Tandem Cycling - Calling blind stokers/teams - your opinion needed

Yesterday my wife (who is a blind stoker) and I bought a Trek T900. We took it out today probably for a 4 mile round trip ride. Other than our butts being sore, we had a blast.

Question: My wife uses an Ambutech folding cane (sort of like a click-stand but bigger diameter) and she wants to take it with us. I'm trying to figure out the best way to carry it. I was thinking maybe using a bungee cord to attach it to a rear rack, but we don't have one yet.

Anyone have thoughts on where to put the cane?

Thanks!

Couldn't you just use a couple of velcro straps and mount it to the top tube somewhere?

I've got the Click-Stand support, and carry it with a re-purposed pump holder. The holder is a plastic part which attaches to water bottle cage bosses - take cage off, put holder over brackets, put cage back on (maybe with slightly longer screws). Holder has a velcro strap which goes around the clickstand.
Two Fish makes a pump bracket - sort of like back-to-back parentheses )( with velcro both sides - one to hold it to the bike tube (your choice), the other to hold the pump - or folded cane. One, or two of those, could hang below her top tube.

Couldn't you just use a couple of velcro straps and mount it to the top tube somewhere?

I could, and I thought of it. I wonder if I would scratch up my paint though.

I went to the Ambutech site and found the canes come in your choice of 4, 5, or 6 sections with whatever length you want (in 2 inch increments). A 48 inch cane with six sections would make an 8 inch package that may even fit in your jersey pocket (if you're wearing a jersey with back pockets).

One poster mentioned the Two Fish block (called a bikeblock). They are very good and will hold the cane so it wouldn't scratch the paint on your frame. I used one for carrying a pump on my single for a very long time until I started using one that attached to the water bottle cage bosses. Here's a link:
http://www.twofish.biz/bike.html Scroll down until you see the bike block. One would probably work but you could use two if the cane seems too long for one.

Putting in a rear rack would certainly work and holding the cane with a bungee cord would certainly work. Depending on what riding you do, you will likely want some way to carry some things with you: a spare tube at least with some tire tools unless you will always be able to call a friend in case of trouble. Of course the bigger the bag, the more things one thinks of to carry and the first thing you know you're carrying a lot of extra weight :) If you go with a rear rack and a bigger bag, I really like the Arkel Tail Rider
http://www.arkel-od.com/panniers/tailrider/overview.asp?fl=1&site=
but you can find all sorts of bags that will carry the cane and a few other items. So, if you carry a trunk bag on a rack, I would think just about any of them would hold the cane.

If you don't want a rack, but want a bag, I just posted about an ultra low profile bag from Detours (High Tail ULP) that doesn't require a rack and fits in the often limited space in the stoker position even with a suspension seatpost. Instead it clicks onto a small adaptor that mounts and stays on the seatpost. Here's a link to the Detours site with the High Tail model bags. Scroll down to the ULP model.
http://detours.us/index.php?cPath=33
Also look at my recent post http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=522244

Have fun!

Bloomington, IN

We have a Stoker Bag similar to this one (image from Tandems East). We purchased it at Tandems Ltd in Birmingham, AL.
If the 8 inch assumption is correct, it should hold the cane.

There was a mixed tandem team, with a blind stoker, on PBP. Some photos you can tell her about are at

http://www.paris-brest-paris.org/EN/index.php?showpage=680

Elizabeth Jenssen (Plate# 6981) and Paul Guttenberg (Plate# 6980) finished with a very good time. Both are very strong riders. I believe she also did RAAM on the back of a tandem.

Part of their training was to go to a football field and have her captain for a while. Both said it was a little wild, but worth the effort.

There are a couple of tandem ride reports of PBP at

http://www.pchrandos.com/html/ridereports.html

under other ride reports

Greg & Lisa Jones PBP
Bob Waddell PBP

are the tandem ones.

Anyone have thoughts on where to put the cane?

Hopefully Rick from FL will weigh-in here, as they simply attach Terri's to the top tube and that has always seemed to work well. I thought I knew where some photos were, but struck out.

Hi AndyH,

My name is Tom & I make Click-Stands. Depending on how large the diameter of the folded cane bundle is one of the brackets I sell might work:







One was mentioned in an earlier post. It shares the bosses with a water bottle cage. The other lines up with the center of the frame, and either uses a pair of waterbottle bosses, or can be zip ties to a frame tube. The side bracket with the Veclro strip would hold a larger item. I would be happy to send you one if you think it might work. Send me a email: info@Click-Stand.com

Tom

Thanks for the offer, Tom.

I actually ordered a click-stand a couple days ago. What I'd really like to do is put both the stand and the cane in some sort of bag, as I already have two waterbottle cages and a frame pump.

The cane is 52" and folds into six sections so I am thinking I probably need around 10-11 inches in length with the ball tip.

Andy,
Tom's first picture shows the kind of holder I was describing. For the Click-Stand, works great and I've got it mounted on one of the sets of bottle-cage bosses in the captain's section of the frame, so that it is close to the middle of the bike where it gets used.
I'd suggest you get two of the holders - one for your stand, one for your wife's folded cane. That way you can deal with the stand, and she's got a handy place, in "her" part of the bike, to stow her cane.
Having a bag - unless you use a rack trunk, or have a long-ish stoker bag hanging below the stoker's top tube - could mean you would need to find a way to stow the bag when both sticks are out of it. Plus, the stoker bag could make it harder for her to get to her water bottle.

Hi Andy,

I second the idea that you should mount your stokers cane along the bottom of the top tube. (This is a common place for pumps. In fact the mount from many pumps may adapt nicely to carrying the cane. Another option may be to strap the cane to a pump and clip both to the bike using the pump mounts.)

This is not really why I replied however.... I am an avid mountain biker who rides quite a bit with my sighted stoker wife. But I have been thinking about organizing a group of tandem captains to take people with visual disabilities out riding once or twice a month. It seems like a good way to share biking with people who might not ordinarily get to do it. I've chatted with one of my blind students and he is quite interested. However, I just wanted to ask if you had any advice regarding my idea? Perhaps you could ask your wife for me if there are any things that I can do as a captain to make the ride more enjoyable for the stoker, or things I should be careful of. Because a sighted stoker can't see where the bike is going I suspect many things will be similar....lots of communication and warnings of upcoming bumps but there may be differences that I haven't thought of.

Thanks in advance for your input, hope you enjoy LOTS of riding this summer!

Todd

Todd -

This is a great idea. My wife has done that before, the Chicago Area Tandem Society has a blind stoker ride a few times a year (although I've never met up with this group).

I can't offer much advice because I am new to the tandem piloting, although my wife has mentioned that I definitely need to let her dismount before I do so :) I can't really think of any other blind-specific issues, just general poorly executed things on my part because I am not used to the tandem.