My wife and I talked about OOP, and concluded we didn't think it would work well for us. But I'd be interested to hear input from the OOP experts.

We do quite a bit of out-of-saddle climbing, not infrequently in our lowest gear (24 [chainring] x34 [cog]) on grades of 15 to 20 percent (we live in the DC area so a lot of our riding is in the "scenic" territory arround and over the ridges of the Appalachians). I outweigh her by about 80 pounds, and our tandem can weigh 75 to 90 pounds when fully-loaded with gear for a 600Km ride with night riding and in uncertain weather conditions (we are randonneurs).

As we understand it, the whole "plus" of OOP is that by having our legs out of phase, one person's leg will be in the "power on" part of the stroke while the other person's leg is in the "dead zone" in the back of the stroke.

But doesn't that mean that during the spot when my legs are in the dead zone, that she'll be bearing a disproportionate amount of the team's weight? So if the team weighs 400 pounds with tandem, and I am powering 2/3 of that in my power stroke but only 1/3 in the dead zone, then won't she get a load surge of 1/3 during the OOP portion where she's in her power stroke but I'm in my dead zone? That seems like it is just asking for injuries.

In phase, we both are going through the dead zone together, so on those super-steep pitches it takes some skill to keep the tandem steady and moving forward somewhat smoothly. But that seems better than having big load surges that might cause injury.

Thanks for any comments,

Nick Bull