Introductions - Tandem newbies

Greetings from Colorado Springs.

We spent our honeymoon, 25+ years ago, on bikes, riding through Vermont. Now we find ourselves among the 2,000 people in the 2011 Ride the Rockies (http://ridetherockies.com/) tour, and have decided to get back into training, and tackle the tour on a tandem.

We'll be hanging out mostly in the tandem forum(s), I suspect, and hope to soak up lots of wisdom -- about finding and purchasing a tandem, about long-distance tandem riding, and about not only having a marriage survive a tandem, but be strengthened by it.

J and K

Welcome to Bike Forums.

Welcome you'll see us often in the tandem forums too, we just got our tandem too!

Howdy and welcome to the forums.

Here in Dallas, there is a tandem club, and I see one in your area on their links page: http://www.coloradotandemclub.org/
There's a half-dozen or more tandems in the local randonneuring group.

Hi--Joanne & Gary here from Denver. We just bought our road tandem in March 2010, and rode the Bicycle Tour of Colorado last June on it. (It's a 1500-rider group, one week later than RtR). Last year the first day of the Tour was 106 miles from Gunnison to Creede; after riding 60 miles the route went over Slumgullion Pass. That was challenging! But we had such a blast--you're going to love doing long rides on the tandem. Such fun! Conversation! Shared vision! Riding together! We love it. And we'll be married 35 years this summer--tandeming makes it better & better! Enjoy!

@Angel -- thanks for the welcome. We'll be on the tandem forum quite a bit, I imagine.

@StephenH -- thanks for the link; I just joined the group (still need to send in the membership check, tho).

@2vinci -- well, that is encouraging! We just obtained our tandem a week ago, and this weekend took it out on two rides. We got in 50+ miles between the two of them. Not bad for our first time(s) out. We had a blast. We're fortunate to live right next door to the Air Force Academy, which is a terrific place to train. Our plan is to gradually build on the miles each weekend -- and maybe sneak in some weekday rides to go with our weekday indoor-cycling sessions -- between now and RtR. Our final "hard ride" before the tour will be the 62-mile loop on the Elephant Rock, one week before the start of RtR.

Hi Jeff and Kathy,

Years ago my wife and I bought our first tandem from a shop in Fort Collins that only sold tandems. Unfortunately they are out of business now, but the first question they asked on our first visit was: "How's your relationship?". While we've, um, had our moments, learning to work as a team on a bike has really strengthened our relationship.

See you in the tandem forum!