Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.garysol1
08-14-06, 06:52 AM
Saturday there was a 60 mile warm up ride for our local MS150 ride. I met up with Forum member AD-SLE and we rode our singles and chatted a bit. He offered up the use of his tandem for a week or so for my wife and I to use to see if tandeming was for us. Big thanks to AD-SLE for the use of his Burley.
Sunday was our very first outing. I have read many threads on here regarding if the stoker should stay clipped in at all times or should unclip and stand at stops or just unclip one foot. We went with the stay clipped in at all times route and it worked pretty well for us. Our loop was a gentle rolling 20 mile's. As we eased away from the house the first thing I noticed was the bike had a tendency to want to go left. I had the wife reposition herself and asked her kindly to quit trying to look around me. That took care of that issue. I am so used to the light weight and quickness of my Carbon single bike so this thing was quite a beast for me. Stopping took some planning as did turning. Nothing happens quickly on the Tandem as I learned. We finaly got to the open road and we started to get our cadence up. I was amazed that our easy stroke was providing us with over 20mph with out breathing hard.....hey, I like this. The only real challenge we had once we got going was how to get going again after a stop on a hill. I think the "have the stoker take the load till I get clipped in" will work the best for us....I think. We had a great time together and we actually comunicated a lot more than we have in a long time. We are now in the market for a Tandem. If anyone has any leads on a nice ride that is not to expensive and not to far from the Memphis area in a Medium/Medium or maybe a L/M please feel free to leave me a PM.
Thanks
Sunday was our very first outing. I have read many threads on here regarding if the stoker should stay clipped in at all times or should unclip and stand at stops or just unclip one foot. We went with the stay clipped in at all times route and it worked pretty well for us. Our loop was a gentle rolling 20 mile's. As we eased away from the house the first thing I noticed was the bike had a tendency to want to go left. I had the wife reposition herself and asked her kindly to quit trying to look around me. That took care of that issue. I am so used to the light weight and quickness of my Carbon single bike so this thing was quite a beast for me. Stopping took some planning as did turning. Nothing happens quickly on the Tandem as I learned. We finaly got to the open road and we started to get our cadence up. I was amazed that our easy stroke was providing us with over 20mph with out breathing hard.....hey, I like this. The only real challenge we had once we got going was how to get going again after a stop on a hill. I think the "have the stoker take the load till I get clipped in" will work the best for us....I think. We had a great time together and we actually comunicated a lot more than we have in a long time. We are now in the market for a Tandem. If anyone has any leads on a nice ride that is not to expensive and not to far from the Memphis area in a Medium/Medium or maybe a L/M please feel free to leave me a PM.
Thanks