I've never ridden a tandem. My wife and I were advised to test-ride one for compatibility, prior to purchasing. A friend of mine has one that they never ride, and he offered it to us to borrow. Trouble is, his wife is 5'4", and mine 5'8". Will this be an obstacle to a good test?

I've never ridden a tandem. My wife and I were advised to test-ride one for compatibility, prior to purchasing. A friend of mine has one that they never ride, and he offered it to us to borrow. Trouble is, his wife is 5'4", and mine 5'8". Will this be an obstacle to a good test?

Probably not... unless the tandem was custom made to fit a smaller stoker. You'll need to make sure there's several usable inches of seat post left in the seat tube and that the stoker's stem can also be raised a few inches to accommodate your wife, but that's about it.

One of the harsh realities of tandems is that they are sized and built for the captain and the stoker usually gets a a default size cockpit where the largest and smallest tandem from a given builder use the same length of rear top tube, e.g., speciality tandem builders like Co-Motion use 28.5" for L/M/S, Santana uses something like 27.75" for L/M/S, and Burley uses 27.5" for L/M/S. Trek and Cannondale, interestingly enough, provide longer stoker compartments on their larger sized tandems. Cudo's regardless of why. So, unless they've cut off the excess from the seat post, there should be enough pipe in the seat tube to allow the saddle to be raised to the correct height for your wife. The amount of upward stoker stem travel will only be limited by the height of the captain's saddle; that is: the taller the captain the more travel the stoker gets with the stock stem/boom.

If you find yourselves in Monterey California you can test ride my Greenspeed tandem recumbent trike!:)

As stated, raise stoker seatpost/bars. If only a make-do fit, you'll get to see if a tandem could be right for U-2.
Usually asking to borrow someone's tandem is like asking to borrow a toothbrush. But offer was made, so don't look a gifthorse in the mouth . . . try it!