Originally Posted by
TandemGeek
Some gearing can be nearly useless in certain situations, too high can be nearly as bad as too low. If you're not in a race, get off the tandem, have the stoker lift the back end and then manually shift it into a more useful gear if you can spin or grind away from a stop in the wrong gear....
TG, that was exactly the lesson we learned. Generally, if we have to go to that low a gear we wouldn't have any reason to stop. Easy enough to get the bike into a taller gear after a stop. Once we're going a few pedals of "grunt" will allow me to shift if necessary.
I'd have to think about starting while seated. This means leaning the bike a bit more. Might try this solo a few times and see how it feels.
Having too low a gear is really a high class problem for us. We have one 8 mile climb which we do occasionally that only has two pitches where we would use the 36t, but it can be a leg saver. The first pitch is early in the climb when you're not really into it. The second pitch is right at the end, 16% or so and is a killer after you've climbed 2500'.