Sarahsdawn

Hi! I'm a newb.
This is my intro and my question.
I'm a mom, 29, on a weight loss journey. (20 lbs down, a little less than 20 to go.)
My husband is Mike, 32, and 6'6". Meanwhile my height is 5'1". (This is all relevant, I promise.)
My kids are Emily, almost 7, legally blind in one eye, patching 10 hrs/day with limited vision. Charlie is almost 3, and is a hyperactive chimpanzee.

So, I bought a used beach cruiser on CL last year. At some point I attempted to ride with my son in a rear baby seat...I didn't even ride to the end of the block. It was majorly fish-tailing, didn't feel secure, major wobble. I did some research and found that it's harder for smaller individuals to ride with bigger kids. So I haven't used it, gave it to a friend, didn't think much of it.

Recently I bought a bike tagalong (the bike that hitches to a grownup bike...makes it like a tandem) so that I can ride with my daughter, without worrying so much about how well she is/isn't seeing. We took it for a test drive around the block, and there's a little wobble...not too much, but some.

My question...Could this be my bike? Could it need an alignment or something? (Do bikes need those?) Or is it just getting used to the tagalong bike? Or maybe Emily's balance is a little off, and it's making the bike wobble?

Any advice welcome.
-Sarah
PS. Is there a FB group? I'm on there more.

Ti-tillIdie

Assuming the tagalong is secured correctly, it sounds like you are feeling the weight of your daughter behind you. When I started riding our tandem with my fiance (she is seated behind me) it took us both some time to get used to the new set up. She found herself "steering" the fixed handle bars in the back and the torque of her body was immediately noticed by me.

My theory is that when you are no longer steering a bike (like my fiance on the back of our tandem or your daughter on the back of your rig) the natural feeling to 'auto balance' your body (that riding a bike feeling) is lost slightly and that loss needs to be compensated for up front by the driver until the person in the back feels comfortable not having direct control of the path of the bike. So maybe it will just come down to practicing and getting used to the feel of it.

Sarahsdawn

Ok, I've taken each child around the block twice (They loved it so much more than I thought they would!) and I think we must be getting the hang of it.
Thanks so much! )

hartphoto 

We have both a tag along 'Adams Trail A Bike' and also 3 tandems (our first beach cruiser style...about to be re-sold on CL....it served it's purpose getting the family into tandoming). We'll end up with just 2 tandems, one my wife captains and one I do. My wife's is 2 year old a Trek T900, and mine is a 14 year old great condition Santana Sovereign (both bought on CL, as others either quit tandoming or move on to a better/newer bike).

FWIW, it's like Ti-TillIdie mentioned, it's countering the movement of the stoker. But....those trailer tandems do wobble just going in a straight line, and the more you use it, the worse it gets (the wearing of the attachment joints). Kids also tend to 'help' it wobble, as they look around moving their entire body to see around the captain.

With older stokers...kids or otherwise 'new stokers'....you sometimes have to remind them to 'follow' the captain's movements and body position....found this out 'almost' the hard way as my wife 'over leaned' a somewhat steep downhill switchback last weekend as we were descending pretty fast section of road while on a organized group ride. She gasped a bit...I had to counter lean (away from the inside of the turn)...and we bobbled a little....but not really in a way that we were close to going down....just caught me off guard. I do have many motorcycle riding years experience with someone on the back moving all around anytime, so it didn't really feel all that bad to me. But, she did bring it up again later, and I kind of explained the 'mimic body position of captain' thing again.

Read as much of the links in the sticky at the top of the forum as you can before your next ride....and then read them again in a couple months. The links in Post #2 and Post #7 are quite comprehensive. I've re-visited them a couple times since starting tandoming (beginning of 2012) and still learn new stuff.

HTH.

zonatandem

Majority of tag-alongs do wobble a bit.
Kids tend to get antsy or do the hula back there and you are really going to notice that.
The only tag-along that follows the parent bike 100% is made by Burley and called the Piccolo.
They have a special rack on back of parent bike that the tag-along hooks onto. Other tag-alongs hook on to parent's bike seatpost or rear dropout and are not quite as stable.

Sarahsdawn

I'll check out those links, thank!
Error in my intro post....son is 3, almost 4.

WillFam-Reno

I know it's been over a week, but I thought that I would throw in a comment from the perspective of wobble on a triplet both with and without a tag-a-long. Even with three people on the bike, it is rock steady without the tag-a-long. With the tal, there can be a lot of wobble depending on the amount of effort the last child outputs. Of the two smaller kids, one child definitely make the wobble more noticeable. Also I have an Adams tal that has more wobble in the joints than my brothers tal which is a Schwinn. I have not tried the Piccolo, but have heard good things about the lack of joint wobble.
I would suggest working with the children to try nice even pedalling strokes, and check to make sure that their seat is not too high which would encourage the child to rock side to side.
Hope you are having fun.

StephenH

I just started riding a tandem this spring, with a stoker quite a bit smaller than me. Even at that, it just felt completely and totally wrong for the first 1,000 miles. Then here a while back, I rode about 90 miles on the tandem with a stoker, dropped her off at one store, and rode across the parking lot to another store, and danged if it didn't feel completely and totally wrong withOUT her back there. It's mostly in what you get used to.

merlinextraligh

If you find that riding with your kids is something you want to do on a regular basis, and the budget allows for it, you might look into getting a tandem. A Co-Motion periscope can be adjusted over a wide range, so it would be possible to configure your bike to work with both kids as they grow.

Bikefriday tandems also work well in accomodating a wide range on different sized riders.

Given your daughters visual impairment, riding a tandem with her as she grows up would appear to be a great way to let her enjoy cycling.

Clarabelle

We had the same experience when we first got our tandem. It took about a hundred miles before I got the hang of having the extra weight behind me, and it took at least that long before she quit "steering" from behind. We are still working on working better as a team.

DeanB

My SO is 100% blind and loves riding her tandem and indoor trainer. Any wobble I have with her on the tandem is my fault. (~70 lb different between us.. I'm the fat ass ). If your daughter has an interest in cycling a tandem may end up being a great investment.