More tandem thoughts

I know I'm being a complete stuck record here but I've been obsessing over our tandem a bit since we decided to get it. If anything, I'm a little less obsessive than I was when we had just got it and I was sprucing it up a reasonable amount. However, I'm still going to blabber on and bore you, as usual.

This time I thought I would share my initial thoughts with 'tandeming' (Tandemming? Is it even a word?) with you 'lucky' people. As with all my posting, I'm absolutely certain you'll find this positively enthralling reading. Here goes...

Being a highly strung type, I was kind of nervous about going on the tandem for the first time. I was fine when I took it out on my own to make sure everything was working (I thought it better to test the brakes etc. with only one person at risk) but was practically hyperventilating when it came to Kirby Girl joining me.

Despite my earlier claims to be a nervous creature, I was surprised by this response but, thankfully, it passed pretty quickly and we set off on our shaky first tandem ride (As covered three posts below). Getting towards the point of this, I have noticed the main problems in tandem riding seem to be from nerves, rather than any physical inadequacies.

It seems a lot easier for the Captain (Person at the front) to acclimatise oneself to tandem riding than the Stoker (Person at the back, as you would have worked out even if you didn't know). I don't know if I could 'stoke' as I'm so pushy and set in my ways. The Stoker has to put complete trust in his or her Captain and try to remain fairly loose and limber at all times. Initially, for anyone used to riding solo, there's a real tendency for the Stoker to attempt to steer and this causes a surprising amount of nuisance for the Captain. Even though the Stoker's bars are only attached to the Captain's seatpost, the action of tugging at them can almost shunt the tandem round. As you can imagine, that's something which needs to be remedied and only more cycling and confidence can fix it. Thankfully we seem to have reduced that considerably. Initially it was a real annoyance but now it's very rare and doesn't play much of a factor at all, even though we've only 'tandemed' five times together. It's good to see such annoyances disappear so quickly into insignificance. I must credit my very patient and considerate Stoker with doing an excellent job in that regard. So-called Captain or no, I'm sure she has felt like shoving me off the tandem more than once before now.

Just to mention, we've noticed motorists continue to be more considerate when we're on the tandem, as opposed to solo bikes. I really don't think this is something we've simply imagined as it seems to continue. Hopefully it'll stay that way. It also makes for a talking point when we're stopping to ask for directions or generally chatting with strangers somewhere. I guess you don't see too many of them around. I can't think of many I've seen around the roads of this country. Maybe four at most in my memory. Well, five including us.


I briefly mentioned about communication a post down. It really is important for the twat at the front Captain to let the poor bullied Stoker know what's going on. I'm a bit useless that way and let Kirby Girl know there was a bump when we have just passed over it rather than forewarning her of them. That's probably not very good and she most likely realises there had been a bump from the pain in her knickers.

Something nice for our Stoker was when we were down along a road at the shore of the nearby lough (aka 'lake') yesterday. It was full of clouds of flies and they all hit the Captain (Climbing round my eyes despite having cycling glasses on) whilst the Stoker pretty much made it out fly free. See, 'stoking' isn't all bad.

I know I'm going off at a tangent a bit here but I'm writing like I think and apologise for doing so. Before we got our tandem people had told me they were great on the flat and downhills but terrible uphill. I don't know if it's because I'm so bad at climbing normally on a solo bike but I think the tandem isn't really too bad. We're not at the point of standing on the pedals yet (Which means we're both sore by the time we get home and don't rest our 'loins' enough) but the gears are low enough for us to eventually grind our way up any hill we've come across so far (Other than the once when it wouldn't go into the 'granny ring' and some man stepped out in front of us, although we've been up that hill since easily enough without pedestrians) and some, whilst short, have been steep wee buggers. I think the lowest gear is 26 at the front and 34 at the back. That's pretty much as low a gear as I could manage. Anything less than that and I don't know if I could spin quickly enough to keep the bike upright. Kirby Girl has helped immensely on the hills too. There are times when I'm completely knackered and her endurance is enough to save me and push over the top of the hill. Phew! That was kind of the point I got off terribly, that you can take it in turns going uphill. One of you can lay off a little and let the other do most of the pushing then change round and it works well. It's surprising how quickly and naturally one gets into doing such things, without verbally having to announce one is going to. It's kind of the same with coasting and pedalling. Initially I was announcing when we were going to pedal and coast but then we decided to try not doing so and it turned out fine. All along we didn't really need to know. Again, I think it was just another nervous/confidence thing we thought we had to do.

Oh, before I go, if you're looking at the way Sheldon Brown recommends getting on and off a tandem on his website, I'm sure it works great and makes a lot of sense for some people but I found it really difficult. We just put our right feet in the pedals, count down '3-2-1 Go!' and set off and that seems to work simply and effectively for us. I don't know how well it would work if our cranks weren't synchronised but they are and, by fortunate coincidence, we both start pretty much identically on solo bikes anyway. I'm in no way saying there's anything wrong with the Sheldon Brown method (It makes a lot of sense and should suit a lot of people very well) just that it was awkward for us and there are other ways to set off safely on a tandem. By all means, try the method Sheldon Brown suggests first (He's working from some considerable experience and knowledge after all) and I hope it works for you but don't forget there are other options to you if it doesn't feel comfortable or natural.

That should cover my enormous rant for the time being. Sorry for boring you.