First Tour (Sort of)

[jsdilks]

It may not be much of a tour for some of you, but DH and I just took a weekend trip up the W&OD bike trail on the tandem. On Friday afternoon, we did 39 miles up to Leesburg, VA with a little head wind and threat of rain all afternoon. Except for a brief shower when we were already taking a little break, we managed to stay dry. On Saturday we did a little loop up to White's Ferry and a mile or two on the C&O. Then back today. Two nights at the Norris House B&B in Leesburg and some nice dinners out helped out. Some lessons learned, but that's for another time.

[shootingstar]

Pretty soon you'll do another little bike trip...Fall would be a great time with all that leaf colour.

Glad you had a great time.

[Tri Girl]

Congrats! Sounds like it was a successful first tour? I don't think you can say "sort of." If you rode your bike somewhere, stayed the night, and rode back- it's a tour indeed!!! I can't wait to hear more about it!

[madscot13]

Hey that sounds great! Now you have put ideas into my head; I think I might do the same this fall.

[pardes]

Congrats! You both look like you are having fun and having fun having fun together.

[Zen]

I don't much care for the WOD but the Norris House looks pretty nice.
Have you ridden the canal much?

[jsdilks]

The trip was fun, albeit tiring. The last part coming home was a bit of a grind for me too. We tried the C&O a couple of weeks ago with a trip up to Great Falls and learned some valuable lessons. As a person who deals with auto-immune stuff and pain type stuff, the vibrations from the packed gravel ended up not being a good option. So anyway, we had originally planned to go to Leesburg up the C&O and back on the W&OD, but after the trip to Great Falls we altered the plan. We did visit the C&O briefly on the weekend, crossing at White's ferry and we found some beautiful spider webs glinting through the dappled sunshine on the canal - I'd never seen such fascinating things. Total bike time was almost 3 hours going up and 2:45 ish coming back. We move along pretty well on the flats, but can't do hills for, well, a hill of beans. And there are a ton of grade crossings on the W&OD which slow you down too. But the avg coming home was 14 mph - like riding a freight train! Slow to stop and slow to start, but give us some room and we can zoom along.

[Smilie]

Cool pic! Tandems are great fun. Sounds like you had great sites to see.

[Zen]

What an incredible photograph!

Spiders are fascinating creatures, very talented engineers.

[sfa]

Sounds like a nice tour to me! I love the picture of the spider web.

Sarah

[NadiaMac]

how did the tandem feel w/ the panniers? I am trying to get my sweetie to go on a tour (having just completed my first loaded tour on a vacation without him) and he says he'll do it, but only on a tandem. Which presents the issue of carrying a load on the tandem.

[jsdilks]

I ride with those panniers most of the time, so I'm quite used to them. It butts right up to my backside, but I'm sitting upright in my seat, so this too, is not a problem for me. We load down the sides and the center compartment and then bungey my towel to the top. For the mini-tour, we added a front handlebar bag and a middle handlebar bag for tools and first aid kit. The jury is still out on the front bag approach. And we're not quite sure how things will work once the weather starts cooling off and I need to bring more clothes in with me. I'll try and leave a jacket at work, but I have these matching outfits that I may try and bring in too. So I'm not sure. Daily commute includes: DH: shoes, shirt, slacks, socks, underwear, belt, and tie. he keeps a jacket and a towel at work, and does not shower once we get to town; Me: shoes, lingerie, toiletries and makeup, hair dryer, clothes for the day, and a towel. I've bought lots of stretchy fabric clothes that don't wrinkle as much in the panniers. On days I need to be more dressed, I take the Metro in...

[jsdilks]

Shelly's other half here. As far as the handling of the tandem goes with panniers and other loading.... I'm not sure if you are wanting a comparison to a single bike or to an unloaded tandem.

First, a comparison to a single. The first thing to realize is that it is long and the second thing to realize is that it is heavy. So nimble is not a word that you would use to describe the riding experience. The tandem wants to keep going in the direction that it is headed, at the speed at which it is already going. (Newton's 2nd law for any former Physics students out there). On the flats and downhill, it is a real joy to ride, stable and smooth. But uphill, unless both of you are strong riders, you will find that you are slower, perhaps considerably slower, on the tandem than either one of you separately.

Compared to an unloaded tandem - it's just like that, only more so. Heavier, less responsive, and harder to pull up the hills.

If the two of you are mismatched in riding ability I can't imagine a better way to share the experience without one or both of you getting frustrated by the differences in speed. Of course, I just may be spoiled because I have a very sweet-tempered stoker.

jeff