There is no “I” in “Tandem” — Mrs. Kong
My wife and I have been riding bikes together since we first started dating. We had to sell her road bike a few years ago when she started having problems with her back. I got her a “comfort” bike, which eased her back problems but has one major drawback. She just can’t keep up with me. I’m no Greg Lemond, mind you, but I average around 15 mph and she’s doing maybe 12. So either I don’t get a good workout or she’s killing herself trying to keep up.
We were bit by the tandem bug while riding rented bikes in San Francisco. We were struggling up a steep climb when we were handily passed by a couple on a tandem. At this point my poor wife was walking her bike up the hill and I think that’s when she had the epiphany.
A tandem would certainly solve the speed difference. If she’s attached to me, she’s keeping up by definition. We’d seen plenty of couples on them and thought it looked fun. Might be worth renting one to try it out.
We found a bike shop in another town that had a tandem for rent. It was a low-end model, based on mountain-bike components. Most bike shops are very helpful, this one was the exception. They handed us the bike and sent us on our way. Since neither one of us had ever been on a tandem, it was truly the blind leading the blind.
The learning curve was steep to say the least. Somehow we figured it out and did a 20 mile ride on the thing. Despite clunky shifting, iffy brakes and a shock absorbing rear seatpost that had Mrs. Kong bouncing up and down uncomfortably. We came away with the idea that we liked the idea of a tandem but we definitely didn’t like that bike.
Time to do some research.
A good tandem is harder to build than a single frame. The forces on it are much higher and the frame needs to be sized to fit two riders of potentially different sizes.
Entry-level tandems, usually made in Taiwan, run in the $1,500-$2,000 range. Then there’s a big jump in price to the handmade US-built bikes that start around $4,000 and go up from there. If you want something like carbon fiber or titanium you're into decent-used-car priced range.
There’s not a lot of middle ground, at least for new bikes. Our second test ride was at one of our local bike shops. This was a low-end road tandem, a cut above the cheapo one we’d tried the first time. The shop owner also gave us a few tips on how to actually ride one.
The second ride went a lot better than the first one. There is definitely a learning curve here. We still weren’t impressed with the bike, however. If I’m going to spend that kind of money I have to love it, and we were pretty “meh” about the thing.
I figured I might get more bang for the buck with a used bike.
The problem with a used tandem is two-fold. It has to fit both riders, and it should preferably be nearby because a lot of sellers won’t ship something that big. You’ll see a lot of ads with “local pickup only”.
As luck would have it, we ran into a nice couple out on the bike path one day. They were riding recumbent trikes, which is another thing we were interested in. When we mentioned we were thinking about a tandem their eyes lit up. They had a really nice one that they’d put a mere 400 miles on before deciding it just wasn’t for them.
We arranged to meet up for a test ride later that week. I brought my little "rental bike bag” with me: spare tube, inflator, tire tools, just in case.
We took off down the bike path and very quickly fell in love with this bike. This was a high-end bike, hand-made in Oregon and it had all the good stuff on it. These folks had not skimped when it came to components.
I’m used to riding Campy (Campagnolo) but this bike had Ultegra (high-end Shimano) components and it seemed to work well enough. Purists may scoff but it’s a derailleur, not a religion.
We really liked the frame geometry on this one. It was designed so that you could switch between an adult or a child stoker. We found the low stand-over height made it a lot easier to get on and off and handle the bike at a stop. There were a few things we’d need to tweak, but overall it was a great bike. Nice looking, fast, comfortable aaaaaaaand it had a flat rear tire 3 miles into the ride. Doh!
Oh well, good thing I brought tools. Never having changed a tire on a tandem, or a bike with disc brakes, we managed to figure it out. Drenched in sweat and deciding not to press our luck we headed back.
The seller seemed motivated (I think they’d had it on the market for a long time). I decided to skip the haggling and get right to the point.
“Nice bike. What’ll you take for it?”
“$2700 (He’d bought it new for $4,400)”
“Dude, I’m stealing it for $2,700. I’ll get my checkbook.”
That was it. Proud owners of a tandem.
I quickly learned that riding a tandem is a bit of a lifestyle choice. First off, they’re big. At 7-8 feet in length, it takes a bit of room to store one. They’re also not light, unless you spent big bucks for exotic materials, in which case you should probably be writing this and not me. I figure the bike weighs around 40 pounds.
Then there’s the issue of transporting it. Even with both wheels off, it’s too big to fit in the “Barbie Fun-wagon” as I call my wife’s A4. I tried it on the trunk rack a few times and it was nerve-wracking. With a couple feet of bike sticking out on either side I was paranoid about scraping it off in a construction zone.
I started looking at roof racks. There are two main brands, I’ll call them “Brand T” and “Brand Y”. Either one would have set me back $450-$500 and then I’d have to buy the tandem carrier on top of that. Ouch! I guess this plan wasn’t very well thought out.
I started searching for a used set but no luck. My searches did turn up a company in the UK that made a set for $150 and they sure looked exactly like the ones the other guys sell. I don’t know if they’re as good but they seem to work well enough for my purpose.
Airline pilots are notoriously cheap, by the way. Copper wire is made from two of us fighting over a penny.
“Brand T” and “Brand Y” also make tandem carriers but I found a company in Boulder, Colorado that made one I liked better. Looks a bit like a launch-rail for a missile. The bike’s front fork secures to a pivot on the front of the carrier, so that one person can swing the bike up onto the roof. Looks weird but it works. I had to remove the front rack from the bike since it interfered with the bike carrier. I wasn’t planning on putting panniers on the front anyway, but I miss the fender that was attached to it.
Other than a bit of wind noise and a loss of 5 mpg you wouldn’t even know the bike was up there. I found that using bungee cords to keep the pedals streamlined fixed an annoying whistling sound at freeway speeds. Bungee cords, is there nothing they can’t do?
Like any new bike this one took a little tweaking to get it “dialed in” properly.
Mrs. Kong didn’t like the stoker bars on the back and I can’t blame her. They came straight back like the handles on a wheelbarrow. My local bike shop hooked me up with some mountain-bike handlebars that had the rise I needed.
The mountain bike bars were too wide, so I cut 2” off each end with a pipe cutter. I then added a longer stem to bring them back to where she has a comfortable riding position and her back doesn’t hurt. A set of ergonomic grips finished the job. I even moved the bottle cage up under the stem so she wouldn’t have to reach for it.
So what’s it like riding one of these things? It’s different.
First off, to effectively ride a tandem requires a team effort. The person in front is referred to as the “Captain” (I’m finally Captain of something!). Mrs. Kong calls me the “bug blocker”. The GIB (Guy or Gal in Back) is called the “Stoker”.
The hardest part is probably starting out from a dead stop. The Captain has to hold the bike steady while the Stoker gets seated and clipped in. With the two of us and the bike I’m probably balancing 350-400 pounds, which puts us into mid-size motorcycle territory. Yeah, I know your Harley weighs a lot more but your center-of-gravity and seating position are much lower. I’m balancing that on my tip-toes if I’m in the saddle.
I’ve also learned to keep my shins clear of the whirling pedals of pain when she’s clipping in back there. Damn that hurt!
Once she’s all situated I clip in one foot and then call “One two three pedal!”. Once I get the other foot clipped in we’re good to go.
Riding one of these requires constant communication. I’m calling out bumps, she’s calling out potential hazards like cars. Now that we’ve ridden over 400 miles together I think we’ve formed a pretty good team. They say wherever your marriage is headed a tandem will get you there quicker!
It took a few rides to get our cadence sorted out. I tend to spin on the fast side of normal and she likes the slow side of normal. Since our pedals spin in unison, we compromised in the middle.
The standing joke is for someone to yell “She’s not pedaling back there!” but if one of us is pedaling we’re both pedaling. There is exactly one company that makes a tandem with independent coasting and I have yet to actually see one.
The biggest adjustment was having so much power on tap. A tandem has twice the horsepower with roughly the same wind resistance and rolling resistance as a single bike. I keep throwing gears on, she keeps stoking and next thing you know we’re going 28 mph! Damn this thing is fast!
The speeds we’re able to reach are amazing. I could never go this fast on a single bike. This is so much fun! — Mrs. Kong
I’m a pretty middle-of-the-pack rider. On my road bike I cruise between 15-17 mph. On the tandem we can pretty easily cruise at 20-22. It almost feels like cheating.
Obviously it doesn't turn as well as a single bike but we spent some time doing S turns in a parking lot to build some confidence in low speed maneuvers. It definitely feels like I’m handling a lot of bike. I find I have to actively steer the bike more than I would on a single.
Being old fashioned, disc brakes on a road bike seem like a novelty but this bike has them and they seem to work well. I’ve seen older tandems that had a drum brake on the rear hub in addition to the rim brakes for long descents.
I would say communication is definitely the key to riding one of these. We call it CRM (Crew Resource Management) in the airline business.
The stoker needs to be in the loop when you’re turning, shifting, braking or approaching bumps. I find I’m usually focused on the path just in front of us while she’s got the “big picture” from her vantage point.
The big test came when we took the bike up to Ontario back in September. We got on a bike path in Niagara-on-the-Lake and decided to head down to Niagara Falls. We didn’t realize there’s something called the “Niagara Escarpment” that runs down the middle of the peninsula. That would have been a useful bit of information.
Keep in mind that we’re flat-landers from Central Ohio. For us this was a pretty serious climb, fairly steep and much too long to sprint up it. All we could do was gear down and grind our way up.
Halfway up and we’re out of gears, energy and ideas. I was afraid to stop and rest because I didn’t know if we’d be able to get going from a standstill on a hill like that. Nevertheless she persisted and we finally made it to the top, to the cheers of a group of serious road cyclists.
Our second crack at the Niagara Escarpment came a couple days later. We found a bike path that follows the Welland Canal, connecting Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. I figured “canal = flat” but this one is anything but. Once again it was a pretty serious and unexpected climb, but we made it.
I would say that a tandem is either for you or it isn’t. If you’re thinking about getting one I’d suggest taking a few test rides first. It’s a fairly big commitment in terms of money and the logistics of transporting it.
Like any bike, make sure it fits you. Both of you in this case.
I’ve come to the conclusion that comfort is very important with a bike. If the bike hurts you, you’re not going to want to ride it. I don’t think we realized how much her old bike was hurting her back until we got the tandem. Now she loves riding and has easily done 50 mile rides on it.
I would suggest not skimping on wheels. The wheels on a tandem are supporting twice as much weight as on a single bike so there has to be a lot of stress on them. If you’re going to put money somewhere I’d say that’s probably the best place for it.
And remember, we go further if we work together. I think there’s a lesson there somewhere.