weird.

And from her point of view, she’s in the club. Lots of people on the thread saying that she isn’t, but she is! She has a role (cycling send off), equipment (muffins, Pom poms) and she’s invited to the lunches.

And surely everyone knows that if you don’t deal with an encroacher early on then they stick around, which is what this woman has done. Everyone is too polite and British to say anything.

MinorCharacter · 01/06/2021 07:50

@RhiWrites

It’s a weird story but I believe it. I don’t think this has anything to do with shagging.

I’ve met lonely people who try too hard and go over the top at “joining in”. This includes people who don’t do the main activity of a group but desperately want to be included.

I can understand how a cycling club doesn’t want to exclude a potential cyclist who seems enthusiastic if weird.

And from her point of view, she’s in the club. Lots of people on the thread saying that she isn’t, but she is! She has a role (cycling send off), equipment (muffins, Pom poms) and she’s invited to the lunches.

And surely everyone knows that if you don’t deal with an encroacher early on then they stick around, which is what this woman has done. Everyone is too polite and British to say anything.

Yes, it sounds to me like a combination of male British indirectness and the bystander effect, whereby they all think someone else will boot her out if they’re unduly perturbed by her.
Justilou1 · 01/06/2021 07:50

My DH’s baseball team had a woman rather like this also.... she was somehow vaguely related to one of the financial sponsors of the club, and aggressively made a play for pretty much everyone in A-grade team. Most of them saw her as quite damaged and ran for the hills. (Very, very few went there, and the new guys were warned off!) Whenever any of the guys rocked up with a girlfriend, she practically peed on them to mark her territory. She insisted upon implying that she had “history” with my DH when we met, but I had been warned about her by other GFs and she had done the same to them with their partners. She married one of the guys (who is actually really lovely, btw) but still continues her reign of terror 20+ years later - and the new, young baseballers look like they’d rather chew off their own leg than continue that particular conversation.... Personally, I think she is either a wannabe nymphomaniac or she has a fetish for the uniform. Perhaps your pompom chica likes Lycra-clad middle-aged farts trying to capture their youth? Is it the legs?

mrsk247syd · 01/06/2021 07:54

Oh god - can we have more of a description of crazy Pom Pom woman? Sounds like something my mother would do Blush

OrangePowder · 01/06/2021 07:55

I don't know if it's magnificent but it is interesting enough to have got to 18 pages and yet the DH never mentioned it to OP.

I do think it's an interesting insight into how women behave to other women. No one comes out of this covered on glory. Either one of the men is up to no good or this is a damaged woman being led up the garden path and yet all the venom is reserved fornthe woman.

SallyCinnabon · 01/06/2021 08:02

They definitely do want her there though they’re just pretending they don’t. Or at least one of them does, you need to get invited to a WhatsApp group and you need her number. So someone doesn’t find her a pest 🤣

EmmaGrundyForPM · 01/06/2021 08:02

I think @RhiWrites has hit the nail on the head.

She sounds as though she doesn't get social norms, has latched onto this group and now feels part of it. It will be very difficult for the group to now exclude her.

I can understand how this happened, she somehow got added to the WhatsApp group as she seemed to be a potential new member, but that has never translated into her becoming a cyclist.

If I was in your husbands position, I would give her the details of a good local bike shop which could advise her on the right bike, and point her to the Breeze website which organises free rides for women cyclists. Then delete her from the WhatsApp group and change the meeting venue.

BikeRunSki · 01/06/2021 08:06

In all my (30) as a club cyclist, we’ve never had such a dedicated cheerleader. I feel rather dissapointed!!