My wife and I have almost the exact same abilities on single bikes. We always rode together on our singles and we still do. We are both strong recreational riders: we ride 5-6 centuries a year and between 4000-5000 miles per year. I always noticed that we were almost perfectly in synch on the singles. We usually ride our singles with the same cadence and shift at the same time so I knew that we’d be compatible on the tandem. We purchased our first tandem earlier this year mostly for variety. It’s a nice way to keep the riding interesting when you ride 5-6 days a week. Although we wouldn’t think of giving up our single bikes or our cross bikes either, the tandem just adds another dimension to riding.
This year we rode the tandem 1-2 days per week and we did two centuries. The first had about 9800 vertical foot elevation gain and the second was a super flat century with less than 1000 vert that we did in less than 5.5 hours. We love having the option of riding the tandem. The speed is also addicting, it’s become our go-fast bike of choice.