Commuting on a tandem?

[indigoiis]

I commute by tandem with my son, taking him to school and then going on to work. After work I pick him up from school and we go on home. As long as I don't try to stand in the pedals it's not too much different (he's 38#).

Surprisingly nobody's yet joked about my "lost" stoker!
Last time he insisted on tying Stinky Baby (a baby doll) onto the top of the BOB trailer bag we kept getting stopped by people who wanted to make sure it wasn't real.

My husband's Trek Doubletrack was from Ebay for $500 and I've since seen another of the same on Craigslist for $300. Just make sure you get the right size or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

I have been considering doing this with my 15 year old daughter. But I have a dumb question - can I ride the tandem by myself after dropping her at her drop point?

[Eden]

I have been considering doing this with my 15 year old daughter. But I have a dumb question - can I ride the tandem by myself after dropping her at her drop point?

I have seen people ride a tandem solo, so it is physically possible - though I'm not sure how stable this is, how difficult it is (they are heavy compared to a single bike...) and how far you would want to go....

[Grog]

I have been considering doing this with my 15 year old daughter. But I have a dumb question - can I ride the tandem by myself after dropping her at her drop point?

A guy I know often rides a tandem by himself for hundreds of kilometers after dropping his daughters to summer camp or something. Actually, it's a "tri-dem": a tandem with a trailer bike at the back.

He's a pretty strong rider, and an experienced one. But I'm sure that if it's not a very long distance, and not too hilly, you'll be fine..

[indigoiis]

Speaking of hills, how are they on hills? I've got nothing but hills.
The reason I thought tandum is I am not sure she can handle the hills on her own... although I probably underestimate her strength.

But then, she's fifteen... so she's got that whole slacker "it's too haaaaard" thing going these days...

[Blueberry]

They're fast downhill and slow uphill. You can spin, but they're generally slower going up than a single. But, it will (at least somewhat) balance out your cycling abilities. I guess it depends on how steep your hills are...

CA

[singletrackmind]

I have been considering doing this with my 15 year old daughter. But I have a dumb question - can I ride the tandem by myself after dropping her at her drop point?

My son's a lot smaller so it doesn't feel a whole lot different unless I stand up, then it's squirrelly. He rarely helps so pedaling the 45# bike feels about the same. My husband notices a bigger difference with vs. without his 13 year old daughter but so long as he stays in the saddle it's not too bad.

[jsdilks]

I'm going to reference my DH's response to a query on another TE thread that is going about our "mini-tour" It's over in Touring and titled Our First Tour - Sort of. There have been questions about the panniers and such, but he's got a good response about how the tandem handles and that kind of thing. I wanted to speak up again about being bikers not only of different heights, but different abilities. As I've said before, I'm not a strong biker, but rather a happy toodler. Communication is really key when you're on a tandem. He lets me know when anything is going to occur, because I can't see to anticipate things - bumps, hills, turns, slowing down, gear shifts - any of it. It's all communicated back to me. We're close enough that I can hear him fine - in all but the windiest weather. And I communicate back to him - if I'm going to poop out on him, he deserves to know ahead of time that he's going to have to pull us up the hill and that my feet are really only virtual reality. And I will second the point that the bike is heavy and slow to get going. But it really zooms on the flats once we get going. We've long since reached the point where we've "used all the gears we have" (I'll pretend I know what that really means) and we may decide to upgrade the bike so that we can do more with the same or less effort. (*that* part I got...) Anyway - enough rambling. Oh - one more thing. There is a tandem forum if you want to read - they are VERY helpful and supportive about ALL things Tandem (for newbies looking to folks looking to upgrade crankshafts and other fancy things) www.bikeforums.net (One of the categories is Tandem Cycling)

[malkin]

Be careful over there at the bikeforums tandem board! There are a bunch of nice folks, but look out for swarms of sharks!

Maybe we need our own tandem place at TE.

We struggled on hills on the tandem, until the captain read about hill climbing here on TE. Start spinning at the bottom and keep spinning. I'm not sure what he was thinking before, but now that he's thinking 'spin' everything is better.

[malkin]

As for riding the tandem without a stoker, of course it's long, heavy, and awkward, but the biggest thing is to be aware that the rear brake is mostly useless, because there's not much weight back there.