When I first met her, she had never ridden a bicycle in her life. So the good news was she didn't have any bad habits. Prior to meeting her I'd dated within our club, and I'd typically get dumped for someone faster. I met my wife online, and she attracted me with her wit and intellect, not just because she was single and looked good in cycling shorts.

I may have told the story of our first tandem ride on BF, but searches are coming up empty and it's "my" thread anyway.

A few months after we met and she had learned to ride, I broached the idea of renting a tandem. There was a local shop at the time that would let you borrow a rental tandem for a weekend if you seemed sincere about purchasing one, and "try before you buy" seemed a better business practice than "sorry he/she hates it, but no refunds." We borrowed a Santana close to my/our size and took it on a 27-mile ride with the club. But it was August and it was well over 100 degrees by the time we got home, the stoker saddle wasn't a good fit for her and she was very chafed, she was heat-exhausted and sore, and the rear wheel started coming apart on us a few miles from home. She was in tears by the time we were done, and I figured that not only was a tandem out of the question, our entire relationship may just have come unglued off the rim.

After a shower, some air conditioning therapy, and a nice afternoon rest, she came up to me and asked, "So, when are we getting one?"

We bought our tealish aqua XS 1993 Santana Vision a few days later from that shop and never looked back except to change lanes.

Since then, the Santana's seen nearly 4000 miles in our family adventures. However, my wife's knees are currently kaput, but the bike is carefully hung up for storage for the day she can ride it with me again.