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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:

darcysotherhalf · 14/06/2009 19:50

definitely the weather i think. dh ebays bikes every night looking for the perfect one. i doubt he'd use it though.

NorbertDentressangle · 14/06/2009 20:09

lol you'll never guess what DPs doing right now? -he's taken the bathroom scales out to the workshop to weigh his bike.

He's spent a small fortune on trying to make it lighter. If I'd thought about it (and been a bit meaner) I should have somehow added extra weight to it (strapped some lead weights to it or something )

Anifrangapani · 14/06/2009 21:02

Norbert are you going to Mayhem then?

The weight thing .....

we hava compromise - if they bikes are in the house then they must be clean and I am allowed to hang washing all over them

everlong · 14/06/2009 21:04

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

OmicronPersei8 · 14/06/2009 21:40

Showofhands - DH once bought a box of gel bars, DD emptied them on the floor. Have you ever trodden on one? They explode and cover everything with goop. We still have somethings with sticky residue.

Original poster

Cucci · 14/06/2009 22:27

So interesting all of your posts....I have to admit this is all a love-hate thing to me. I would would much rather he indulge himself in his bikes than in binge drinking in the pub. I just wish he fancied me as much as he did his 2 wheeled friends in the garage. He has just recently upgraded following a "break" which I am convinced was staged and since then is spending extra quality time tinkering and faffing about.

One answer would be to cycle together but I would be so frustrating for him, he has very high expectations of his cycling chums - comes with the territory - am I right in thinking most keen cyclists are very anal????

OP posts:

QuintessentialShadow · 15/06/2009 08:45

Mine is not anal.

We cycle as a family, regularly. Usually up forest paths, etc, so we drive to where we start cycling. Then I drive home, while dh gets a good workout, arriving at some point after me. Knackered and happy.

NorbertDentressangle · 15/06/2009 16:09

Anifrangapani -yes Mayhem it is - well for DP anyway. Are you going?/Have you been there before?

I'll probably take the DC on either Sat or Sun for a while as its only just down the road from us.

DP did suggest we go and camp with them (his team/friends)..er...I don't think so. They'll obviously be coming and going from the camp all night as they do their stint cycling, then comparing stories of the rides, fixing bits of bike, talking about bikes etc etc. I think I prefer the idea of a laptop/tv/bed/bottle of wine to myself for the weekend

screamingabdab · 15/06/2009 16:28

My DH is lovely and considerate, but yes, he does love cycling.

He is doing Lands End to John O'Groats later in the year -10 days away (I fear for our sex life afterwards .....)

screamingabdab · 15/06/2009 16:31

Forgot to say 2 things :

He has developed lovely muscly thighs as a result
The bikes in the hallway drive me MENTAL

ChoChoSan · 15/06/2009 16:47

I can relate to most of you here...tho' no kids yet.

Our dining room is given over to 5 bikes (one of mine, admittedly). There is another one outside, and one on its way via the cycle to work scheme. We did have a '1 in;1 out" policy, but not sure what's happened to that;

Pros: keeps him healthy, happy and de-stressed; cheaper and more eco-friendly than a car; happy to cycle anywhere to pick things up for me; when we have kids he can take them for days out (me..telly...wine...you get the drift)

Cons: No dining room without big clear out; it's an extremely boring topic of conversation; worry about him having an accident.

NorbertDentressangle · 15/06/2009 16:50

How on earth do those of you with bikes in the house cope? It would drive me insane.

Luckily DP has the garage and workshop to store and work on his bikes. If they had been in the house I think I would've put him the bikes on ebay or something

oliverboliverbutt · 15/06/2009 16:57

do any of you have the obsessive vintage bike restoring DH? It seems like most of your partners are into the lightweight modern bikes.
My husband thinks your husband has no taste! LOL!
Seriously, he gets really offended by modern bikes.
He is very much into how they look and spends so much time perfecting these things.
I have to admit, they are beautiful, and I shouldn't complain, he could be spending all his £ at the pub.
But sometimes.... I just don't give a toss about these rare 1940's cranks he's found and he knows he said he wouldn't buy anything else, but they NEVER come up.....

ChoChoSan · 15/06/2009 16:59

Fortunately we have a big house, and a big kitchen diner where we usually eat/hang out, so I can close my mind to the cycle infestation most of the time, and just go mental whenever we have a dinner party scheduled. It also means that we have never really bothered with nice pictures/lighting/furnishings in the dining room, so dinner parties are usually conducted in very low candlelight, so as not to ruin the mood (and to disguise the ever present rubbery smell!)

screamingabdab · 15/06/2009 17:17

Norbert - we had a wooden shed in the front garden, but his bike got stolen from it. Now he won't hear of us getting a more secure shed - mind you the metal ones cost around £400.

The alternative is wheeling it through the house to the back garden, but then there would be dirt and oily scuffs on the walls...

2rebecca · 15/06/2009 17:24

We usually just have 1 bike in the house. If husband is commuting by bike then it makes sense to just wheel the bike out in the morning and he can check tyre pressures etc the night before. I'm not an obsessive houseproud person so bikes in the hallway don't bother me. I just view the hallway bike as a piece of furniture.
I'd hate to have a husband without a hobby.

screamingabdab · 15/06/2009 17:33

Yes, we use it as an extra peg to hang coats on now .....

BikeRunSki · 15/06/2009 17:46

DH and I met through cycling.
Before DS came along, Saturday was road biking day, Sunday was mountain biking day - more or less. Holidays always included bikes or skiing. The fantasy holiday that would involve both, in Whistler, was scupered by hyperemisis. Most of our spare money went on bikes. We moved house to get a garage to house the bikes - all 8 of them (3 of them mine, and yes two of those cost £100s and £100s). We have a garages full of mountain bikes, road racing bikes, road touring bikes and cyclo cross bike. Sold the track bike to buy a Phil and Teds!

However, since DS came along last year, DH is still playing with/riding/fettling/racing his bikes. Mine sit woefully in the garage and have a very occassional dust down. It makes me very sad.

As far as DH is concerned, DS will be the first British man to win the Tour de France.

I don't really begrudge DH the time with his bikes, because cycling and mountain biking is all he does, and all he has ever really done.

I did resent that he went and did the coast to coast ride last bank holiday weekend!
And I have now remenbered that Wednesday night is time trial night, so not to expect to see him on a summer Wednesday.

We took DS off road his bike trailer yesterday and he was fine, so things may be looking up for my bikes.

screamingabdab · 15/06/2009 17:49

I am very proud of DH. Starting from cycling to work, he has built up to this Lands End/John O'Groats thing

NorbertDentressangle · 15/06/2009 17:56

I guess part of my problem with having bikes throughout the house is that I was a student in Oxford (and lived in many shared houses there afterwards)so have had more than my share of clambering over bikes to get to the front door!

Tillyscoutsmum · 15/06/2009 18:12

Hello fellow cycling WAGS

DH is a keen road cyclist and mountain biker.

Everlong - DH has also come back from Dumfries recently. He has his annual boys cycling "weekend" (which invariably lasts at least 5 days )

I have no problems with his hobby - there could be much more unsavoury pass times - what I object to is him thinking I should be interested as well. He too can wax lyrical about his various bits and bobs (carbon fiber blah blah blah) ad infinitum. We are up to 5 bikes... and counting. He tried to kid me that the last one was because none of his others were suitable for having the child seat on the back to take dd out

AND - is anyone else cursing the return of Lance Armstrong ?! I normally have to endure the TDF, the giro and vuelta and may be the odd spring classic but this year every bloody tour known to man has been televised. I thought I actually might die of boredom during the Tour of Qatar

OP - I can understand you being pissed off in the circumstances but agree with the others that your dh obviously saw it as a stress release. DH gets very tetchy if he can't get out on his bike

BikeRunSki · 15/06/2009 20:22

A few years ago I was helping FIL clear out his garage. As he was gleefully dumping all DH's -knackered- -tatt- supreme cycling components into the back of our car he said "At least it wasn't drugs. But I would have been able to use my garage for the last 15 years".

'Tis true. There are a lot worse (and more £££) hobbies to have. And because he is usually out riding/biking/racing on Sundays he virtually doesn't drink.

Haylstones · 15/06/2009 20:39

My dh is just like this. If he isn't swimming he's cycling EVERY day. Sometimes I sit watching TV thinking how nice it'll be to spend an evening with him only to see him wander past the patio doors in head to toe lycra... not to mention hearing those bloody cleats clip clopping across the wood floor/ patio slabs.

All the faffing... I have the child trailer on my bike and can barely pull it along because it can't possibly go on one of his super duper expensive bikes-he's also been known to take bits off of mine when his breaks (water bottles etc)

However, it does get him out of my hair and it is a fab way for him to unwind a bit. It's also great when he goes on really long rides, stopping halfway at a lovely coutry pub where we drive to and he buys us lunch

Haylstones · 15/06/2009 20:42

Ooh, and has anybody else ever been phoned from a roadside because something really dreadful has happened to a bike and dh can't get home on it, thus meaning you have to drive for miles along remote lanes trying to find a lone cyclist at the side of the road?!

iMum · 15/06/2009 20:50

Another here! although I have DS1 into cycling as well! every weekend we trundle uptp hog hill fpr his youth training then once home, dh goes out for a an epic ride, still I dont mind at all.

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