Slightly off-topic, but why is your husband necessarily going to be the captain? While most couples do it that way, it's not written in stone that it must be so. My wife rides captain almost all the time (well over 99%) and we find that it is much more fun for both of us since we can both see what is going on. It also adds a safety factor since we have two sets of eyes on potential hazards (lots of deer, turkeys, elk, coyote, bear and cougar where we ride, not to mention the occasional car). ride we On our rides, we sometimes hear comments from couples who are on singles that indicate they had never considered putting the shorter person up front. On last Saturday's ride, we had one rather boisterous new female fan yell out, "Oooh, I like that." to the guy she was riding with.

Of course, this might be something to consider on tandem #2 , since many entry-level tandems won't be stiff enough to handle a large stoker. Then again, if you are riding mostly flatlands the bike won't have to be as stiff as it would in the hills.