Tandem Questions-Mimi, Veronica??

[emily_in_nc]

My DH and I had kind of a different experience with tandems than a lot of others. We have had three tandems over the course of our cycling career. The first, a 26" wheeled Santana Vision (steel), was our "starter tandem". We had it for three years and had a LOT of fun on it, and I even did my first-ever century on it. I was a very weak cyclist at the time, and DH was a very strong one, so it was literally the only way we could ride together. It was normally a joy to ride, and I could get by with my weaker skills since DH could do more of the work. He did find it to be more tiring to ride, though, both because he was doing more of the work than on his single, and because it required a lot of upper-body strength to pilot. The bike was a little on the large size for both of us (a "medium" frame), so we finally traded it in on....

...A 10' Ryan Duplex Recumbent with underseat steering. A blast to ride, but heavy b/c it was so long. It was steel and had S&S couplers. It was a very comfy bike, and we enjoyed it greatly but finally traded it in because we couldn't do u-turns in it, it was SLOW as mud uphill, and we wanted to ride with a bike club. We could FLY downhill but got left behind on every climb, so it wasn't a good "social" bike, and no way to carry much luggage on it either.

A few years ago, when we were both riding single upright bikes again (after a brief stint with single recumbents, which had most of the same issues as the Ryan), we were having the same problems as Triskeliongirl and her DH. I was a fairly decent rider by this point, but my DH was an excellent, faster rider. So riding together was fairly frustrating, and I too sometimes ended up in tears on a ride since I was having to work so hard to keep up at a pace that was "easy" for him. So, we bought a top of the line (at that time), very light, Santana Team AL tandem. We really thought that this bike would be the answer to our riding-together issues.

It was a flop.

By then, I was so used to riding my single and making all the decisions about gears, cadence, slowing down, speeding up, when to stop, etc., that I couldn't handle not being able to see the road in front of me - even though I trusted my DH's piloting abilities completely. It just drove me batty not to be able to see the terrain coming up. And DH was so used to riding his single bike that he'd sometimes forget to call out climbs, descents, and sometimes even turns and slowing. He tried, but he had forgotten how to be a good captain, and I was no longer a good stoker at all (control freak me). DH also really noticed having to bear my weight in his shoulders this time around, maybe because he was older than before. He said his neck and shoulders always bothered him after a tandem ride, so he didn't have nearly as much fun as on his single.

All that said, we did have a few rides when everything was clicking, and we could FLY on that thing -- we even beat some fast men in the club uphill on one memorable ride. Our average speed on it was typically faster than even my DH could do alone, since we had two engines on a light bike (under 30 lbs). But most of the time, we just weren't having that much fun.

The final straw was a slow-speed fall we took in a very, very rare moment when DH misjudged a crack in the road, and all I could do was fall with him in slow-mo. It was a minor incident and our only crash on the bike, but it was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. When we got home that night, we decided to sell the tandem, and we never regretted doing so. We just weren't cut out to be tandem riders - at least any more. I am way too much of a control freak now!

As for touring with one, I know that some couples enjoy it, but thinking of the places we stayed on our loaded NY tour in 2004, some of the hotel/inn rooms would have been more of a challenge to get a tandem into (plus the elevator and stairs we had to go up with our bikes). Another alternative is for you to ride your go-fast bike and have your DH ride a touring bike and carry all the gear. You'd certainly keep up with him then!

Not to be a wet blanket, but a tandem is a big expense, so I just wanted to give the other side of the story. But there is no way to know if you'll like it or not without trying it. Even without your custom crankset, it's possible that you could get some feel for that taking even a short ride.

Emily

[mimitabby]

Emily,
I hear you on the expense!
My husband has grown by leaps and bounds bike wise and he says a lot of it is because captaining the tandem has made him a much stronger rider.

So not everyone has problems because they're captaining.

[singletrackmind]

We've only had tandems for a couple of years now. The first is a trek doubletrack we got on ebay that is too small for me in the back. I don't care what they say, fit matters back there too! It's steel and I can feel it flex as we ride. The hubby says the flex doesn't bother him at all. He's currently using it to tandem with his daughter who loves it....and does not like biking on a single at all. It's not a bad bike, especially for the price.

My tandem is a 2006 aluminum cannondale mtb found on sale, bought for my son and myself, or sometimes the hubby and I with the kiddo in the trailer. I fit both front and back (yay!) and we do singletrack and road riding with it. I like its stiffness and feel, the hubby says "too stiff!". My son LOVES it. The handlebars are hugely wide, but that can be fixed if I ever get around to it.

Being a typical first born I was surprised to find I don't mind my husband as captain at all. Our cadence is a compromise between his fast and my slow one, as long as we communicate it works well. Ha ha, talk about communication....he's STUCK there, listening to me blah blah blah (drink) blah blah blah. No matter how fast he goes he can't get away...

My son as stoker is great too. I love to be able to hear his stories, songs, questions, comments.

Neither of our bikes are as fast as some of the nicer road tandems, but they work pretty good for us (and I can mountain bike again!).

Da Vinci is the tandem maker with independent drive (one can coast while the other pedals). You still have the same cadence when pedaling, though. They also, like others, offer coupled bikes.

There's used tandems all over. It's finding the one you want with the features you need that's the tricky part. A lot of research helps.

[Veronica]

We have a Santana Arriva with S&S couplers. It's aluminium. We loved it when we first got it. We took it to Hawaii and did a circumnavigation. But it really doesn't fit either of us very well. We'll be selling it. The new tandem is coming, hopefully the end of August.

V.

[emily_in_nc]

Just to add a bit about frame materials to my postings....

Our steel tandems were great, no issues at all.

When we were looking for a go-fast, light tandem, we test rode a Calfee carbon that we thought we would love (scared we would love was more like it, because of the high dollars!), but we hated it. It was very squirrely and noodly, just not stiff enough at all, and we were a light team (DH around 160 and I around 115 at that time, we're both lighter now!) We test rode some steel Santanas, and they were fine, but when we test rode the Team AL (aluminum Santana, and the lightest bike they made at the time), we LOVED the stiffness. I don't like aluminum on a single bike, but on a tandem, it felt very reassuring not to feel any flex at all -- all the power we delivered to the pedals was transferred to the bike. I had a suspension seatpost, so any discomfort was eliminated that way.

So, materials you love in a single (like, say, carbon), may not be as desirable on a tandem, and vice versa. The longer the bike, the stiffer it needs to be, in my opinion.

Emily

[Triskeliongirl]

We have a Santana Arriva with S&S couplers. It's aluminium. We loved it when we first got it. We took it to Hawaii and did a circumnavigation. But it really doesn't fit either of us very well. We'll be selling it. The new tandem is coming, hopefully the end of August.

V.

I didn't know you could build an aluminum bike with s/s couplers. If you are going to be selling it, please PM me the size specs.