"My wife and I ...have been thinking of buying a tandem bike"

Just a few days ago my wife and I were looking at one at the bike show in Toronto. We were both of the agreement that it would't work for us since we are both stubborn personalities and would both want to be the captain. Best that we each have our own bike and thus have no arguements. Your relationship might be different however.

Tandems can be a great deal of fun or frustration.

They can be great when both partners are in decent shape but thete is still a significant diffference in fitness. I did quite a bit of riding with a former partner. I was way fitter than her, but we were still able to go out and ride 50 - 100K and both have a great time and stay together the whole time. On seperate bikes, it would have been frustrating for both of us.

Tandems can be frustrating when there is not a great deal of communication between the captain and stoker - this is essential. So if you and your partner don't communicate well, you may be in for a rough ride( pun intended).

As for price - they are not cheap. Main reason is that by doubling the weight on the bike you increase the stress and strain on the frame and compenents significantly. A tandem has to be bomb-proof, but it also must be reasonably light.

They can be very slow going up, but they can go downhill very fast and if you have two reasonably fit people working smoothly and well together, they can be very fast on the flats.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

my wife and i have ridden and raced a tandem a fair bit. it is a crapshoot as to whether you guys will like the thing or not, in my experience. since you are both tri-heads that might help a little - the biggest problems come when one rider is super fit and the other is more of a "out to smell the flowers" type cyclist. still tho there are just no guarantees - could be you love it and could be you hate it. sorry, but that seems to be the way it goes. fwiw after racing ours both on road and off, and riding it hither and yon and whatnot with tri we just don't use it anymore. dunno why. i use it as a trainer with the smallest child, tho - it works great for that ! put the 9 y/o on there and crank away like a madman. we like to pass cars on the downhills.

For our family to get more family bike rides together, my wife and I bought two tandems last year. She takes the youngest on "her" Tandem, I get the middle child on "my" tandem, and the oldest will ride his own bike. It works very well for us together as a family. But, my wife and I have done maybe a mile and a half together, and she never needs to ride in the back again. My wife, and I, and the oldest all compete in Multi-Sport, but we could never train together until we got the Tandems. They were both used, one from E-Bay, and the other from a local bike shop. It was a good Family investment for us, but not so we could have more time as a couple.

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"Any idiot can run a marathon. It takes a special kind of idiot to run an ultramarathon." -Alan Cabelly

I rode a tandem with my wife for several years. When I bought the bike I was "hard core" and she wasn't. It used to aggravate me to no end riding with her. Until I told myself, this is for training. So then when I was in the drops fighting the headwind...and I looked at the shadow only to see her sitting up...I just smiled. One thing to keep in mind is that you will have to develop the same pedaling style. You will both have to pedal at the same cadence (although there is one company out there at allows for different cadences). This can be a big problem. I have ridden my tandem with mashers and I suffered. I have also ridden with spinners, like myself, and had better than expected rides.

You will have to learn how not to stab at the pedals. A tandem has a lot of momentum. Stabbing at the pedals will do nothing for you, except wear you out. Pedal smoothly. With the extra resistance to speed changes, a tandem can also become an excellent strength trainer. Your solo bike weighs around 20#'s, but a tandem weighs in more than 160 depending on the unknown weight of the significant other ;-) Try accelerating that by yourself.

However, you can get "free" back rubs while you are riding (assuming you are in the front - otherwise you will be required to provide said back rubs). If you want a Powerbar, you just ask...then they appear almost like magic over your left sholder..opened and ready to eat. It is much easier to talk to your partner.

You will also receive a different attitude from other riders when on a tandem. Its like you are no longer "competition".

Like others have pointed out it will either make or break the relationship. Borrow or buy a used one first. Otherwise it can be a very expensive piece of wall art.

I now own two tandems. The other is set up for myself and my son, a new traing partner......

My last experience with a tandem-anything was in a two person kayak with my girlfriend. We (I) flipped the thing and she wasn't terribly happy about it. I can only imagine what type of injuries I would sustain after a fall from a tandem.

How easy are tandems to navigate (e.g. turns, stops, climbing steep hills, etc.)?

Thanks.

The easiest way to describe this is what kind of car do you drive? Ever try driving a four door longbed pickup as compared to a two door coupe? Its eight foot long, it steers like an eight foot long bike. You don't just turn it around in the street. However normal riding it is pretty good. As long as your stoker doesn't try any back seat driving. If they lean or counteract your leaning, it can be interesting.

Stopping is all about communicating. As long as you follow a routine, you don't have a problem. I always stop with my left foot down. Pedals at about 1:30 position (right foot forward). My stoker leaves both feet on the pedals. If it is a long stop, they I ask them to place one foot down after I place both down. Starting... Stoker places both feet on...pedals to the 1:30 position....I pedal one stroke..clip in and go (worse case is the left rides the pedal upside down and then I clip in.

We have only fallen due to my silliness. Falling is very quick, much quicker than a solo bike. The times it happened was at or coming to a stop (remember this is what happens when you follow your routine). If you wipe out on a tandem, it wont flip. Too much weight on the back end.

I would suggest renting a tandem a few times before purchasing. By doing that, you'll get a feel for whether you two can work together on a bike. If you can rent different brands of tandems, you'll also get a feel for what type of ride characteristics you like. Hopefully you have a bike shop within a reasonable driving distance that sells tandems.

I believe that tandeming has helped strengthen my marriage. (I guess this kind of ties into Allison's recent article.) My spouse is not athletic, so tandeming is the only athletic thing we can do together. In other words, it gives us a common interest.

Last fall, we did a duathlon race together as a team. I did the 5k runs, and we did the bike together on the tandem. (Now that's really a duathlon.) It was great fun - and my spouse surprised me. Casual riding is our usual mode, but during the race she was down on the drops the whole way pumping hard. We weren't that fast (Bunnyman blew by us like a jet), but it was one of the most fun races of the year - and isn't that what it's really all about?

just to be the exception to proves to slow's rule - i am here to say that a tandem CAN flip if you crash it well enuf. we did just that at the chequmamegon 40 mtbike race. we were barreling down a snowmobile trail after turning off a 40 odd mph fireroad downhill. the details are sketchy, but we blew a wheel to smithereens, crashed hard, and the bike did indeed flip a$$ over front catapulting my wife WAY into the air before the bike itself went spiraling off into the trees like an indycar into the grandstands. the wife landed on her face and bled like she was on a civil war battlefield and ended up getting carted off on a backboard in the back of a f-250. she came back the next year - tho.

anyway - they are as easy to ride and stop and all as anything - most people make too much of it. we have raced ours in mass startraces in crowds of riders on rooty singltrack. they will go uphill as fast as you are uphill. they will rip the legs off any single biker close to your speed on the flats, and goodbye on the downhill - we used to use a 54 ring OFF ROAD !!!
hope it works out for ya.

Ouch, I am corrected. I guess you can flip one if you try hard enough. I'll just take your word on this though.

"fun .......and isn't that what it's really all about? "

Ain't that the truth.

I think that using two bikes and riding together would be more beneficial to your/hers training. Just pick an easy day for the stronger rider and a hard day for the weaker rider. My wife is new to riding and last summer we went out for 1 hour rides where I had to go pretty slowly. I just did my long ride first and when I was tired and got home we would go out together. It helped her to get to get faster and I enjoyed riding with her.

Allen, The difference is the point of view. If you step back and look at what you said "pick an easy day for the stronger rider and a hard day for the weaker rider." This can only be done when the stronger rider wants an easy day. Let me try explaining it this way.

Have you ever ridden with a tandem where the stoker is a young kid. The tandems with the child attachments so they have a different set of pedals. Look at the kid's face. He/she is riding WITH daddy/mommy. Not the usual, daddy/mommy is next to me because he/she has to be. The kids believe that it is a together thing and that they are a direct part of the experience.

A tandem is not for everyone for sure, but it is a totally different level of riding together.

Here's my .02 worth. Tandeming (is that a word) can either be the best thing for a marriage, or the absolute worste. I can honestly say some of the best times I've had with my wife have been on our tandem. A few years ago we rented a tandem when we were on vacation on Mackinaw Island. We really had a lot of fun. So when we got home, I bought a cheap one from a guy who was having a garage sale. I stopped and asked the guy how much he wanted for it, and he said it wasn't in the garage sale. I told him my wife wanted it so it now was in the garage sale. Needless to say, he sold it to me for a couple hundred dollars. We rode it a few times and then upgraded to a decent Cannondale.

So where am I going with this story? I learned a lot from riding a tandem with my wife. Now let me say that my wife really wasn't into the training part, so your wife may be different. We just wanted to get some exercise and spend some time together. I thought I would be getting some good workouts, but it turns out our abilities were pretty different, so the training part never really materialized. So here are a few things I learned:

1. You may be able to work out together, but I wouldn't count on it. Riding a tandem can be a lot of fun, but you will have to be very flexible with your expectations about the training effect. I'll bet though that you spend a lot of time on the tandem just because it can be so much fun.

2. When you buy one, buy a decent one. After having a cheap one, then a decent one, I can definitely say that if I would have judged the experience only on the cheap one, we never would have stayed with it. Or as others have said, rent one for awhile.

3. Read this article before you ever get on one. http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tandem.html It helped me more than anything.

Hope this helps.

Jeff

Jeff, great post. You gotta love that Sheldon Brown for his many terrific articles on the web. If anybody deserves the title "Mr. Bicycle", it's him

I will also add that there is also a psyche thing as well as physical. I know my wife and I couldn't tandem together but we happily ride together all the time, both in training and on club group rides - but only on our own bikes. Obviously it's not that way for every couple.

alright guys. i have told this story before but it warrants a repeat. my wife and i are hammering up a steady grade on a fireroad in the 2500 rider 40 mile chequmegon mt bike race. one of the single riders who is lurking in our draft drifts up to me, and wistfully says " man that is SO cool. i WISH i could get my wife to come out here or train on a tandem like like that". in responce, i fix the guy with a world wise and steely gaze - i pause for effect - and then say " careful what you wish for, buddy." (!!!) the dude's facial expession goes from ignorant roantic longing to a look of marital experience and near terror and he quickly drifts back behind us a much wiser man. my wife goes to me " you just saved that fool 3000 bucks and a marriage". :)