Originally Posted by 53-11_alltheway
wouldn't a tandem have a good power to frontal area ratio?
Considering that you have 2 people pedaling with the air resistance of one person I'd say a tandem should be able to go a few mph faster than a roadie.
It's still all about the motor.
Start by considering who rides a tandem and why. In the majority of cases, it's people who have a long term relationship that want to bicycle together. Unless a couple is very equally matched physically, that's hard to do. The stronger rider, in spite of the best intentions, will gradually creep ahead and eventually find him or herself at the top of a hill with their partner nowhere in sight. A tandem solves that issue and you always arrive at the lunch stop at the same exact time.
The practical implication of that is that tandem teams are rarely evenly matched so to assume that a tandem will have one bike's worth of frontal area but double the power is seldom likely to be correct.
A tandem is more likely to be a love machine than a speed machine.