Just had a fitting for a Rodriguez tandem!

[Charlieggo]

Glad to hear the good things about Rodriguez bikes. I've been eyeballing their Rainier model. Not local for me, so I have just been daydreaming about it so far. Maybe an excuse to bike tour to Washington. The tandem sounds awesome - happy riding!

[Kiwi Stoker]

Congratulations and welcome to the tandem club! I have been happily married and riding the tandem for 6 years now. We asked for contributions towards a tandem as our wedding gift.

[lauraelmore1033]

Our first ride went great! I am so surprised. We just did an easy, flat,straight 20 mile trail ride on the Centenial trail up to Lake Cassidy. We were a little shakey starting up, and we quickly decided that the method of starting out that Smiley showed us, with the stoker clipped in, just wasn't going to work for us. I am just way too heavy to feel comfortable with my skinny hubby holding me up while he simultaniously shifts up onto the seat to push off. We worked out our own way, with both of us starting out with one food on the ground and pushing when Brian said, "go" that was a lot smoother than our efforts the other way. It was unsettling at first and I had the sensation that we were "fishtailing" a lot (Brian said we weren't). Every steering effort felt shakey and jumpy for the first couple of miles, but soon smoothed out. First efforts at breaking seemed especially unstable, but that smoothed out as well and we did make a couple of stops with me still clipped in. I was terrified as we passed through seemingly endless sets of bollards because that seemed to heighten my awareness that I was not in control (and they just scare me anyway...). After about 10 sets, I had an epiphany that my husband had never actually given me any reason not to trust him on any dimension of our life together and, even though his driving and riding styles sometimes seem a little sketchy from my perspective, he's never had an accident (except for that one time when he slid on a patch of moss...) and I was able to heed Smiley's advice about just going limp when something felt scary. That's probably when we started riding smoothly. We reached the lake feeling slightly triumphant and snapped a photo (which I will find soon) and turned around and headed back feeling like pros. On the way we heard lots of exclamations about our big bike and compliments on how cool it was. It does seem very flashy and beautiful to me...

I was worried that we would have a terrible time learning how to ride this bike since Dh and I have such different riding styles; he's a spinner and I'm a masher, but I think we've managed to find a way to meet in the middle. He started out riding as he was accustomed to doing but this bike is geared exactly like my bike is; compact front rings and a casette the size of a serving platter. I spun along for a while, but then realized I was going to have to ask him to shift up because I was bouncing on the seat. No biggie. Click, click and we're motoring on somewhere in the middle. A hill or two will be our next challenge...

I'm feeling fairly confident that we can be planning to ride this bike on next year's tour (we're thinking TRIRI). I can even see myself thinking of my single bike as my "half bike".

[lauraelmore1033]