10 Tips For Touring On A Tandem Bicycle
In the summer of 2010, Chris & Janyis cycled over 7,000km on a tandem bicycle through Europe. In this guest, post they share 10 Tips for Tandem Bike Touring.
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The tandem bicycle: A romantic, slightly eccentric, slightly odd looking machine with a certain appeal.
As we planned a 3-1/2 month cycle tour of Europe, the idea of doing it on a bicycle made for two became more and more attractive. After a few days of watching eBay, we hit ‘buy it now’ and became the proud owners of a Dawes Sardar 2 tandem. It cost us £300 (about $500 U.S.).
Two weeks later we set off to Newhaven to catch the ferry to Dieppe and 7,200 kilometers of freedom; cycling through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia and Italy.
We knew nothing about tandem riding before we bought the bike and wouldn’t profess to be experts now but thought we’d share our experiences in case you also fancy ‘looking sweet upon the seat’ of one of these special machines.
Here are our 10 Tips for successful tandem touring:
1. Practice Makes Perfect
Riding a tandem isn’t really a fine art, more a messy sketchbook of wobbles and wavy lines before you get the hang of it, especially fully loaded. The important thing is to synchronize at all times. When stationary, pushing off with a chant of ’3, 2, 1′ helps takes the strain off the knees
2. Keep The Peace
A harmonious relationship between Pilot (at the front of the tandem) and the Stoker (in the rear) is crucial to successful tandem riding. Below are some of the things we learned not to do on the road:
- Pilot – Do not spit.
- Stoker – Do not tell the Pilot right at the beginning of a 4,500 mile cycle tour that your mother will never forgive him/her if you have an accident. Wait until the tour is over to share this information.
- Pilot – Do not question the Stoker’s pedaling efforts.
- Stoker – Do not be a backseat driver.
- Pilot – Communicate – do not expect the Stoker to be a mind reader.
- Stoker – Do not lean.
- Pilot – Do not walk away from the tandem and assume that the stoker is holding it upright.
- Stoker – Do not suddenly stop pedaling.
3. Look Your Best
You’ll gets lots of attention, or at least the tandem will, so make sure both you and the tandem are looking smart. The top 3 Tandem loving countries in Europe are Italy, Germany and England.
4. Don’t Off-Road On A Fully Loaded Tandem
Whilst riding the Canal du Midi in France might seem like a good idea, much of it is off-road, often on muddy tracks, with the murky waters of the canal right beside you. Taking a tandem with two riders, four panniers, 1 bar bag, a 25 litre dry sack and semi-slick tyres down such a path is just not sensible.
5. Do The Math
According to Green Trust, a human produces about 1/10th of a horsepower when cycling. This gives the Pilot and Stoker together about 1/5 of a horse to get the tandem and all its baggage up those mountains. That’s not much of a horse, so choose your gradients well….
6. Know Your Brakes
A normal bike with one rider and two heavy panniers stops slowly when you apply the brakes. Now multiply riders and luggage by 2 but still ride with standard V-brakes. Finally, add a mountain pass to the equation and ride down it. This means you need to go very, very slowly and cautiously. Better yet, you can fit an additional coaster brake. We would have benefited from one.
7. Learn To Laugh At The Same Joke Over and Over Again…
…and the joke is… (pointing at the Stoker) ‘she’s not pedaling!!’
We heard this joke in 12 languages – 10 of which we don’t speak. But we still understood the joke and we still laughed. Oh, how we laughed!
8. Stoker: Learn To Love The Grass By The Roadside
The view isn’t great from the back. You’re going to see a lot of grass on this tour.
9. Learn To Love Your Back Wheel
It carries a lot of weight and you’ll spend a lot of time tending to its needs: dishing it, replacing spokes, re-tensioning spokes, checking bearings, cursing it, threatening it, etc… We think our problems were made worse by the badly tensioned, machine-built rear wheel that came with the tandem. If you can, invest in strong, hand-built wheels.
10. Love Your Tandem
One day at some unspecified moment you’ll look at that beast of burden and be amazed just how much weight a simple machine can carry. And you’ll feel a glow of warmth and respect for it. We even gave ours a name – Florence.
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Very nice list. As tandem drivers ourselves I can agree with most points. With respect to nr. 6 we never intend to go into mountaineous area. Nr. 1 and 2 are indeed very important. We had the same epiphany with nr. 10. However we have no name yet other than The Red Menace
Can I add a lesson learned from taking a blind stoker off road?
Remind stoker that there is a twenty foot drop down a bramble covered bank on his left hand side.
Ooops
We are cycling to Suffolk a trip of 102 miles we hope to do 50 miles a day is that achievable
Hi
We averaged 50 miles per day on our tour of Europe. You can see from the images above how loaded the tandem was. So yes, assuming a decent level of fitness, no strong headwinds and not too many mountains (you should be safe in Suffolk on this one), I’d say 50 miles a day is achievable. Happy riding
Hi Steve,
Everything is achievable – it’s only in the mind. In 2010 we were touring in the Dordogne. I asked my wife if she would be OK doing 60 miles the 1st day.
The reply was affirmative. At the end of the 1st day – 66 mile, I remarked that the tandem wasn’t rolling too well over the last 6 miles in spite of the slight downhill gradient. “Oh, you said we were only cycling 60 miles, at that point I stopped trying”!
Happy Tandem riding
Hi,
Just wondering if the advantages of less weight on the rear wheel when having the large panniers at the front and the smaller ones at the rear out weigh the disadvantages of heavier steering.
Thanks Adam
Hi !
My wife and I are the owner of a tandem. We did the Pacific coast of USA ( Canada – Mexico ). We have small panniers at the front, larger ones at the rear, and a Bob Yack trailer. By putting the load on three axles, the tandem has a better steering, and it reduces the pressure on the rear wheel.
Bon voyage !
Regarding Tip 8 – Stoker: Learn to love the grass at the roadside.
Staring at your partner’s back, however lovely, is not an ideal way to see the world which is why an increasing number of serious tandemists are using a hybrid recumbent/upright tandem like the Hase Pino or Bilenky Viewpoint. Both partners get to see all round, heads close together and, just to make it interesting, the stoker sits in front of the pilot
Very odd the first time you see one and will get you even more interest from bystanders but actually a brilliant concept. We have a Hase Pino and couldn’t imagine riding any other kind of tandem.
We wanted to take a Pino on our tour. Sadly they cost a tad more than our Dawes Sardar 2.
True, but the Pino splits in two and goes very easily in the back of an Indian Jeep Taxi, great for getting you up steep hills (in mountainous rural India there’s always a Jeep Taxi about to come along). But you’ll have realised that I am a wild-eyed enthusiast for unusual bikes so please feel free to ignore this.
I laughed from the beginning to the end of your 10 tips for riding a tandem.
Thank You, you guys made my week!
Dennis Struck
Thanks