Tandem Cycling - Just curious

I dont ride a tandem. Would like to try it sometime. However, just curious as to how many husband wife teams ride with the wife as captain. It seems to me this would be a better setup anyway with men being more efficient at using energy than women.

Huge majority of tandem teams, the male/husband is the pilot.
Generally the male is the taller of the tandem duo. Production tandems are designed with that size difference in mind.
In our 3+ decades as very active tandemists, have seen less than 10 teams with a female as captain.
Female/female duos (another rarity) and also seen a couple female pilots with blind husbands as stokers. Even seen such a couple riding on the Kenosha, WI velodrome. There is not other practical reason for a woman not to pilot a tandem bike.
Hope this answers your question.
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

On the last tandem tour we were on (70 bikes) at least 10% of the teams had a woman on the front.

generally works best to have the heaviest, strongest upper body rider as Captain.

For racing, there's an argument that you put the most powerful wattage wise as stoker because more of the stokers power goes to the wheel (i.e. less drivetrain loss) but I'd still put the heavier rider up front if there's a significant weight difference.

I dont ride a tandem. Would like to try it sometime. However, just curious as to how many husband wife teams ride with the wife as captain. It seems to me this would be a better setup anyway with men being more efficient at using energy than women.

What I've read is that if the couple is close to the same size (define 'close'...), it is more efficient to have the stronger one in back. If there is a substantial difference, it is a) harder to design a conventional tandem for the taller one in back, (think of the extreme case where you really want the stoker's stem mounted higher than the captain's saddle) b) harder for the smaller, lighter person to control the bike, and hold it while not moving, and c) less efficient aerodynamically.

In the extreme case, a) is undeniable. b) can be worked around - stoker may need to put a foot down when stopped, etc. Blind stoker/sighted wife/captain couples have proven it can be done. I don't know whether c) has actually been proven in definitive wind tunnel tests, or is at least part folklore.

Of course there remain the unconventional design cases, such as recumbents and semi-recumbents like the Bilenky ViewPoint.

On the last tandem tour we were on (70 bikes) at least 10% of the teams had a woman on the front.

In almost 15 years of tandeming (but zero tandem rallies/tours) we have never seen a married couple with the wife as captain and the husband as stoker... go figure.

In almost 15 years of tandeming (but zero tandem rallies/tours) we have never seen a married couple with the wife as captain and the husband as stoker... go figure.

I had not seen one either until last month's San Juan Islands tour. Out of 40+ bikes, 3 had female captains. 1 bike was a recumbent (there were two recumbents on the trip); 1 bike had a blind (male) stoker; the other bike had been tandeming together for 30 years, or something...it seemed rude to ask how long they had used the same seating arrangement.

As an aside, Stoker Nico (who has legs that are 4 inches longer than mine--surprisingly, I am an inch taller overall) cannot be conviced to captain. When there's too much back seat driving, I often threaten her with switching places. If memory serves, our first tandem ride was on a rented cruiser on Mackinac Island over 10 years ago...she captained for a few miles there...but objected to my nearly bending the handlebars while trying to steer.

I call my Tandem the "Baptist bike". The woman is in submission to the husband in true Baptist tradition. It's North Ga.

I call my Tandem the "Baptist bike". The woman is in submission to the husband in true Baptist tradition. It's North Ga.

I would call my Tandem the "Macho bike" but I don't want to get wacked across the head...

Neither baptist or macho . . . but call it 'a love bike' as we've been married 53+ years and have covered over 220,000 miles TWOgether and are still 'in love.'
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

On the last tandem tour we were on (70 bikes) at least 10% of the teams had a woman on the front.

With their husbands or adult males stoking.... or were they captaining for other women or perhaps kids?



In almost 15 years of tandeming (but zero tandem rallies/tours) we have never seen a married couple with the wife as captain and the husband as stoker... go figure.

Having attended well over 30 rallies during the past eleven years we've seen a handful, but it's been statistically insignificant.

There are, of course, a number of sight impaired male stokers who team up with female captains... including at least one who has posted to this forum on a number of occasions and another regular poster to Hobbes. However, by and large the norm with married couples is Husband front / Wife back.

With their husbands or adult males stoking.... or were they captaining for other women or perhaps kids?......

If I recall correctly there were a couple of married couples with the wife on the front, a mother daughter team, a mother son team, a wife with a blind stoker and a couple of female teams.

I have asked my wife repeatedly if would like to Captain; as I have wanted to try riding as stoker. To date, my wife has no interest in moving to the front seat. She always replies “Captain and have to watch the road instead of the scenery”. She has gotten so comfortable stoking, the last time we rode our singles she’d forgotten about shifting and braking. Maybe it’s a good idea she stayed in the back, but I still want to give it a try. My wife and I within an inch of the same height, about 50 lb difference in weight, so I think our current bike would work with me stoking. Watch this space for future update!!!

I would say, do what works for the two of you. Life is too short to worry about fitting in.

My wife and I like it with me as captain and her as stoker. Part of the equation is we could not afford a custom (nor upmarket medium/x-large) tandem so with me 8 inches taller we had to go with this arrangement. However, she likes the arrangement. As above, she says she likes to look around at the scenery more than the road. She likes that I get all the bugs. I'm fine with it, would be fine with it the other way around, but why mess with what works for us?

Your mileage may vary.

I have asked my wife repeatedly if would like to Captain; as I have wanted to try riding as stoker. To date, my wife has no interest in moving to the front seat. She always replies “Captain and have to watch the road instead of the scenery”. She has gotten so comfortable stoking, the last time we rode our singles she’d forgotten about shifting and braking. Maybe it’s a good idea she stayed in the back, but I still want to give it a try. My wife and I within an inch of the same height, about 50 lb difference in weight, so I think our current bike would work with me stoking. Watch this space for future update!!!
My daughter is of te same opinion as your wife. She claims the reason she doesn't want to captain is that she is too busy socializing, listening to her iPod, taking pictures, etc. She is so comfortable as stoker, I have to beg her sometimes to ride her single bike so I can ride mine.


I would say, do what works for the two of you. Life is too short to worry about fitting in.

My wife and I like it with me as captain and her as stoker. Part of the equation is we could not afford a custom (nor upmarket medium/x-large) tandem so with me 8 inches taller we had to go with this arrangement. However, she likes the arrangement. As above, she says she likes to look around at the scenery more than the road. She likes that I get all the bugs. I'm fine with it, would be fine with it the other way around, but why mess with what works for us?

Your mileage may vary.
I am fine with this too, besides she does not have the upper body strength to balance us at Stop signs and the like. Forgot about the bugs, debris. Don't forget that she feels like she is drafting all the time too.

Only female captain I know is part of a 2-tandem family. He captains one, she captains the other, with the 14 year old kids as stokers.

Our strongest cycling friends also ride tandem. He is slightly shorter than she is, but still captains. Reason is that his bike handling skills are better than hers, and things like hand strength is probably a factor given how fast (crazy fast - and I am fast) they go down hills.

Only female captain I know is part of a 2-tandem family. He captains one, she captains the other, with the 14 year old kids as stokers.Our strongest cycling friends also ride tandem. He is slightly shorter than she is, but still captains. Reason is that his bike handling skills are better than hers, and things like hand strength is probably a factor given how fast (crazy fast - and I am fast) they go down hills.

That's how my wife and I did it with our two kids and our two tandems.

Only data point I can add is this:

http://www.acercandoelmundo.com/

They are a couple, Eneko and Miyuki, he is Basque out of Vitoria, Spain, she Brazilian with Japaneese ancestry, were going for a round the world bike ride. Started out in an Orbea tandem, then switched in Brazil for a Zohrer recumbent tandem, one of the reasons given is that she could captain. From then on all the pictures published had Miyuki in the captain's seat. Tour got cut short after 15,000 km on account of Miyuki's pregnancy.

My wife is taller than me by 2" and outweighs me by 20 lbs. When we got our (used) tandem, neither of us had ridden one; I was riding solo into work regularly, she was still very much a recreational rider only. I explained that traditionally the taller person goes up front, but she deferred to my road experience, i.e. she decided that she'd rather me up front as captain. The top tube is just a bit high for my tastes, but the tt is on the shorter side and some PO already installed a short-reach Technomic stem, so it works for me.

We'd thought about swapping things over so she could captain, but we recently just got her ergos worked out and swapping them around is just not on the current agenda... Of course now the bike looks a bit schizophrenic, with drop bars and a Brooks for the captain, riser bars w/bar ends, and a wide comfort saddle on a suspension seatpost for the stoker. It'll get worse when I add clipless pedals for me. Her seat and bars are higher than mine.

Works for us. She gets to look around, I get to deal with traffic. She hasn't mentioned that she's in any hurry to try captaining, especially now that we have things dialed in for her as stoker. I'd totally be up for stoking if she ever wants to captain.

To deal with the non traditional situation--me smaller than her--if we had to go with a new production bike, it would probably be a Bike Friday, Co-Motion Periscope, or Santana Fusion. Or custom. But we're getting by just fine on a traditionally styled Burley Duet. Just looks a bit funky.