merlinextraligh

Win the Tandem division of Everest Challenge.

Riding our Tandem yesterday, I was wearing a jersey I got at EC, and my wife was wearing the one I bought her. I thought she really should earn hers, so I asked her to do it with me on the tandem this year.

To my surprise she said yes.

I figure we have an excellent chance of finishing on the podium. (if, and it's a signifcant if, we can finish within the time limits.) Last year only one team finished. And if they don't show this year, we could win!!

Best part is that this going to require a new bike purchase. Our 14 year old Burley Duet isn't up to the task.

umd

I couldn't imagine doing that on a tandem...

esammuli

That...sounds....awful

Crit Rat

I hope you have a divorce lawyer lined up.

kensuf

Sick man.

bdcheung

Crazy? sadistic? yeah

Holyspokes

And all the better for it. GO FOR IT!

OC Roadie

That's just wrong. I can't imagine the ***** that would be coming from my wife's mouth as we hit those last climbs, no way in hell.

Racer Ex 

This smacks of a deliberate attempt to kill your spouse. Be forewarned, if you're unsuccessful and she survives, you'll just be giving her divorce lawyer an enormous amount of ammo.

Brandy

Hmmm...maybe we should challenge you. We have a brand new tandem sitting around that we never ride because we're too busy training solo.

kudude

so, how do you climb on tandem? Get your bike swinging synchronized? For those of us who don't know much about climbing races -- what are the stats on EC?

ericm979

The utter sickness of this is appealing. After doing it on a tandem, you could try unicycles!

The tandem crew that finished last year looked very strong. But when I passed them on the second day they didn't look all that happy, especially the woman. Does your wife really understand what she'd be in for?


There was a strong tandem on the Breathless Agony last year. I started at the same time and passed them twice, but they finished ahead of me- apparently they didn't waste as much time at stops as I did.
They have a writeup somewhere on the net, you might look for it. They were really dedicated about it.

esammuli

Day One
120 miles, 15,465 feet of climbing
Day Two
86 miles, 13,570 feet of climbing

ericm979

29,035 feet of climbing in two days. That's the most important stat.
There's more at everestchallenge.com.

umd

Note that the first picture is actually the second day.

Last year the course was modified because of the weather conditions on the higher climbs (>7000 feet). Here is data the first and second days.

merlinextraligh

Actually yes. There's a misperception that Tandems don't climb well, which really isn't true. It takes a little bit of teamwork to climb out of the saddle, but you get it down pretty quick.

As a relative matter, Tandems seem to climb slowly because of their aerodynamic advantage on the flat.
For any given power output, 2 riders on a Tandem are going to be faster on the flats than a single rider capable of the same power output. The tandem team has twice the power, but not twice the aerodynamic drag. Thus a tandem team can keep up on the flats with more powerful single riders.

However when you climb, the aerodynamic advantage becomes insignificant, and the Tandem team that could keep up with stronger riders on the flats, falls back, and climbs at the same rate as single riders of comparable power output.

merlinextraligh

I think she has some idea, but I'm not sure you can fully appreciate it, if you haven't done it.

Her hardest ride to date was 70 miles including the Cat1 Col de Lauteret, and finishing on the top of L'Alpe de Huez. So she has some idea about riding Mountains, but EC will be another step up from there.

umd

The worst part about the whole race is after doing the whole first day, you have to do it again the next day. Recovery after a long hard ride is paramount. I realize this may be difficult because of the whole florida thing, but find somewhere you can climb with her about 7000 feet (it should be more than 100 feet/mile), have a good rest, and then do it again the next day. If she doesn't kill you after that, tell her the second day will be about 4x harder, and duck...

I know that you did it also, so you probably know all this already, but a lot of people in my race popped on the second day after doing well the first because they weren't used to consecutive days of long, hard efforts.

waterrockets 

FWIW, a local blind racer was on the back of a tandem for Tour das Hugel this year (106 miles, 14K ft of climbing, much of it over 10%). They had a good time and got through it. The captain had never captained a tandem before that day. He's an Expert MTB racer, but still.

Neither of them swore it off, and they weren't fist-fighting at the end of it.

merlinextraligh

Agreed. The plan will be to go to North Georgia, and do repeats of Hogpen and Brasstown on consecutive days. But we're probably a couple of months of training away from being able to do that right now.

kensuf

You're going to take a tandem on brasstown?

See my above post in this thread...

Hocam

Sounds like more of a uniting experience than a divorce causing one to me.

ericm979

Yea, if both parties are equally dedicated to the same goal (i.e. finishing vs getting best possible time vs winning). And if they are good at communicating and modifying the goal as needed- which will probably happen. If you're part of a couple that's equally matched that way, my helmet's off to you both. My wife and I get along great but it'd be stupid of me to even ask if she'd do something like this- she just doesn't have the suffer gene the same way I do.

mollusk

My first thought is "Yes, yes you are." (crazy, that is). But then I was thinking about my own wife and there is no way in the world that she would do this. I love her dearly, but her idea of pedaling is "gas pedal, brake, clutch pedal". Also her idea of a vacation is to sit on the beach and have somebody bring her drinks. The best I ever got was to have her go with me on some day hikes in nice places (Napali cliffs on Kauai and in the Quarang in the northern part of the Isle of Skye are the most memorable). At least with the hiking she sees what it is all about and lets me go off on what my family laughingly calls my "death marches" when we vacation in the appropriate places.

waterrockets 

Wow, what great timing. Here's the story of Ron in today's paper, the visually impaired racer I mentioned above.
https://www.austin360.com/recreation/...11fitcity.html

And a ride video (disable your ad blocker if it doesn't work): https://www.austin360.com/news/mplayer/m/62653


They're moving fast in that vid