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Original poster

Anyone else's DH having an affair with their bike?

71 replies

Cucci · 13/06/2009 20:15

Oh dear,

Just had an awful week, 6 days in hospital with DS 18mths due to infected chicken pox - verrrry nasty.

Got home yesterday and we are still a bit house bound because he is contageous.

The kids are now fast asleep so what does DH do? He goes for a mountain bike ride in the woods at 8pm (with a headlamp of course) and says he will see me in a few hours.

Taking into account that we have just played relay races to and fro from the hospital for nearly a week I thought he might be up for spending some kind of normal evening together.

Instead he has been preening his bike at 10 minute intervals today, I would really like to wrap it aroud his neck.

I know it could be worse but I do feel a little sad that the first thing he can think of is his bloody bike!

Be interested to know if there are any other ladies who have lost their husbands to cycling.

OP posts:

OrmIrian · 13/06/2009 20:18

Is it perhaps his way of unwinding after a stressful time? Not fair on you though.

Ivykaty44 · 13/06/2009 20:19

I had to visit the bike shop this aternoon and there was a man in there thinking about upgrading his bike, form £5k to an £8k bike
Go with him and enjoy the sport??

NorbertDentressangle · 13/06/2009 20:25

Hi Cucci -as we speak my DP is out on his bike getting in another ride before a 24hr team mountain bike challenge next weekend.

He has spent most of the day "faffing with his bike" as the DC call it, not to mention the small fortune he has spent on it.

I can't get him to see how crazy it is to spend 100s of £s on a bike to then systematically replace every part of it with parts that cost a fortune.I'm sure none of his original bikes remain as he's replaced so many parts in the quest for a perfect bike!

I would be pretty pissed off though in your shoes as your DS has been ill.

BionicleBill · 13/06/2009 20:27

Oh you must feel very alone/.

It's probably his way of dealing with it as Orm said.

Maybe he will come back very strong and carefree and able to offer you the support you need

ShowOfHands · 13/06/2009 20:27

Don't ever ask who he'd rescue first in a fire.

The hours in the bike shop.

The endless wittering about a small piece of metal he picked up for mere hundreds of pounds that will revolutionise the something or other of his carbonfibre whatsit.

The watching it on television.

The disappearing for hours and hours.

The bloody snippets about Lance Armstrong's vital statistics.

The bloody reverence as he cleans the thing for the 8th time that day when he can't bring himself to give the worktop a cursory wipe with a cloth.

It's a good job he's cute.

Ivykaty44 · 13/06/2009 20:32

legs of iron

pingviner · 13/06/2009 23:06

Heh

I finally got DP to move his bloody bike out from behind the sofa(small flat) today
I have only been asking him since I was 2 months pregnant - DS is almost 8 months now. Thats a lot of time looking at a blinking yellow monstrosity and feeling grr about it when any visitors turn up!

Its in the old coalshed. Apparently because he will pick his new superduperswishy one up this week.

But hes got good legs

SomeGuy · 14/06/2009 00:24

It makes me laugh, you can get a water bottle holder from poundland for £1. It weighs 50 grams. Or you could get one for £30 made of carbon fibre that weighs 20 grams.

Or you could simply put a sip full less water in your bottle and it would have exactly the same effect. Or even go for a pee before you go out.

Waste of money.

Altagloria · 14/06/2009 00:57

God when I saw the thread title I thought your DH must be this guy

What a relief.

QuintessentialShadow · 14/06/2009 01:07

Yes.
Mine. the op on this thread should confirm that my dh is as bike mad as yours.

ShowOfHands · 14/06/2009 08:01

I wondered when QS would turn up. I don't need to click on that link, I know what it is. I think of it every time I see a tent shop. I showed it to dh once to illustrate the madness of men and bikes. MrQS is now dh's hero, "he's like a God", I believe he enthused. There. Is. No. Hope.

lljkk · 14/06/2009 08:15

Gosh, I'm the other way around from you lot. DH used to be into cycling, but hasn't made time for it since we had a family.
He does make time to work at home all hours, staying up late to do so. He is pretty good around the house, could be better, but could be so much worse.
Still, I would rather he had an interest of his own outside of family/work. It would do him no end of good.

oliverboliverbutt · 14/06/2009 08:17

I'm laughing at this!
My DH is one of those vintage bike nuts and spends hundreds of hours trolling ebay to find that elusive BOLT or chainset that cost a mortgage payment!
My loft is filled with tires and stems and peddles and and and .....
I had to draw the line when he wanted to hang one of his restored bikes on our dining room wall!

ShowOfHands · 14/06/2009 08:23

oliver, I wish I'd drawn that line...

pingviner, our coalshed contains 4 bikes. No coal.

ShowOfHands · 14/06/2009 08:25

Last time dh bought a new bike (read a new frame to which he added a zillion boring bits, chronicling them to me in great detail), I was cross until he explained that clearly it was a winter training bike and his other bikes were summer bikes, one race, one time trial. I asked why his winter bike wasn't wearing a coat. I was ignored for several hours for being a sarcastic and uninterested wife.

nevergoogledragonbutter · 14/06/2009 08:48

Hello.
Another roadbiking wag here.
Last year we had a support group for during the tour in july.

As i see it, if the kids are in bed, he's not shirking any duties.
And as long as it's not every evening he goes out, i think it's fine.
It probably was just good weather for a night ride, and they don't come along often enough really.

...but then i know DH will be miserable company if he hasn't had his exercise.

You'll be fine.
You're in good company here.

NorbertDentressangle · 14/06/2009 10:02

I see we have a few more members that have joined today.

SomeGuy -you've summed up the weight obsession thing perfectly with your post.

DP is forever buying lighter parts for his bike but, as he does off-road mountain biking, he carries around half a bloody field of mud with him when its wet so what does an extra few grams less on some random bike part matter?

NorbertDentressangle · 14/06/2009 10:02

I see we have a few more members that have joined today.

SomeGuy -you've summed up the weight obsession thing perfectly with your post.

monkeyfeathers · 14/06/2009 11:03

My DP can't ride his bike atm because he fell off it about 2 months ago and really messed up his foot (and then made it worse by continuing to ride until the doctor vetoed it). Thing is, he gets much more frustrated, and much more easily, now that he can't ride. So, I'm really looking forward to him being able to ride again.

Also, it now means that he can't take our 9 year old DS out for long rides at the weekend (which they insist on calling 'adventures'). They'd go out and come back really happy (and DS would be tired too, which is always a bonus) and I'd get to do what I wanted for a couple of hours. It was a win-win situation really.

Having said that, DP never spends any money on his bike because he doesn't like spending money on anything unless he can help it. It cost a fortune when he got it but, other than ordinary maintenance, he's happy enough with what he's got.

QuintessentialShadow · 14/06/2009 12:03

Dhs real passion is offroading. He wanted to offroad across a large island south of where we are now, and invited a mate from London up. So, his mate flew in at 14.00, boat booked for 16.00. In those two hours we had to pick mate up from the airport, drop him off at a sports shop so he could buy a new Gore Tex jacket, assemble his bike, repack his kit, and get them on the boat with everything planned, and a lunchpack.

All well so far. As luck would have it, I was enjoying a game of "I give you my ordnance survey co-ordinates, and you plot where I am" game with a lovely mumsnetter (havent seen her around in a while) when dh called, and said. "Look, I forgot my map, but I have my gps, can you give me the co-ordinates to the path which starts across the bridge from E456-ish cutting across the island? I cant find it, it is pitch dark here." Oookkkkei. I text him the co-ordinates and go to bed. I ring him next morning and ask him how he is getting on. "oh, the gps is without batteries, but thanks for asking, we will do without a path...."

So, no tent (this time) as they were packing lightly. They were sleeping on their mats, with no tent, in September, with the first snow in the mountains. They had an exciting few days. They even ventured into bear territory.

OmicronPersei8 · 14/06/2009 12:19

May I join you all? I live with 4 bikes in our flat, my DH thankfully does most of his cycling as commuting but we do get the day-long absences for cycle rides some weekends, plus where does he get the money to buy so many bits for his bloody bikes? It feels like we get parcels for him several times a week, it's always something for the bike (or gel bars, or a new spanner). And the cycling magazines. And track night once a week.

I can't even ride a bike.

OmicronPersei8 · 14/06/2009 12:20

I can't complain about what it's done for him physically though!

ShowOfHands · 14/06/2009 13:47

Yes, there are perks.

DH is a triathlete actually so the bike's just a third of the madness. I do confess to liking the running part though. Am training for a 10k. My exercise is free though.

Those bloody gel bars Omicron. They're foul, utterly foul. And cluttering up my fridge.

nevergoogledragonbutter · 14/06/2009 15:15

DS1(4) is getting the bug too.
He was riding his bike (with stabilisers) when he adopted the racing bars position (elbows in, hands forward on the bars), only he didn't actually have trial bars and couldn't steer and fell off. (yes, even with stabilisers).

He also has mastered the winning arms in the air thing and picked up a nifty manoeuvre watching the uk series in exeter the other week.

very sweet.

curiositykilled · 14/06/2009 18:32

Just showed my DH the article about the man having sex with his bike and he immediately exclaimed "his own bike?!" with a worried face. I said "does it matter?!" He responded with a quivering voice "well, I wouldn't want someone having sex with my bike!"

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