I’ve also lot my joy of riding outside. Here in LA between the already car-centric nature of the city, the number of delivery trucks and vans for UPS, FEDEX, Amazon, DHL have seemed to quadruple. They often take up what little space there already is in the bike share lanes when they pull over to make a delivery, meaning I have to ride in the flow of traffic. In LA, that could mean where cars are doing 50-60mph between intersections. Family commitments has also meant going out for a 40+ mile ride that might take a few hours are off the table. Thanks goodness for indoor training, gravel events, and gran fondos with closed roads.
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I live in Bangkok, having a 23km loop with no cars where you can do fast group rides is a godsend. I do that in weekends and a bit more around holiday time during the week in cool season.
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I can totally understand how the riding environment in LA would suck some of the enjoyment out of it these days. So much traffic and delivery vehicles taking up the bike lanes now makes it feel unsafe.
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Can you just do a hard cycle on 5he sand? 
I have a revolutionary idea instead on anxiously having to wait at home for your item and having dozens of trucks deliver your thing, let’s create a central place where you can go when you need something…
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I’m a on it
I can’t say I’ve ever felt like that, because I hate riding a trainer. But I have been blessed with some good places to ride. TLDR: I like the familiarity of the same routes. It’s like an old friend. I hope some of this helps.
About 20 years ago I had one training route (which I had a crack at again recently). Admittedly I was doing all my training wrong: Covering the same distance over & over, hoping each time to do it faster, basically just rolling tempo the whole time unless I was coasting to lights or jamming it away from them.
Then, until a couple of months ago, I had
- an out-&-back route that totalled 50km of riding with a kicker at the end to get back to my house, & I did it for “almost” 2h of Z2;
- another 7.5km stretch of road I could do plenty of laps on for Z2 as well, had gentle rises but nothing requiring jamming on the pedals;
(sometimes I used to link those two together) - my go-to was the hill that I lived on that I frequently used for threshold, or even short sweetspot intervals such as this effort doing Antelope +5.
- & of course the local “velodrome” which undulates a bit, but
it’s closed to traffic, & was perfect for 20-minute FTP tests, intervals of any duration, & 30-15s. (I even went there one night I had insomnia & got about 7 pretty solid Z2 hours round & round this 440m track.)
I think most of my strava followers thought I was a bit mad (they frequently told me I was 
) because of all my hill repeats & velodrome antics, but the result of covering the same paths is it gave me a sense of familiarity in the moment, maybe could even call it connection to the area. The aftertaste is a positive feeling of nostalgia.
But I can understand if you’re getting gassed out by exhausts from motor vehicles & abused by their drivers frequently it could really sour things.
I have been this faster partner too. I wanted to sit on 30kph on the fixie & she wanted to loaf along at 10kph on the cruiser. Neither of us was training, so I was able to just write these rides off as slow rides, enjoying the scenery.
What if the two of you schedule your training weeks so that when she does her endurance ride, you can go with her on an active recovery ride?
Could this be used for VO2 max intervals up to five minutes? If you’re having trouble following power outside, you could ignore the “max aerobic power” objective, & train max oxygen uptake. Coach Kurt Braeckel has contributed some good insight on this thread & this also.
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