Five Brief Thoughts on my First Tandem Experience

Most people probably aren't cranking out 90+ miles on their first go. Oh well, I survived.

This past Saturday, I got to ride a tandem for the first time in my life!

It seemed like a gaping hole in my cycling experience. I’ve ridden road bikes. Cruisers. Enduro mountain bikes. Even a unicycle.

But no tandem.

It’s been a bit of a running joke between me and my partner for years now that I’m going to buy a tandem and we can go touring together. Not that we haven’t ridden together on “normal” bikes, but a tandem might be a particular flavor of bicycle adventure.

Now, perhaps I’m…more equipped?…to suddenly show up with a two seated bicycle and say, “Let’s hit the road!” Not saying I’m going to do that. But it’s more possible for the experience gained.

So without further ado, here are five quick thoughts reflecting on my very first tandem ride.

1) It’s helpful to have someone who knows what they’re doing.

Big, big thanks to Forrest Miller for inviting me to join him on this goofy idea, but even bigger thanks for being an efficient and effective teacher.

The bike we were on was Forrest’s, which he acquired thinking not dissimilar things from my little “joke” I mentioned. It’s been a toy for him and his wife, and I just got to step in for the day.

That means that he knew what he was doing and was able to tell me exactly how to approach the trickiest bits of tandem riding: starting and stopping. I listened to his instruction and we had no problems.

2) Staying in sync is easier than I thought it would be.

On your own bike, you get to pedal at the cadence you like, put in effort at the times that you like, and freewheel when you like.

On a tandem, you are physically connected to another person who is also doing all these things. Going in, I figured this would be one of the most challenging parts of riding a tandem. I thought that we might even need to count off our pedaling cadence to one another, like the coxswain in a rowboat.

Turns out, it’s generally a lot easier than that.

Yes, there were a couple times when one of us (me) wasn’t thinking and suddenly tried to freewheel, which created pedal kickback for the both of us. But by and large neither of you can make anything happen without the other one at least being open to the idea. So there were times when I was ready to pedal, but I can’t really force us both to start cranking. Instead, I could keep gentle pressure on the pedal, and as soon as Forrest also started pushing, we were off and rolling together.

Aside from some important verbal communication (like calling “coast”), a lot of riding a tandem is just paying attention to the physical input you’re getting from the bike. Of course, that’s easy to say from the stoker’s seat (the rear one) when you can barely do more than pedal if you try.

3) Captaining a tandem takes a LOT more work.

Credit once more to Forrest for keeping things smooth, because the front seat on a tandem is responsible for a whole lot more than the back.

In one sense, it’s nothing you wouldn’t be used to from riding any other bike. You shift. You brake. You steer.

But remember: you’re attached to another person. On my own bike, it’s pretty common for me to pull off a shift at the last moment before a stop because I have control over the whole system. I can feel the derailleur putting tension on the chain. I can feel my balance trying to rotate the pedals just enough to finish the shift. You can’t do this on a tandem. You have to plan ahead more rigorously.

I didn’t try captaining the tandem myself this time, but I imagine that the steering and braking take more time and planning, too. It’s just a bike…but it’s also not.

4) The hills may be rough, but you really can fly on the flats.

It may seem that there shouldn’t be any real difference between a bicycle and a tandem on the hills. After all, you have the power of two people to offset the weight.

That doesn’t bear out in reality. Tandem frames are heavy - they have to be in order to support the extra weight on the same two wheels, but spread out over an even longer wheelbase. At the same time, they’re flexy - see above about the extra long wheelbase. Neither of these things are good climbing traits. On a tandem, you need good gearing and you just have to spin to make it up a climb.

On the flats, however, that added weight becomes something of an advantage. Once you get a tandem up to speed, it maintains that speed quite well. That extra weight you have doesn’t (at least seem to) result in as much of a negative with ¿extra rolling resistance as it does result in a positive with the ability to cut through wind. Your frontal area isn’t all that different from a normal bike, but you have extra weight and power to cut through the air ahead of you.

We got the tandem up just over 40mph (64kph) on one stretch, and the limitation at that point wasn’t our power, but our gearing. We were spinning over 100 rpm and just couldn’t get enough power into the system to raise our speed any higher.

5) Tandems are a fun novelty, but not how I’d want to ride any significant distance.

It turns out that my wife is (probably) safe from me turning up with a touring tandem and insisting she climb aboard.

Don’t get me wrong - I loved my day out on a tandem, and would happily ride one again.

But part of what I love about riding bikes is the freedom and the playfulness of piloting your own machine. On a tandem (or at least in the stoker’s seat), you don’t get much of that. You’re part of the engine, but also just along for the ride.

So for me, it’s an “every once in a blue moon” sort of thing. I just like my bike - being on my own bike - way too much to give that up with any regularity.

I know this has been a bit of a departure from the normal Roving Cyclist discourse, but thanks for sticking with me to the end of this week’s newsletter. Next week we’ll be back on to bikepacking, randonneuring, and ultra distance topics!