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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:
4cats4kids · 31/05/2021 18:21

I don’t know how she first found out where they meet on the Sunday mornings. He says he doesn’t know, but she was there one morning as a cyclist. There are other people who sometimes join them and various other groups who sometimes do longer or shorter rides, depending on what they’re up for, but she is now a regular at this time. But they don’t know why she comes. She says she will cycle with them one day, but she hasn’t yet, but she heard where they are going to stop en route and yesterday, she drove there and then when she heard they were coming for lunch and what number to go to etc, she just came here as if she is in the club. She seems to be claiming she is training to join them. But why not just join a beginner group - there must be loads.

OP posts:
JustLyra · 31/05/2021 18:21

@4cats4kids

DH knows loads if people from all over the place though this cycling. I really don’t think he is shagging this woman because he would hardly bring her to the house if he was. Also, she is absolutely mad. I don’t think any of them have a thing with her. But he is a total dimwit and this annoys me actually. It hasn’t occurred to him as to what her agenda is. They are all married. Where they always meet is a very busy cafe and there loads if cycling types there, so she just shows up and has tagged on. She is no more a cyclist than I am. Imagine now, she has bought a Zwift (Swift)? Peloton type bike and is claiming she can’t set it up and needs one of them to go over. It was so awkward when she said this, they all just looked at their phones. I found her very annoying, but they are all just muppets basically. If there was some random man who turned up at my running club with cakes, I would be under no delusions. Now she’s claiming to want boxing training and is using her son fgs. I said to him, if she is interested in boxing, I am the Pope. He says he has no intention of having her in the place, he discontinued even remember her asking, and it’s not that type of club anyway. But she did ask as I heard her with my own ears. He says she won’t come and she just says things because she must be lonely and want to join clubs. Yeah right. Every month or so they “take turns” end up at one of their houses for lunch, but obviously this hasn’t been happening for a while. This is annoying enough for me, to be honest, without this woman. It makes me wonder if they have any sense. They go all round the world on bikes and sometimes there are women on the rides, but none remotely like this.
They're a group of adult men. If they didn't want her there they'd tell her.

And there's no way an entire group of grown men are as wet as you've convinced yourself they are.

Someone actively added her to their WhatsApp group. That's not something she could do. It's not something she could force someone to do. It's something that was done willingly because she's around their group and they accept that.

But it suits them that she's "Absolutely mad" because this diverts from the fact that she's not been mentioned once in years.

Not in a funny story. Not when she's been annoying. Not when she first turned up. Not when lockdown was ending and they were all hoping she wouldn't come back.

It takes effort to complete edit someone out of stories. A fair bit of effort.

DrSbaitso · 31/05/2021 18:22

@IAmADoorbell

I’m really not worried he’s having an affair with her.

There is one born every minute! Good God. Of course he is.

Why him and not any of the other seven men in the group?
UhtredRagnarson · 31/05/2021 18:22

@WonkyCactus

Yeah OP, get hold of your DH's phone and remove her from the WhatsApp group. Problem solved!
Shock

Controlling or what???

FourTeaFallOut · 31/05/2021 18:23

@MorganKitten

I think she sounds lonely and wants to be part of something.
I kind of love her a little bit. She self identifies as a mamil although only owns a shopper bike and doesn't like to ride much and she cruises around all these houses on a weekend enjoying the free catered lunch put on by the good wives...in exchange for a few muffins and a wave of her pompoms. 😁
susiebluebell · 31/05/2021 18:24

I'm seeing her as Maxine Bendix from Tittybangbang Grin

Bravesoul · 31/05/2021 18:24

I am afraid you will find it very difficult to shake this woman off. They have given her an in and now she has become obsessed by them. Even if they exclude her from the group she will do everything she can to continue to follow them. She has developed her own narrative in her own mind about this group and will infiltrate their lives further unless they all put very tight boundaries around their activities and change their present routines.

UhtredRagnarson · 31/05/2021 18:26

@LalalalalalaLand123

I really don't get the OPs furious outrage about it.

Me neither, the fury and outrage seem really over the top and out of all proportion.

The woman is clearly attractive Wink
StillCoughingandLaughing · 31/05/2021 18:26

@susiebluebell

I'm seeing her as Maxine Bendix from Tittybangbang Grin
‘Eeeeets juuuuuust a leeetle seeeeepage...’
Northernparent68 · 31/05/2021 18:27

@VodselForDinner

There’s obviously something in it for her.

I do wonder what’s in it for you, though. Having to have lunch for 8 grown men prepared by 7am on a Sunday morning sounds like insanity. Why are you doing this?

There are two women being made fools of here, it’s not just Pom Pom Patsy.

The op did not have to make lunch, she choose to.
Dyrne · 31/05/2021 18:27

Another one not understanding why this is the woman’s fault when she’s clearly being accommodated by these men desperate for an ego stroke.

She’s either 1) a bit sad, awkward and lonely; or 2) Shagging one or more of the group and they’re covering.

If it really was a bizarre and pathetic as your DH is representing it here, I find it really hard to believe that your DH hasn’t found it worthy of mention before. I mean, a woman who shows up with pom poms to wave them off? That’d have been the first thing I said to DP once I got back: “you’ll never guess what happened today before the ride…”

From a purely practical standpoint, why the hell didn’t he mention it just so you knew to cater for 9 people rather than 8?

Plus, add me to the list of people boggling at “the wives” making lunch for the men. I don’t mind putting on a spread and treating my friends, but the fact that it’s expected because it’s “my turn” would not go down well. I’d be telling DP in no uncertain terms that, in actual fact, it’s his turn to sort out lunch for his group; and I have better things to do then spend my weekend hanging around playing Stepford Wife when I don’t even do the bloody activity.

LongHotSummerJustPassedMeBy · 31/05/2021 18:27

she heard where they are going to stop en route and yesterday, she drove there and then when she heard they were coming for lunch and what number to go to etc

But how did she get to hear all of this?

How was she given the impression that it was ok for her to turn up?

vivainsomnia · 31/05/2021 18:27

But why not just join a beginner group - there must be loads
Why do you care?

iklboo · 31/05/2021 18:28

I do wonder what’s in it for you, though. Having to have lunch for 8 grown men prepared by 7am on a Sunday morning sounds like insanity. Why are you doing this?

They take it in turns. It's not OP every time & she said she won't be making a habit of it.

fairgame84 · 31/05/2021 18:30

I'm picturing an older phoebe from Friends with her shopper bike and streamers.

RedToothBrush · 31/05/2021 18:30

@4cats4kids

I am slightly annoyed that I get lumbered with the lunch for these people anyway because, although they are all fine, they are all men and I don’t join them myself. I just do it as a favour very occasionally because apparently other wives do it and it’s our turn and it’s not often, blah blah. But even though I find it mildly patronising, at least I have met most of them before, but she just tagged along on hearing about it from them on the day and I would not do that myself. I don’t run a bloody free-for-all restaurant. I can’t imagine showing up at someone’s house with a load of men and then holding court in the garden.
"Oi husband. You need to make your mates lunch cos I'm not your scivy."

It sounds like both you and your husband are too busy being mugs / polite.

EsmaCannonball · 31/05/2021 18:31

I'm seeing her as the kind of Cha-Cha DiGregorio of the amateur cycling world.

frankenpoodle · 31/05/2021 18:32

Tbh, I can see the men's side of this. It sounds like it started innocuously enough. They haven't invited her and probably don't really want her there, but at the same time none of them want to be the mean, rude person who tells someone they're not welcome. It can be difficult for a polite, decent man to tell a woman she's unwelcome without it feeling very awkward. If they're meeting at a public place, they can't very well tell her to leave, anyway.

The problem comes in when she invites herself into someone's home because she's supposedly part of the group. She's crossing boundaries and coming across as a sad, desperate, rather pathetic woman.

UhtredRagnarson · 31/05/2021 18:32

I’d say the truth is far closer to her being far more involved with the group and nowhere near as bonkers as your husband makes out. He is doing the classic “course I don’t fancy her! she’s mad, won’t leave me alone, as if I would go near her hahaha”

queenMab99 · 31/05/2021 18:33

I am imagining her to be something like Marina from Last of the Summer Wine. Grin

JellyTumble · 31/05/2021 18:33

I don’t really see why you kind, tbh Confused It’s not your cycling group and you were hosting for the others.

Whether they like it or not they’ve let her be part of the group.

Faevern · 31/05/2021 18:33

@4cats4kids she didn’t just overhear the address though, she got there first. She didn’t eavesdrop on a conversation between themselves where they said we are going to mr 4cats for lunch at 7 letsbe avenue and then just rock up. Someone told her or put the address on WhatsApp because if they didn’t know where your DH lived they would have followed him on his bike. They have included her.

Someone is telling half truths.

JellyTumble · 31/05/2021 18:33

Mind, not kind.

StillCoughingandLaughing · 31/05/2021 18:33

@vivainsomnia

But why not just join a beginner group - there must be loads Why do you care?
Because of the obvious implications about what might be attracting her to this group instead?
4cats4kids · 31/05/2021 18:35

He is in loads of Whstsapp groups about cycling and other things he does. This is his local cycling group, but he rides with people from all over the place and I don’t keep track and I don’t care.

I am not being mean about this woman. I don’t think she’s having an affair with any of them. Maybe she is angling for it. Maybe she’s after money. Maybe one of them is encouraging her, I can’t say. But it’s very odd to drive around a cycling route. That is a most strange thing to do under any circumstances, unless you are medical back up or something. I don’t care what her agenda is as I can’t do anything about that, but I certainly don’t feel sorry for her no, because the fact was, I was the one who was serving her her lunch and drinks and the whole thing was a bit surreal, to be honest.

OP posts: