Tandems......

[smifffymoto]

We,wifey and I,are thinking of getting one.The reason being I get fed up waiting for her and she gets demoralised always being waited for.
Is there any thing inparticular we should look for in the buying process.

This will hopefully solve our problem and make for happy outings and touring.If not it will probably be an expensive mistake and end up in the divorce courts;)

[anonymous-user]

smifffymoto said:

We,wifey and I,are thinking of getting one.The reason being I get fed up waiting for her and she gets demoralised always being waited for.
Is there any thing inparticular we should look for in the buying process.

This will hopefully solve our problem and make for happy outings and touring.If not it will probably be an expensive mistake and end up in the divorce courts;)

Sheldon Brown explains it better than I ever could but in essence, its all about getting your cadence matched as, for the majority of tandems, you will have to be in sync. You can have independent coasting and gearing but its a bit of a faff to install and set up.

There are hire places around which would be worth looking at first before you take the plunge. I know for Mrs Pablo and I buying a tandem would be a one way ticket to divorce!!

They often come up cheap on ebay too but you will need to do some research into appropriate sizing and things. Normally the captain (front!) will be the taller rider and the stoker the smaller rider to suit the natural geometry of the bike.

[AndrewEH1]

As above I'd recommend hiring first if you've never ridden tandem before, it's a very odd feeling sitting in the front or back compared to normal. I almost fell off I was laughing so hard.

[strattonkillick]

We have one. My other half is not that confident on a bike and I thought that it would be good to be able to go out together. She sits at the back and freaks out a little at the lack of brakes, especially when going downhill. After a while though she realised that she didn't actually have to do anything at all if she didn't want to and started to enjoy it. They are a little bit strange to ride and a bit of a paid to store. However, it's much easier to have a chat with someone whilst cycling on a tandem than it is cycling two single bikes.

[ramblo93]

We bought a second hand Claud Butler off ebay.

Much better than lots of the cheap Chinese rubbish out there.

Enjoy it, we've had great fun on ours!

[C0ffin D0dger]

Many years back a couple at work bought one, custom made, spent thousands on it. I had a look at it, for starters it weighed a ton, didn't have particularly good components, and just generally didn't seem great value. They could have bought two really high end road bikes for what they paid for it.

There was some talk that they were going to do Land's End to John o' Groats on it. Think they rode it into work a few times and then I didn't really hear anything about it after that. Make of that what you will but I don't think it was a success for them in the end.

[upsidedownmark]

On the flipside I bought a cheapie 'viking' off ebay (280 quid delivered IIRC). Ok, it has fat tyres, mountainbike gearing (21, but only ever use the fastest and spins out pretty easy), and weighs more than a london taxi.. but it's been bloody brilliant.

Original purpose was to stick mum on the back so all 3 of us can go for a ride when they visit, since ridden with several other folks, used it solo as a delivery truck / load hauler, and with the gf (who is also a pretty decent club cyclist) on the back it bloody flies. Also pretty hillarious for sunny afternoon down the riverbank to the pub trips.

If I'd spent a lot it wouldn't be worth it, as it is, awesome.

[smifffymoto]

Thanks for the feed back chaps.I think I will buy a cheapish one to see how we get on before splurging on a Thorn with s&s couplers etc.

[louiebaby]

The only limited experience I have was hiring one with the wife on honeymoon. She's not a cyclist, and felt like her legs were going to pop out of their sockets when I was setting a cadence of about 85rpm.

In the end I think she took her feet off the pedals, and we were able to make progress.

I'd love to have a go on a racing one with a friend though...

[benny.c]

We've hired one a few times. In summary - Great fun to begin with which soon wears off, leading to twice the effort for half the enjoyment of a normal bike. I'd get your mrs an electric bike instead.

Add a kids trailer for maximum length and even more wobbles…

Edited by benny.c on Friday 17th June 16:13

[ClassicMercs]

As others have mentioned - hire or cheap eBay.

Until I saw your location I was going to mention this weekends York Cycle Rally - second year since it has restarted - not as large as the old event. But there are some interesting exhibitors and that includes JD Tandems from over Skipton way. If you are spending more money the good guys like JD will have demo bikes to try. JD have a Hase Pino which we tried last year - lovely bike - Mrs Mercs has some mobility issues so this setup is great.
(Pleased to see ICE there again - we have a really old Trice that I had out this week - lots of fun)