pedals/clips/clipless 101?

[hipmama]

Off topic, but pinkbikes, do you ever have a hard transition from riding solo to getting on your tandem? I find that the more I'm riding alone now the harder it feels on the tandem with all of that extra weight. It makes me feel like we're doing something wrong, but in reality I assume it's the difference from one on a lightweight to two on a 45 lb bike... might help if I know I'm not alone!

[pinkbikes]

Off topic, but pinkbikes, do you ever have a hard transition from riding solo to getting on your tandem? I find that the more I'm riding alone now the harder it feels on the tandem with all of that extra weight. It makes me feel like we're doing something wrong, but in reality I assume it's the difference from one on a lightweight to two on a 45 lb bike... might help if I know I'm not alone!

Oh good golly yes! I kind of fell into the whole tandem thing because we wanted to cycle tour and our daughter wanted to come too and I got advice from a lady who tours with her kids that it was THE way to go. It certainly was the way to go but I will probably never be a huge devotee of the tandem for a tandem's sake!

With the best intentions and encouragement in the world, 10yo girls are not powerful partners or sensational stokers! I hear people say "Oh tandems - they really get up hills well! Two lots of muscle and one lot of drag!" But I think they are overlooking the fact that little girls do not have a massive power to weight ratio and tandems are not light bikes! Maybe they are weapons when you have two strong blokes on one, but for me they are a slow-moving means to an end!

That is not to say that with a tailwind or down hills we don't really motor sometimes (and she loves it then) but uphill or with a headwind I find it a real slog!

I wear a heart rate monitor when we ride and I find riding the tandem a really good workout. Not sure why, but I do tend to ride in a bit higher gear on the tandem than my roadie, and so I find I burn my legs pretty well when I ride it. Often my legs feel quite dead for a few days afterwards.

When we did our big cycle tour last year our longest day was about 94km (just under 60mi) and we had to do quite a bit of training beforehand. I found my legs were tired all the time! When we came back I used this to my advantage and jumped straight into some hill work on my mtn bike and did a metric century as well on my road bike. I have never felt so strong on a bike in all my life! So the tandem is certainly good power work!

The down side of all that is that it feels like wading through custard when you first get back on it after a while of not riding it! We did a social ride on the weekend before Christmas (a reunion of the people on the bike tour) and dressed the tandem up in tinsel and fairy lights to take it for a ride. The ride was flat but I kept wondering if I'd messed up putting the wheels on and had dragging brakes!! It felt like such hard work after riding the roadie!

We will be starting our preparation for this year's cycle tour soon (we're really bitten by the bug now) and I slightly dread how my legs are going to take it for the first few weeks, but look forward to the strength it will give to my other cycling. Boy is the roadie ever going to feel light and fast then!

So yes - I think it feels like crap to everybody! You are NOT alone! But I will share some advice that the lady who set me on this course in the first place shared with me. I was struggling up some hills on a training ride and she asked if I had tried getting my daughter to stand up and pedal on the hills. Frankly it had never crossed my mind! Now she has a 13yo boy behind her, so I expect she gets a bit more of a push along, but I can assure you it is well worth it on those big sucker hills once you get used to how the bike moves a bit more! And a couple of times I've even stood up on a climb myself(but never both of us together)!!

I have found on longer days I have to do a few things to keep DD going. You probably do all these already but just in case...

• I usually keep a few jelly lollies/candy (like snakes?) in my back pocket in case she needs a sugar hit. She enjoys the treat.
• I am getting her a computer of her own so she can track how fast we are going and how far we've come and work out how far to go, because it drives me nuts when she asks me every ten minutes and it'll give hersomething to think about other than sticky questions for me to answer up a hill!
• I try to make her conserve energy and not pedal hard on flats. I try to do most of the work then and just get her to pratice spinning. That way she saves her energy for the hills where we really need it. Note to self: Maybe this is why MY legs are always toast!?
• On the big hills I try to just roll up them as steadily as I can but when I really need a kick along I get her to stand up and do ten or twenty pedals and then sit for ten or twenty etc. It really helps on the stinkers.
• We wear hydration packs rather than use our waterbottles when we ride long trips. This is because on our tandem it is really hard to get the water bottles out without being stopped and there are very few traffic lights to stop at in outback Queensland! I try to remind her to drink on every downhill.
• She tends to flag a bit in early afternoon and I sometimes have to get an energy drink or some type of a soft drink (soda/pop?) into her to pep her up to get the job finished. Works a treat because she sees it as a treat!

If you have any other good ideas - please share, as we can use all the help we can get! Otherwise - just enjoy how light that solo bike feels!

[hipmama]

Thank you thank you thank you!
Yes, I have been running through- are the brakes grabbing? Do I not have enough air in the tires? Am I pathetic?
I love the idea of the bike computer for her! I bet she would love that. She spent the bulk of winter studying field guides so she could identify birds, trees, plants, flowers while on the back and that's exciting to her, she's quite the pro now.
One tip we have found to help on the long days is we got speakers that mount on the bike that hook up to our Mp3 player and I have some of her favorites on there, some recorded book readings, sing along songs, etc. and that really helps. Nothing to make me feel hot like toodling along on the bike with the Sound of Music blaring!
We did get the camel backs this year- as yes, reaching for the bottles can suck and land us up dehydrated quickly- we both drink a lot more with the packs on the back.
We keep the nuts and dried fruits etc. around for anytime snacking- neither of us feel very good with refined sugars in our system but I do have her drink a gatorade type drink at rest stops when on tour for the sodium- but more than one a day and she has a stomach ache... not cool!
Thanks for sharing your pain, it really helps a lot- I felt really defeated today after a ride yesterday..