Originally Posted by
Beverly
I always mount the bike from the left.
While we're on the subject I have a question of the tall people in the group. I ride with a couple men who are over 6' 6" tall and they both mount their bikes by standing beside the bike and swinging their right leg over the handle bars. I know I could never do it. Is this something tall people often do?
I do that a lot but, at 5'10", I'm not unusually tall. I ride a tandem with my wife. If I try to swing my leg over the saddle I catch the rear handlebar with my foot. Swinging my knee over the handlebar is much more graceful.
Incidentally, we always start and stop in exactly the same way. I get on, clip in my right foot and position the right pedal at 3:00. Then my wife gets on, clips in her right foot and tells me when she's ready. We both push off with our left feet and she tells me when she'd clipped in. We always both put our left feet down at stops. That's not the technique that's favored by most tandem teams but, after 32 years, we're not likely to change.