Double Your Fun

By the time Johnson, 41, and Schneider, 42, discovered kayaking, they already had ruled out cycling as a mutually enjoyable sport.

While Schneider likes to go for a casual ride now and again, Johnson teaches cycling classes and races bikes with a local team. They found their approaches incompatible.

When paddling, though, their levels are matched, so "things are equaled out," said Johnson.

Rick and Lynn Buehler of Arnold, whose fleet of eight kayaks includes two two-person boats -- including one they built themselves -- say the sport provides a great way to get outdoors with their three kids.

Kayaking is well-suited to paddlers of mismatched abilities. Kayakers use a paddle with a blade at each end and push water on each side of the boat with each complete stroke. That helps propel the boat straight ahead -- regardless of the strength of the person stroking -- rather than pull it to one side or, worse yet, in circles.

As the Buehler kids have gotten older, however, they have begun to gravitate away from the tandem, preferring single-seaters. That's a welcome change, according to Lynn Buehler.

"Let them pull their own weight," she said.

Together, Naturally

Rock climbing, generally done in pairs, is a natural choice for some couples who want to sweat together but are turned off by competitive sports like golf and tennis.

Brian Quinlan, a banker, and his wife, Lillian Chao-Quinlan, a corporate trainer, found their athletic niche five years ago. The Fairfax couple takes turns holding the safety rope, feeding out slack for the other as they make their way to the top of vertical rock walls sometimes hundreds of feet high. It's a dance they've perfected both in local climbing gyms and on cliffs in West Virginia's New River Gorge, California's Yosemite National Park and elsewhere.

Though both were athletic, they tended to be out of sync in other sports they tried together. But true to the experience of many climbing couples, they found that what Chao-Quinlan -- like many women -- lacked in innate strength compared with a man, she more than compensates for in agility and balance. Today she is ranked as one of the top sport climbers in the country.

"Climbing is the only sport I know where men and women are so compatible," Quinlan said.

It also helps that they respect one another's ability.

"You have to have a special rapport and confidence in your partner when there's a 99 percent chance that you're going to fall and you're going to rely on your partner to catch you," said Quinlan.

But climbing is not just about the adrenaline rush. Figuring a route to the top of a sheer wall of rock presents analytic challenges that lawyer Victoria Williams, 25, said she enjoys addressing with her boyfriend of seven years, Matt Marion, 24, a medical student.