When I was hiking the CDT, Mark got the idea that we should plan a bike trip together. Maybe, he thought we should do it on a tandem. I had never ridden a tandem before, but I was on board with the idea. We talked to many of our friends about the idea and received a fair amount of skepticism along with some outright abhorrence at the idea. From the dramatic to the mundane, we heard and read all sorts of reasons not to buy a tandem bicycle: “it’ll ruin your relationship,” “won’t you get bored staring at his sweaty back all day?,” “the other person is never pedaling hard enough.” After a little more research, we decided that we should give it a try and low and behold, we love it!
We haven’t gotten to take it on a tour yet, but we have done some of the longest bike rides I have ever done. It’s great to be able to talk to each other without having to catch up and shout across the way to the other rider. We can easily communicate our needs and since we’re always taking breaks together and riding at the same speed it’s way easier to stay on the same page on a long ride. Riding in the back I can provide some navigation assistance while Mark steers. While we are not always pedaling with exactly the same force, we both feel like at the end of the ride, we have put in the same work as one another. Plus, it’s an obvious indicator to the people around us what goofs we are! We get a lot of smiles and cheers– only the occasional heckle.
When mark and I set out to buy a tandem, we originally thought we might buy a new tandem mountain bike and build it out for touring. After looking at prices and considering what we really wanted out of the bike, we decided the used market would be a better starting place for us. The experience of shopping for tandems on Craigslist is fabulous. Stereotypical stories of tandem failures abound and the importance imparted onto unimportant details seems to be a necessary sales pitch on the tandem bicycle market. I read one post in which the seller lamented that he thought the bike would save his marriage but since that didn’t work out he was now selling it. In other posts the bike would be all but falling apart but would “include a bike bag!” When we bought our tandem it was in need of a fair amount of simple maintenance like replacing cable housing and tires, but the seller was sure to warn us that one of the little plastic bar ends was missing (the least of our concerns). The variety of tandems is also impressive. From carbon fiber road racing bikes to recumbents, shopping for our bike opened me up to a whole new world of tandem bicycles. We were looking for a few things in a bike, but mainly simplicity. Because we want to tour with this bike, we wanted everything on the bike to be durable or serviceable. Since we were buying used we knew we wanted a steel frame and we’d need a large medium frame to it the two of us.
We ended up buying a Trek “double track” that is older us and had been garage stored and rarely ridden for its entire life. The bike is a beautiful tank, sporting a shiny blue paint job and weighing over 50 lbs. Mark did the research and a majority of the work to upgrade some of the parts including saddles, handle bars, wheels and tires. Tires have been a bit of a challenge for us. Because the bike has to support the weight of two people, the tires bare a significant burden. After blowing through more than 5 tubes in so many rides, we switched to a tubeless setup but tore open two different tires on a hard bump. We’re having more success with our new tires– a set of pink Panaracers which also add nicely to the aesthetic. Another big win for our riding came when I switched to clipless shoes. Before that, I had just been riding in my flat mountain bike shoes and my feet would regularly fly off the pedals if Mark shifted or stopped pedaling unexpectedly. Having both our feet attached to our pedals makes slight changes in cadence, braking and shifting so much easier. It’s only once you don’t have to announce every shift and stop that you realize what a luxury that is!
We have taken the tandem around the Enchanted circle in northern New Mexico, through the Needles and pigtail highway in South Dakota, the La Sal loop outside of Moab and quite a few long rides in the front range foothills. Though, we are still most excited to take it on a long tour. Actually we’ll be taking a different tandem on our long tour. We had thought a bike with 26″ wheels might serve us better for an international tour and when one came up on Craigslist that fit our standards, well, it can’t hurt to have a second tandem can it? We still need to make a few adjustments to this new tandem to get it ready for touring, and somehow it’s even heavier than our other one, but we’re excited to take it on a long ride!
