Tandem Cycling - ever ride your tandem alone?

Today's ride, one guy shows up on his tandem, with no stoker.

The ride was 71 mile training ride aimed at base miles. It's supposed to be 20-22mph pace, and it was for the most part, but a few time broke out into the high 20's, low 30's.

The guy solo on the tandem did fine.

The apparent rationale was just to make the ride a bit harder from the extra weight of the bike, and work on balance.

Never seen that before, and I've only ridden our tandem stokerless to check on things while making adjustments.

Anyone else ride stokerless?

not any real distance, i used to ride solo to pick up my wife from work once in a while but that was only 3 or 4 miles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKpO-Os6VxQ&feature=rellist&playnext=1&list=PL77EFE61B69F91FAA

Not that far, but I have ridden solo on occasion. When we lived in Tucson our tandem was our main commute vehicle, so if I needed to go anywhere during the day for errands I'd take it by myself. Also found it to be the best for climbing a couple steep grades outside of town since it was geared much lower than my single bike at the time.

Then for a few years I converted it to a kid-back for our daughter and commuted with her to her daycare/kindergarten/1st grade before continuing on to work solo.

There was a one-month period few years ago when all my other bikes had either gone missing or needed parts so I used my tandem for training rides of 50-100 miles. Since my touring tandem weighs in at nearly fifty pounds, I definitely noticed the extra weight on the hills. However, it was nice to not have any puddle splatter from the rear wheel reach me.

The guy solo on the tandem did fine.

The apparent rationale was just to make the ride a bit harder from the extra weight of the bike, and work on balance.



Anyone else ride stokerless?

One of my old team mates who is still in the Bay Area claims to occasionally ride his tandem solo for training purposes, but I've never witnessed it myself.

Years ago someone posted on T@H about a single rider on a tandem in the mountains. He was descending fast and when braking, the unloaded rear wheel came around, he lost control and was killed. The rear wheel sliding can be seen in the Bobby Root video above.

Riding solo you basically have a front brake only, with all that entails.

Had a younger woman wanted to ride El Tour de Tucson with me on our tandem (had planned to ride solo) about 20 years ago.
Was to meet her at the start. She never showed up. So rode it solo on the tandem.
Also, on a hard century in the Albuquerque (New Mexico) area huge thunder clouds rolled in about 2/3rds of the way into the ride.
Lightning and thunderclaps; felt there was no sense of both of us getting soaked so told stoker Kay to hop in the sag wagon and I pedaled o solo.
Fortunately was able to out-pedal the storm and made it to the finish before it rained!
Riding solo on a tandem is not a problem.
Pedal on!
Rudy/zonatandem

Back in 2006 a two tandem team raced in RAAM. During the race one of the tandem teams had some physical problems and the other team road a little over half of the race on the tandems as singles. Somewhere around 1700 +/- miles.

I ride solo on our tandem. Often times its the only "working" road bike I have.

Today's ride, one guy shows up on his tandem, with no stoker.

The ride was 71 mile training ride aimed at base miles. It's supposed to be 20-22mph pace, and it was for the most part, but a few time broke out into the high 20's, low 30's.

The guy solo on the tandem did fine.

The apparent rationale was just to make the ride a bit harder from the extra weight of the bike, and work on balance.

Never seen that before, and I've only ridden our tandem stokerless to check on things while making adjustments.

Anyone else ride stokerless?

Lemme guess, Jim Wright On Penny Farms!

A few years ago on the annual CANDISC ride, my father was my stoker for that week. His atrial fibrillation kicked in one night, forcing him to sag the next morning. I rode the half century alone, with all the expected "jokes" from others. That is, until one fellow passed me with, "Soooo, you and your dad had a big fight???"

On another ride, a captain came into a rest stop all alone. Someone who knew him asked where his wife was. All he got back was "I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT..."

My stoker got really cold during a winter training ride, so she got off at a train station and hopped on the warm train to home while I did another 30km to get home.

After we finished a day-long ride in the mountains with some friends, my stoker jumped in a friend's car while I rode the extra, hilly 70 km home.

We took the tandem on vacation and did some rides together on the tandem, but when I was in the mood to ride, but my stoker wasn't, then I'd happily go out on the tandem alone.

Although I've never had both a single and a tandem bike available to me and chosen to ride the tandem solo, I have gone on group rides and taken the heavier of my single bikes because I knew that the ride was not going to be very challenging, and I thought that I may as well get as much of a workout from it as possible.

As mentioned above, the rear brake is almost completely useless when riding the bike solo. Also, steep climbs with loose/slipery surfaces are a major problem due to lack of traction. More minor problems include not having anyone who can look down at the drivetrain and tell you which gear you are in, and not having anyone to make hand/turn signals for you at intersections.

Used to ride "quite a bit" solo, and still do. I ride my tandem about 5 mi to pick up my grandson Tyler at school 2 to 4 times a week. This year I'm not alone, but I'm still riding solo. Rather than letting you guess how I do this, I have my 8 mo old grandson in a kiddie trailer on the back of the tandem. And since Tyler now seems to favor an ET bagel after school, Brayden and I go and additional 2+ mi out of the way to get Tyler his "suprise." So now I'm going about 7 mi solo each time.

I don't have any problem riding solo, and I really enjoy riding the lambo, despite it being a cheap "wally-world" level bike. The only problem I've ever had riding solo was when I was in a turn and an approaching car intruded into my lane ahead, causing me to lock up the wheels. The rear end, devoid of weight, started to skid out. The car was far enough that I was able to release the rear wheel, regaining traction. It was scary, but a good lesson.

I've thought about riding the tandem on tuesday and thursday morning rides with the triathletes I train with, but these kids are about half my age and getting better fast. I have enough trying to hang on their wheel at 25 on my 1/2 bike!

I was ridiing a homebuilt Schwinn/Hawthorne tandem. Way heavy. An annoying dog started a chase. kicked the Bendix back and was cranking hard. The dog slowly lost speed but stayed near the bike..till the back set of pedals hit him. Shook the bike hard and rolled him offf the road. He survived and never chaed me again.

Sometimes, I take the tandem out around Lake Waramaug for a solo ride. Once a couple o
f road guys said "hey you lost somebody". I asked them if they had an invisible friend when they were kids. When they said yes I said, "Well, I still have mine" and rode away to their laughter!!

When I read this thread originally I almost commented that I found our daVinci a bit twitchy without a stoker, but a ride a few days ago demonstrated quite the opposite; the tandem just felt like a slightly heavier single bike. I think I'd be concerned about the braking on a steep downhill, but I wouldn't hesitate to ride it on the flats or rollers for a good workout. One issue with the daVinci is that the stoker's pedals just sort of float around; I'd have to use a wire-tie or similar to keep the crankshafts level which works fine as long as you don't back the bike up. Definitely a viable backup to my 1/2-bike and a potential "chick magnet" for the young and single roadies out there;)

Only issue I know of with regard to riding a tandem solo -- or with a very light stoker -- is the increased chance of a rear wheel washout during fast descents and/or moderately fast cornering when brakes are applied. Other than that, it's just added weight and wheelbase, which would be of little added-value on a dead-flat training ride. Hanging panniers on a single bike filled with 15lbs of dunnage would probably produce a lot more resistance vs. riding a tandem solo.

I use to ride my Santana mountain tandem solo through the local colleges in the evenings and it would generally take less than 10 minutes to find a stoker. Then I would take us down several long and short sets of stairs, and up and down the steep embankments near the baseball field, and a line would form..... :D

Be careful - if you do it often it will cause hair to grow on your palms...

I do it all of the time to pick up our kids after school. I have an empty stoker seat and an empty TAB behind that so I can pick up both at the same time. When people comment about it I say "Do you ever ride around with empty seats in your car?"

I have never ridden more than five miles that way though and you have to adjust riding to account for less rear traction.

I sometimes pick my wife up from work on my days off on the tandem. On these days she will carpool to work. It is about 30 miles, depending on the route. No comments yet, just very strange looks.
Almost dumped it skidding the rear tire into a corner, so now a little light on the right hand braking when it is just me on the tandem.

I would have ridden last year's STP (Seattle to Portland) with my wife on our tandem but she had an injury that prevented her from riding, so I did it myself on my single. However, there was a fellow who rode his tandem solo for one-day STP. It is a sad story, actually; we had met him in the parking lot at the start of the ride and he told us that shortly after he and his wife had taken delivery of their brand-new custom tandem, she died. We have seen him on other occassions riding his tandem solo.

It's a great way to pick up girls!

Seriously, the only time I rode solo was at the Solvang TT stage of the Tour of California. I rode from the start down the hill to the grocery store and back to get another bottle of Bloody Mary mixer and some horseradish.

I ride the track tandem solo around the apron and then up to the rail to stop so my stoker can mount up. Starting from the rail is much easier with both of us on. Stopping on a fixed gear is still an unsteady act of coordination. We'll perfect the dismount some day.

I ride the track tandem solo around the apron and then up to the rail to stop so my stoker can mount up. Starting from the rail is much easier with both of us on. Stopping on a fixed gear is still an unsteady act of coordination. We'll perfect the dismount some day.

Wow, fixed tandems? You, my friend, have some cojones of titanium! I've watched various youtube's of teams screaming around the track and while I ride fixed as my communter, I don't think I could ever feel comfortable enough doing a tandem!

I'm not sure why I didn't think about this earlier, but I ride my tandem on the trainer, by myself. So does that count?

Some time back someone related the story of a guy showing up for a multi-day ride, solo on a tandem, with a "Help Wanted" sign hanging from the stokers saddle. Reportedly, he picked up an attractive stoker in the first couple days, then a few months later they were married.

During the Mid West Tandem Rally XX back in the mid-1990s in Indianapolis, tandems were allowed to ride the Major Taylor Velodrome after the day's road ride.
Stoke Kay and I hopped on our tandem and did one lap; most other tandems had mo clue on how to ride on a track and she deemed it to be a bit dangerous. So dropped her off and then rode several laps on ouR tandem solo. Ended up riding behind a triple that was really cruising . . . Fun!

Today's ride, one guy shows up on his tandem, with no stoker.
The ride was 71 mile training ride aimed at base miles. It's supposed to be 20-22mph pace, and it was for the most part, but a few time broke out into the high 20's, low 30's.
The guy solo on the tandem did fine.
The apparent rationale was just to make the ride a bit harder from the extra weight of the bike, and work on balance.
Never seen that before, and I've only ridden our tandem stokerless to check on things while making adjustments.
Anyone else ride stokerless?

Well, I'm one of those guys who likes to do "weird things", so today not only did I attach the Burley nomad trailer to the back, but I put my little pup in the back and took my bike up to Forest Park. Sufice it to say, I had a great time, got really muddy and had a lot of strange looks. 244067244070244072244068244069244071

Many years ago my stoker was signed up for the Falmouth Road Race (running) that starts in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The day before the run, we parked in Falmouth and rode to Woods Hole, and took the ferry over to Martha's Vineyard. We spent the day touring the island and stayed at a campground about a mile from the ferry. The morning of the race, we took the ferry right to the starting line. For the other thousands of runners coming to the race, the traffic was terrible as Woods Hole is at the end of a peninsula!


The point-to-point course is seven miles along the coast. After dropping her off at the start, I rode the course to the finish. The roads were already closed to vehicle traffic and the spectators had begun to gather. I felt like a one man parade - tandem with panniers/tent, but no stoker.


I heard - "You lost your stoker / partner / etc" a lot. I'd give them a surprised expression as I looked behind me.


After the run, my runner at her personal ride back to the car. Everyone else had to deal with the vehicle traffic around the finish line and/or take a bus to their car.




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As for riding alone on a tandem, I've done a lot of 1-3 mile rides to pick up a stoker then ride home after the ride. It's amazing how responsive the bike feels when I'm riding solo (there's a big difference in experience and strength between me and most of my stokers).

Our Tandem rides so well as a solo bike I sold my beloved Klein on EBay last week as I hadn't used it since we got the tandem. Even though my solo ride was sub 28 lbs versus the 38 lbs of the Tandem I do not really notice the difference and find the ride very nice.

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd173/ponti_33609/photoa.jpg


http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd173/ponti_33609/bfd08c3e.jpg


Best Regards,
Bob

I do a lot of short solo tandem rides to pick up my son after school. When the occasional motorist says "Hey, there's no one in your back seat" I reply back "There's no one in yours either."

I actually like riding the tandem solo. Feels like riding a cargo bike. A lot more stable without a stoker fidgeting in the back.

happy riding !

I've rode solo for short distances a couple of time. It felt rather "whippy" without my beloved stoker.