My wife and I both came from strong single biking back rounds including road and mtn bike racing. One of the reasons we bought a tandem is I was tired of getting dropped by my lovely wife stoker. She is retired and gets to ride much more then I and is just plain fitter and younger. It wasn't much but about 5% so over the course of 60-70 miles it was a few minutes and we never saw each other. When we first got the tandem she told me within 15 minutes that we had made a big mistake and spent a lot of money that was wasted. She hung in on the trip of 5 days and asked every stoker we met how they liked tandeming. We never had any bike handling or actual riding issues it was a lack of control on her part. Fast forward 5 years and many trips. We are at dinner alone and she tells me the best vacations we do are on the tandem. She makes me look good on the tandem and we have met some of our best friends on these trips. We now own a Calfee road tandem and two mountain tandems go figure and BTW she is always right.