Tandem Cycling - Excellent First Tandem Experience

My wife and I just had our first tandem ride together and it went great! We borrowed an older Santana tandem from her aunt and uncle, who are pretty close to our size, and took it out to the local multi-use path.

First, I rode it around the parking lot solo for about five or ten minutes to get a feel for the bike. The only thing that was really different was the very long wheelbase. Turning takes quite a bit more space!

Once a felt comfortable by myself, I gave my wife a brief tutorial on the Proper Method for mounting and starting a tandem, and how to be a stoker. First we went back and forth in the parking lot, and that went well, so we set off on what ended up being a 15 mile, 1.5 hour ride on the multi-use path.

I am a pretty experienced cyclist, but my wife is a signficantly less experienced cyclist, so I kept to a cadance that was slower than I normally use, somewhere around 70-80. In the first mile or so, there was some odd shifting about, but after that, she was pretty good about keeping her weight centered. I missed calling out the first few bumps, but after that I was pretty good about calling them out for her.

Overall, the experience was very pleasant, and we seem to have adapted to tandeming remarkably quickly. I suspect that the fact that we have been dancing together for more than ten years probably helps a lot. My wife mentioned that stoking does feel quite a lot like following in dance. There are subtle cues that you learn to pick up on while following in dancing, and the skill of paying attention to those cues is apparently fairly transferable. Also, stoker has to trust her captain, just as the follow must trust her lead.

Another pleasant surprise for my wife was how little effort she had to expend. Normally, she doesn't like to bike very much because it is just too much work. And the funny thing is, I didn't even notice how little or how much effort she was putting in.

And finally, it was very nice to have my wife right there with me, behind me the whole time, to share conversation, sights, or just quiet pedalling.

Fantastic that you had a good experience. It was a beautiful day in the Bar Area today for a ride. We were out on our road bikes in the Portola valley.

Today, about 24 hours after my first tandem ride, I am very sore in my neck, shoulders, and upper back. I think one contributing factor was that the handlebars on the loaner tandem were much lower than I am accustomed to, resulting in a much more aggressive, racing-style posture. I think the some of the muscle soreness may simply come from supporting my head in a nearly horizontal posture.

My normal bikes are a Breezer Uptown 8 utility bike, and a Bruce Gordon BLT touring bike. On the utilty bike, I have a nearly upright posture. On the touring bike, the top of the handlebars is approximately level or slightly higher than the seat. On the tandem, the top of the handlebars was below the level of the captain's seat.

I suppose the other possible factor is that it may simply require more upper body strength to control the tandem. I wasn't particularly aware of much additional effort to steer, balance, and control the tandem, but I suppose it might have been enough to make me sore today.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this neck, shoulders, and upper back soreness? Is this normal when starting out tandeming? Should I look into swapping out the stem? Or lifting weights?

Also, my wife felt like she was putting too much weight on her hands during the ride. She is used to riding in an upright posture on a bike with flat handlebars, so part of it might have been unfamiliarity with drop handlebars. Other than that, what I can I do to make my stoker more comfortable? Replace the stoker stem? Adjust the fore-aft position of the stoker saddle? Something else?

Raise height of the pilot's stem.
Stoker does not have to ride in the drops with drop bars, but can put her hands up on the center/flat part of stoker bars. Also there are stoker handrest that are available (like a dummy brake lever or round knobs).
Likely you also have an adjustable stoker stem. That can be raised/lowered for height on captain's seatpost. Also the length of the stoker stem can be adjusted: in or out by loosening either the one or two bolts, and on older tandems the stembolt.

Lower bar height is likely part of the problem, but something else may be going on. I ride both a single and a tandem, as most of us do, and I have both bikes set up with fairly aggressively low bar heights. I'm tall and I have long arms. I notice, however, that after longish tandem rides (40-50 miles or more), my trapezius muscles and my shoulders tend to be slightly stiff. Nothing painful, just noticeable. Riding position on both bikes is nearly identical -- if anything, the tandem position is slightly less aggressive. My guess as to what is happening is that I am more tense (that is, more tense in a muscular sense, not emotionally or mentally) because I'm hyper-conscious regarding issues of bike control, etc., because of the presence of my stoker/wife. She is a less experienced cyclist than I am, although she is quite fit and an absolutely ROCKIN' stoker. Neutral, relaxed, trusting, strong, able to sense subtle pedaling cues, etc., through the cranks, just as you describe your wife. I think I must tense up unconsciously. But this has never been a significantly troublesome issue for us.

It's absolutely wonderful that your first experience was so good. Hope you continue, and hope you join the "club." If you do continue and possibly purchase a tandem, the tandem forum on this site is an excellent source of info.

Listen to TandemGeek and Zona -- the voices of wisdom.

Raise height of the pilot's stem.

I'll try to raise it as much as I can, but I doubt I'll be able to come anywhere close to the 3" to 4" difference between my single bike and my tandem. The single bike has an upward angled stem, while the tandem has a downward angled stem. :(

To make matters worse, this is an older bike and the design of the stem would require me to remove the handlebar tape and brake levers and snake the handlebars off in order to replace the stem. Since this is a loaner bike, I hestitate to make such major and time consuming changes.


Stoker does not have to ride in the drops with drop bars, but can put her hands up on the center/flat part of stoker bars. Also there are stoker handrest that are available (like a dummy brake lever or round knobs).

She was definitely playing around with different grips on the bars, including not holding on at all! :) She doesn't have dummy brake hoods, which eliminates one of my favorite hand positions, so that might be something I could look into as well.


Likely you also have an adjustable stoker stem. That can be raised/lowered for height on captain's seatpost. Also the length of the stoker stem can be adjusted: in or out by loosening either the one or two bolts, and on older tandems the stembolt.

It looks like this tandem isn't equipped with an adjustable stoker stem, but I think it would be a worthwhile investment for the comfort of my stoker, even though we are only borrowing this bike. Changing out the stoker stem seems like a relatively simple and easily reversible change, though the original owners might not mind the upgrade. :)