two built for a bicycle

the family that paddles/pedals together . . .

Wed, 2 May 2012 08:54:18 -0700

For more on the Harrison family, their Co-Motion quint, and their remarkable adventure: www.pedouins.org
A charming little video (“for kids only!”) from Petaluma Pete is a good overview of the story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TgpiYAU-UY
For more of the growing-up Gosling family, hurry on down to Oyster Point, on the peninsula just north of San Francisco International Airport.

bike to work day, the movie

Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:40:10 -0700

Not a tandem to be seen, but from the idea to the editing room it’s my own creation, done with a lot of enthusiasm for the challenge of telling a complete story in a very short time.
If there were a poster for this film, the tag line would read:
As cyclists, we don’t like getting cut off.
Especially not by another cyclist.
Enjoy it!

(get your popcorn ready,
and then click here)

being laid off can be a good thing

Thu, 4 Aug 2011 08:50:38 -0700

Christine got laid off in late June. Bad news.
Christine was then at home every day. Good news.
Tom is self-employed, works at home, and has a fairly flexible work day. Facilitative.
Eighteen rides in thirty-six days. Exhilarating.
Christine returned to gainfully employed status in early August. Well . . .
There’s probably a silver lining in that cloud somewhere.*

* Note to those who are, right now, not gainfully employed but very much want to be, and who may feel some resentment about these comments: we went through a harrowing midlife calamity of our own. All we wanted in life, at the time, was restoration of what was being jeopardized and lost. We empathize. And we are now willing to postulate that the lurching experience was a necessary stage on the way to a life with a higher level of self-definition and sufficiency—abundance even—in which there is opportunity to follow one’s passions as well as be provided for. We wish you the best of outcomes . . . and experiences that you’ll look back on with gratitude that might be scarcely imaginable in the present.

wanna buy a classic tandem?

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 11:21:30 -0700

And now we make of this blog, for a moment, also a Penny Trader, or whatever charming name seems to fit those little newsprint pubs in which people offer stuff for sale.
Tom Grossman, in Colorado Springs, has a Swedish-made Monark Daisy Daisy tandem of the 1950s.
It is ready for restoring. Look at those curves! Even on the stoker’s seat stays. And the five vertical pieces seem to evoke the slanted smokestacks of a great ocean liner, don’t they?
Tom G. says: “We’d like this bike to find a good home. We’ll talk with the buyer and then pack and ship the bike with expediency and frugality matching the buyer’s wishes.”
I’d say, from his comment, that Tom G. has spent enough time, and close enough, to the Monark to have picked up some of the style and flair that the maker brought to the cycling world in another era. Check this out (from www.nostalgic.net/monark.htm):
Monark Silver King Inc. (formerly Monark Battery Co.) created some of the coolest bikes
of the balloon tire era. Most sought after are the aluminum models, such as the Flocycle
and Wingbar. One of the most popular models during the late 1940's and 1950's was the
Monark Super Deluxe. Monark continued making bicycles into the middle-weight era, with
some very stylish models. People often confuse "Monarch" with "Monark". Monarch was a
bicycle company from the 1890's era and not related to Monark in any way.
To seal the deal—on our brief flirtation with Monark, that is, not yet on the Daisy—I’ll permit myself an exception to the editorial philosophy of the tandem blog to share a photo of a single, a gorgeous, polished aluminum Monark Flocycle:

You can contact Tom G. by way of Tom F. Drop me a line, and I’ll put you in touch.
“Give me your answer, do. . . . I’m half-crazy, all for the love of you. . . .”

back in the saddle again

Sun, 12 Jun 2011 21:28:04 -0700

_______________________________________________________________________
After nineteen weeks.
Hi yo, Monster—away!
(Oh, dang—I told Christine to hang on when we do wheelies. . . .)

expectant mom

Thu, 19 May 2011 12:54:51 -0700

_______________________________________________________________________
[Guest blogger Kirsten Dykstra caught my eye on Facebook with the clever image at the top of this entry. The more I learned about her family’s cycling experience, the more I wanted to share her story with you. Here ya go.—T.]

Our tandem story begins about a year and a half ago, when my husband, Derek, finally coerced me into selecting my own first road bike. For several years I had been running and had no interest in riding . . . but he was an avid cyclist with no interest in returning to running (he'd run cross country and track in high school). I guess I was the one to cave in to marital pressure.
It wasn't long after taking up cycling that I badly sprained my ankle during a trail relay. During those weeks when I couldn't run a step, I embraced the bike . . . and discovered that I'm a far better cyclist than runner (which isn't saying an awful lot, really).
But we realized pretty quickly that cycling wasn't proving to be something we could do as a couple as much as we'd initially envisioned. It required finding child care for Dane, our nine-year-old son . . . which made an already expensive activity even more so.
Our son adores pedaling his little bike (his dad's childhood tank of a steel Raleigh BMX bike), but as a relatively small and young person he can't yet handle his own road bike; nor would he be able to keep up with mom and dad. So the gears started turning, and my hubby began really ogling road tandems, especially upon learning that our favorite local bike shop carries the Co-Motion brand, which builds several tandem models with telescopic rear seat posts to accommodate stokers of nearly any size. Unfortunately, the price tag on one of these rides was a bit rich for our blood. Luckily for us, my mother-in-law is a very velo-friendly sort of woman. She volunteered to foot half the bill on a tandem to enable us to ride as a family. With this, the wheels were in motion.
(continued)

two’s a tandem, three’s a triple

Sun, 3 Apr 2011 20:51:12 -0700

_______________________________________________________________________
Down the side of the jerseys it says “Old Lutheran.” Well, they’re not that old (I say, as barely their senior). Across the back it says “Tour de Revs.” And reverends they are.
Three West Virginia pastors—Rev. David Twedt of Capon North River Lutheran Parish in Wardensville, Rev. Ron Schlak of Trinity Lutheran Church in Charleston, and Rev. Fred Soltow Jr. of Shepherdstown Lutheran Parish in Shepherdstown—covered 13,000 miles (8,000 of it pedaling), traveling fully around the United States in one hundred days, to raise funds for a campaign against world hunger, in summer 2009.
Googling “Tour de Revs” will take you to plenty of publicity about their trip. Here’s a good little film that tells the story, on the day of a wet trial run.
For purposes of our tandem blog, let’s pose a few questions that get right to our interests (not to diminish at all the accomplishment of theirs!):
Q: What’s the bike?
A: The frame is made of bamboo. Custom built by Calfee Design, in Santa Cruz County, California. As soon as I hear back from the pastors, I’ll let you know what they have to say about riding this one-of-a-kind bicycle.
Q: Who was the captain? And what did they call the other two: Stoker 1 and Stoker 2?
A: (Coming soon: this answer and the remaining ones!)
Q: Hard to imagine riding 8,000 miles, with two-thirds of the riders having the same unrelenting view! Did they switch off? What was the “triple” experience like?
A: _____.
Q: What did they like the most about the adventure?
A: _____.
Q: What did they like least?
A: _____.
Q: What were the outcomes, regarding the fundraising and personal goals?
A: Fundraising: _____. Pastor _____. Pastor _____. Pastor _____.
Q: I’ve asked them to tell us something about such a ride that might surprise even experienced tandemists.
_____.

* * * * *
If you’d like to contact these gentlemen, you can sleuth your way through Google results to track them down, or drop me a line and I’ll pass your message on.
And here’s a link that will take you to the eye-opening world of bamboo (along with other impressive) bikes from Calfee Design.

Photos: at top, from Deb Veerkamp, at Midwest Tandem Rally 2009; movie clip from ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuvvRUsufjw; three heads from Baltimore Sun 5/26/09 http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/charity/; cartoon from http://www.iksynod.org/images/tourderevs.gif (Indiana-Kentucky Synod of ELCA)

take her in for a spin

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 22:38:48 -0700

_________________________________
Dick Spransy and his stoker, Nancy, are honorary members of our Meetup.com group “tandem bicycles San Francisco Bay Area” (see the entry “meetin’ up”).
But they’re unlikely to be on our weekend rides because they’re a long way from SF . . . and snowed in, to boot.
Out there in Milwaukee, through a significant portion of the year, Dick “spins.”

(This is not Dick’s program in the photo, but you get the idea.)
Not in the back, though, which is where you’d expect the art director and photographer on a shoot to put a sixty-six-year-old guy. Dick is the leader of the pack.
“In my twelve years of instructing, I’ve reminded a fair number of thirtysomethings that I’m twice as old as they are and am kicking their butts,” he says.
Also known (at least to Dick) as “pedal till you puke,” the spinning training regimen attracts a range of clients. “I had a group of five fortyish moms,” he recalls, “who had not exercised in years decide that spinning was the way to get back in shape. They joined my class one September, and I told them their goal was to do a charity ride with me in the spring. The response was ‘Yeah, sure,’ but on the following June 3 they all rode with me and did more than thirty miles. Not bad for beginners.”
Other memorable stories recount his class giving him a birthday surprise by luring him out of the spinning room at the Y for a few minutes and filling up his drinking bottle with beer, and his inviting some moms to bring their youngsters along to sit out a session. The kids, age six to eight, had a blast, on a day when the room was overheated, using their super soakers to keep the spinning cyclists well hydrated.
Some spinning sessions use video screens and music to while away the time.

The machines are recognizable as bicycles, though only just.
But if you are a tandemist and your idea of a bicycle runs to something more like eight feet in length, and if snowy weather would otherwise have you and your stoker in the doldrums, then there’s nothing else to do than, well, take her in for a spin.
And if you’re even further from Dick’s spinning class in Milwaukee than Christine and I are, then do as Michael Stechow and his partner Marijana do in Banja Luka, Bosnia.

* * * * *
Guest entry from Michael and Marijana coming up, from the (what else? cold) east.

Photos: Wisconsin, by Andy Manis/Getty Images, myLife 12/9/09, online issue 3/25/11: http://www.life.com/image/94179641. Spinning program: http://www.spinning.com/spinning-enthusiasts/about-spinning.asp. Spinning program screen: http://wn.com/High_Intensity_Spin_Training. Spinning cycle: http://www.hellotrade.com/seven-sport-sro/product1.html. Stechows indoors: Co-Motion Cycles photo album, no. 38 of 164, http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=483338484790&set=o.198415267871&theater.

age is immaterial

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 21:52:45 -0700

_______________________________________________________________________
Doreen and Rann Millar are role models.
Anybody who can pedal a tandem to the top of Crater Lake deserves admiration. Doubly so for Rann, who is closing in on seventy (with Doreen, as always, “behind him”).
They have been the most gracious and most encouraging tandemists of all in coaxing Christine and me to commit to this endeavor.
Here, on this page, are the first paragraphs of Rann’s story, which is continued on a separate page, with more photos to be seen there.
I welcome your comments; be assured that they’ll be passed on to the Millars. (Doreen will be making her own contribution to an upcoming set of entries on the stoker’s view of tandeming.)
_______________________________________________________________________
Rann’s story
I cannot believe I have made 69 trips around the sun already, and I still feel young when I straddle our tandem, whether for a ride down the road or for 100 miles.
In summer 1997 we borrowed a tandem from a riding friend. I had always heard, “Take it easy on the first ride, and make it a fun one for your stoker.” I heeded the advice, and we clicked off about ten easy, flat miles on the Santa Ana River Trail in Southern California, near where we were living.
“Wow, that was fun!” Doreen exclaimed to me as we pedaled into our driveway.
A day or so later we made our way to a local bike shop specializing in tandems. We tried several, and after a couple of hours on a half-dozen machines, we had a pretty fair idea of what we wanted.
The first hurdle was sticker shock!
(continued)
Photos here and on “Rann’s story” page: Rann and Doreen Millar

reinforcements

Thu, 3 Feb 2011 22:09:42 -0800

Christine and I are sitting around, as I nurse my dejection and keep my foot propped up high, trying to make the best of this bit of a setback . . . oh, but you’ve already read this opening line, haven’t you?
* * * * *
I’m going to be out of commission for a while—that is, in terms of actually riding the tandem.
So, hey, why don’t we call in reinforcements?
Clicking on the “Next” link at the bottom of this page will take you to the first of a number of guest entries.
They’ll give quite a panorama of people and circumstances in this wonderful little world of captaining and stoking.
I’ll let you know when Christine and I are about to rejoin the pack.
Mope, mope.

Photo: still from video clip of mass start (470 bikes!) of Midwest Tandem Rally 2010, Shipshewana, Indiana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWDYPJJZewg&feature=related. A more pleasing video (because it has music and creates an impression that really grows on you during its four minutes’ duration) is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGgyQQoqn_g&feature=related

meetin' up

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 13:54:45 -0800

Christine and I are sitting around, as I nurse my dejection and keep my foot propped up high, trying to make the best of this bit of a setback, and she asks:
“Do you think we’re going to meet other tandem couples, once we get back into riding?”
“I’m absolutely positive,” I beam, ever the optimist, as I mentally gauge how the drop in swelling is coming along.
“How?” she asks.
Well, I think to myself . . . there’s always Meetup.com.
So we create a Meetup group: “tandem bicycles San Francisco Bay Area.”
And within three days, we have fourteen members. That’s twenty-eight new tandeming friends, give or take!
So we set the group’s first Meetup: a Sunday brunch at our place. It may be a paltry stand-in for an actual riding event, but in fact it turns out to be a great success.
Eighteen of us fill our living room. We have a splendid get-acquainted session.
And unlike the smart crowd in the photo up top, we don’t even have to park our bike in the living room. (Though we do let them know it’s hanging in the home office, right through that doorway over there.)
* * * * *
What kind of motorcycle is it in the photo? Well, if you know Tom F., you don’t even need to ask.
Photo: http://www.chicagohomemag.com/Chicago-Home/November-December-2010/Holiday-Entertaining-with-Tereasa-Surratt-and-David-Hernandez/

a bit of a setback

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 12:27:23 -0800

So I was truckin’ on down the sidewalk, and I broke my foot.
This happened last Wednesday, six days ago. I didn’t know it was a fracture at the time, but today the podiatrist confirmed it.
* * * * *
No fall, no impact, no twisting. Just striding along at my usual brisk pace, when I feel and hear something not good.
I’m a mile from home. There is an instant of sharp pain that stops me in my tracks, but it’s not terribly painful afterward. Sore and tender, yes. Never having broken a bone in my life (I can now say), naturally enough I don’t recognize it as such. So I figure I’ve pulled loose something tendony.
So I figure, on the spot and in the moment, that the best thing to do is to massage it like mad. (Six days later in the podiatrist’s office, I learn this was not such a good thing to do with a freshly snapped metatarsal.)
It takes quite a while to hobble home, but I make it. Not knowing what to do for self-treatment (of a presumed pulled tendony something), I mentally flip a coin between apply-hot and apply-cold, and it comes up heads.
So I soak the foot in hot salty water for an hour. (Which, six days later in the podiatrist’s office etc. etc.)
Why does it take me six days to see a doctor? Well, I’m thinking pulled tendony thing when I call the doc on Thursday, the day after. So they say, Let’s set up an appointment. But the doc is leaving for the long Martin Luther King birthday weekend. So I acquiesce, thinking I’ve pulled a tendony thing and I can just keep massaging it for a few days.
In terms of first aid and appropriate initial treatment, I have not done well.
* * * * *
Today, I get a new item of apparel. True, the color suits the tandem. But in every other respect . . .

. . . it clashes.
Truckin’ dude by R. Crumb, of course (www.rcrumb.com); Photoshopping all around truckin’ dude by Jeff Raymond

first destination ride (part 4)

Sun, 9 Jan 2011 15:00:32 -0800

part 4: our first impact
Oh, yes: tandems also frequently attract the interest of other cyclists.
As we’re chatting with Peter and Alex, up rides “Red” on White. He has hardly brought his intriguing custom to a full stop when he strides over and immediately examines the tandem’s belt drive.

He has fabricated a belt drive of his own on White, and that bike turns out to be filled with technical niceties . . . not to mention an attention-drawing persona, and feathery lightness.

I hope Red will respond to my open invitation to tell us more here on the blog, and elaborate on his unique creation. For now, and from nontechnical me, two features: the front fork is cleverly rigged to be rotatable through 360 degrees (as you’ll see below, if you’re quick), and the bike has completely direct drive so it can be pedaled backwards.
Which Red promptly demonstrates. Unfortunately.

Happily, no damage done, though he did seem to scoot off rather abruptly. So, Red, please take me at my word: no hard feelings, and on the contrary I’d love to give you another stage here on the blog.
Moral of the story for Tom: you meet the nicest people, while on a tandem. And in general, when you’re not actually on it, perhaps it’s a good idea to stand close by.
Final words heard in video: Christine saying “C’mon, let’s eat.” Which is what prompted us to pause here, in our ride through the park. Can there be anything more welcome, on a chilly bike ride, than hot chowder?

Follow the chowder wagon on Twitter @chowdermobile; or www.samschowdermobile.com

first destination ride (part 3)

Sun, 9 Jan 2011 13:00:31 -0800

part 3: you meet the nicest people, on a tandem
It doesn’t take long to discover that a tandem is a people magnet.
Or should I say, a nicest-people magnet?
There’s something about seeing a couple (of any gender pairing) who are having just the best experience on a bicycle built for two. Even if one of the pair is shivering, they’re both likely to be grinning.
Strangers step right up, and a conversation begins.
Not to put down our resident compatriots, but cold statistical analysis reveals something quite interesting. In that first Blazing Saddles rental of the Scout, for days afterwards we commented to one another on the nice people we’d met and chatted with . . . who were French, Spanish, Italian, Persian by way of Texas, and Israeli.
On today’s ride, we meet the wonderful trio you see above: Monica, from Taiwan; and Lovelesh and Pankaj, from Bangalore. They’re in town for an Oracle conference and are setting out to walk the Golden Gate Bridge on their Sunday off.
A bit later, elsewhere in Golden Gate Park, we meet this friendly pair:

Peter is from Munich but is living in San Francisco and working with a drilling company. Alex is from Nuremburg and comes here several times a year for work with Dolby. In the third photo, they are seen admiring Christine’s stuttering imitation of an icycle. Turns out Alex had just been saying to Peter that it would be fun to rent bikes on his Sunday off, when they spotted our stretch bike and stopped to take a picture.
At that same location, minutes afterward, we meet San Franciscans:

Joseph and Patience, it turns out, stroll over for a chat because—of course!—they own a tandem. They will make a second appearance in an upcoming entry.
There are others as well. Sometimes, kids drag parents over for a better look-see. Sometimes, people ask if they can sit on the Co-Motion, as did Pankaj. Sure. And sometimes they ask if they can take it for a ride. Unh-unh. You might indeed meet the nicest people, but. (So much for wondering if we’re the nicest people.)
More on the chowder wagon in the next entry.

first destination ride (part 2)

Sun, 9 Jan 2011 10:00:48 -0800

part 2: on a tandem, harmony is everything
Remember all that nonsense I wrote back there in the home page entry, about how Christine and Tom are soulmates of forty-one years, inseparable, practically “of one mind” twenty-four hours a day?
Wellllll. . . .
Ya discover things once you’re on a tandem.
He: The ocean is right over there. It’s not far!
She: Home is that way. It’s not far!
And how exactly are differences of opinion and desire handled, in the court of tandeming?
There is a universal adage in this pursuit:
At all times, keep the stoker happy.
The ocean shall be our second destination ride, then. On a day when there are no icebergs off the coast.

first destination ride (part 1)

Sun, 9 Jan 2011 08:00:24 -0800

part 1: weather counts
So, after several training and practicing rides close to home, we now set out for a specific destination, for the first time.
‘Cept it’s rather chilly this Sunday morning in early January. (That’s by San Francisco standards, you understand. We do not want to be whiners and are, as always, grateful to be living in such a climate as this—compared to what’s passing for weather in other places.)
Sure enough, it becomes something of a shakedown cruise, and we quickly discover that Christine’s riding gloves—though they’re likely to work just fine in the spring—are letting her down.
She’s a good sport about it, but when we stop in Golden Gate Park she tells me that this is how her too-inactive stoker fingers feel:

"Rickshaw-Taxi, Avenue de l'Opéra, Paris 2e, 1942," photo by Robert Doisneau; from 2011 Taschen Calendar "Paris," Jean-Claude Gautrand, ©2010 TASCHEN GmbH, Köln

chop wood, carry water, take lessons

Mon, 6 Dec 2010 14:14:11 -0800

In Zen Buddhism, there’s a concept called Shoshin, aka beginner’s mind: holding “an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying a subject, even when studying at an advanced level, just as a beginner in that subject would” (Wikipedia).
Christine and I aren’t novice bicyclists, but we’re new to tandeming, and this is a different riding experience. One that is, for sure, to be taken quite seriously.
I have a much-heightened sense of responsibility—for her. Has something to do with age, no doubt, but now my eyes are wide open: on the tandem the stoker’s life is in the captain’s hands. It didn’t feel the same on the solo bikes.
You, dear reader, have sobering responsibility for all the passengers in your car, and for those in the other cars around you, and for motorcycle riders . . . and for utterly exposed bicyclists and pedestrians. But then, you’re intensely, inescapably, undistractedly aware of that responsibility every second you’re at the wheel, right?
* * * * *
When I saw that the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition offered a two-part workshop on urban riding skills, I was at first disinclined to bother with beginner’s training. My new sense of responsibility prevailed, so I took the part-one classroom course, with SFBC’s lead educator Bert Hill and multimedia show-and-tell, which featured his highly edifying “beater” city bike.
There was stuff I knew, and stuff I emphatically did not. There was material pertinent to California law (in general, we can and often should take the whole lane), and to this hilly, foggy, congested city with its slippery trolley tracks, neglected street repairs, a burgeoning though new bike-lane network, and a rate of bike and parts theft that drops the jaw.
In the course content, here is what most impressed me: this one-minute video.

* * * * *

As it happened, the following day we had already scheduled a private ride-along lesson with another instructor, John Ciccarelli of Bicycle Solutions (shown in photo below), in our rather hilly Noe Valley neighborhood. Getting to the rendezvous meant tackling our first class B hill. Merely a 5 to 10 percent grade, but a step up from the laughable Boise incline. Even so, on this ride we did drop down to the “granny gear.” Hey, we’re a 340-pound bundle. Strength will come.
Money well spent, because our top priorities right now are to (1) develop good habits and get critical skills down cold at the very start, and (2) build Christine’s confidence and enthusiasm for this commitment of ours.
At the end of nearly two hours, she was once again thrilled and ready to plan our next excursion. Tellingly, she’d gotten over two significant hurdles in one day. When I first pointed out the B hill and said, “Here we go,” her reaction was mild panic and insistence that we weren’t ready for “a big hill.” And on the way home from Noe Valley, we rolled confidently along busy and constrained 24th Street, which, in our planning for the ride-along, she had been sure we would want to avoid at all costs.
Let’s chalk up all this early success to Shoshin.

photos: wood and water tattoos, mobil_joe, http://www.flickr.com/photos/9607955@N04/4431417355/ ; tandem tattoo, CalifornianTurkeyVulture (Jaime Mariel W.), http://www.flickr.com/photos/26215062@N06/3601048369/ ; John Ciccarelli taken by Kathy McLeod (http://www.wheelescape.com) at the opening of the Cal Park Hill bike tunnel between Larkspur and San Rafael

how to get a tandem out of your living room

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 23:30:39 -0800

We’ve heard joking references to people who build airplanes in the garage—                
—or boats in the basement—

—and then can’t get them out.
I’ll have no such problem getting the eight-foot-long tandem down the narrow landings and stairs from our top-floor apartment (which is where we’ll be keeping it).
No such problem.
Got an inch and a half to spare.

photos: airplane in garage http://www.thisnext.com/show/item-images/C538DE02/4958A6F1/; boat in basement Yrvind, Swedish “small boat designer, builder, sailor & writer” http://www.yrvind.com/photos/?m=200806

how to make a tandem in your living room

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 09:50:40 -0800

This is one consequence of our choice to buy the tandem from a dealer not just around the corner: the bike will arrive, only partially assembled, and we’ll have to put it together.
In saving a good amount of money through not paying state sales tax, we face either paying a local bike shop a couple hundred dollars to assemble the bike or doing it ourselves.
Final plan: our good friend Jeff will do the build, and on his urging we’ll take the assembled bike to our local shop for a safety check and fine-tuning.
A splendid choice . . . because today all three of us have had the incomparable thrill of watching this beautiful bike take shape before our eyes, on our living room floor.
Wanna see?
(Click here to view a briskly moving slideshow with music. Click here to take your time looking at the same photos in an album. Or enjoy them both!)

a long wait ends

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:36:30 -0800

All good things (sez some wise guy with more patience than you and I will ever know) are worth waiting for.

Guy is wise.

training day? reality show?

Tue, 2 Nov 2010 17:23:35 -0700

Christine and I are alternating use of an elliptical trainer in the bedroom, as we await delivery of the tandem.
In our experience, exercising on a machine indoors has never been exciting. It takes motivation to keep it up.
No sir, not very exciting at all.
Nope.

Boring, in fact, might be a better word for it.
Yes, indeed, that’s the word.

Until Christine had a brainstorm. What this really dull training regimen needs is a dose of REALITY. More feeling that this is for a real-world purpose. To remember that she’s doing this to prepare for tandeming!
Behind Tom!
All the time!
So she shouted for me. I came into the bedroom, got my instructions, suited up, and converted her stoker’s training into a reality show.

four flat tires

Tue, 12 Oct 2010 17:12:11 -0700

All of our tires are flat, all at the same time.
This is what happens, with three years’ neglect.
We’re waiting for the tandem. Even so, we could, after all, pump up the four flat tires, wipe away the thick dust, and lube and adjust and ride in the meantime.
But it’s a measure of just how much Christine’s confidence has ebbed that the very idea seems to her beyond reach. And my enthusiasm for hopping back on the too-cramped Trek hybrid is not much higher than her confidence in hopping back on the Fuji Columbia.
The triumph of inertia. Or is it entropy?
Or cowardice?

ex-submariner goes for PeriScope Torpedo!

Wed, 1 Sep 2010 16:55:00 -0700

Choosing a brand was easy. Or at least Lynn and Patrick at Tandem Cycle Works made it easy. Co-Motion is, to my mind, the Ducati of tandem bicycles. (On TCW and on Ducati, see the entry “the dealer no way just around the corner.”)
Choosing a model, or a product series, was easy too. Christine is short of leg and, well, mmm, dare I say gracefulness-challenged when it comes to getting on and off a bike. She’s always chosen solo bikes with step-through frames, but even then she feels nervous if not able to get both feet solidly on the ground.
Well, Co-Motion had (1) kids and (2) adults like Christine in mind when they conceived of a brilliant frame design that they call the PeriScope.
The idea is that one bike frame, with a solidly built periscoping rear seat post, would accommodate an amazing range of sizes for the “stoker.” (Thus is called the person in the rear, in the world of tandems.) Couple buys tandem and has blast! Couple has kid, kid reaches age three or four, and one partner in couple still has blast! Partner in couple welcomes weekend guest, of considerably different body size, and still has blast! Couple divorces and . . . well, then the fighting, over kid and over tandem, begins.
While we were at the TCW shop in Denver, Christine tried it on, this PeriScope concept. She tried it off. On and off, on and off. She loved it. And I loved the whole captain’s part of the PeriScope model we were scrutinizing.
Co-Motion makes three PeriScope models: the (not really so) basic Scout, the fancy Torpedo, and the serious-racer Hammerhead.
Our already reeling budget said, “Scout!” But wait: there’s more. (We all know that in a world of options and accessories, there will be more, right?)
Our critics will say that we are a salesperson’s dream customer. “Hey, folks, how about the high-performance package available on the Torpedo but not the Scout?” “Well,” we stammer, “y’see, we’re not high-performance riders, so we don’t need—but you say the carbon fiber fork is terrific in enhancing ride and reducing weight, as are the carbon belt drive and Rolf wheels for reducing pedaling effort?—and you say that we can get a nifty shock absorber for the stoker’s seat?—and there’s a custom rack made for the Torpedo?—and you’ll assemble the whole thing and test it and partially disassemble it and ship it to San Francisco?—and we won’t have to pay sales tax?”
So it went.
After two wide-eyed, wide-eared hours with Lynn in the shop, going over the accessorizing, and spending delightful moments swapping stories about cycling and living in Europe, we walked out the door mighty excited. As for our initial budget—which was totally out of the ballpark for anything but a cheap tandem—it went out the door shouting at the top of its lungs, “TARP! TARP!”*
Budget never had a chance.

* For readers who are not familiar with this term, which is much repeated in talk of the recent financial debacle in the United States: Troubled Asset Relief Program, or government bailout.

something's civil in the state of Denmark

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 16:35:36 -0700

Blogging and Facebook go together like, well, hand and handlebar. No sooner had I conceived and outlined the tandem blog than I began connecting with a Facebook community of tandem bike owners, riders, and lovers (and will-tries).
Great people are out there, with fascinating stories. Here’s one.
Tina Slothuus Hansen is from Svendborg, Denmark. In 2009 she returned from living abroad for seventeen years (in London and Singapore, where her two sons were born and thus grew up speaking English).
Here’s what Tina said as we established Facebook friendship:
I’m afraid that we are not into tandem biking for the right reasons. My son Esben (now twelve) had a stroke when he was two and has some gross motoric challenges on the right side. He therefore does not ride a bike on his own, and I try as much as possible to go along when they have an outing at school.
As a matter of fact, our tandem bike is lent to us, as a part of this terrific health system in Denmark. Because of course a child should be able to go on a bike.
We are currently waiting for support wheels for a bike on his own, as he is longing to be independent, which I can’t blame him. He worries, though, that the other kids will laugh, and again I understand. Life is full of challenges.
Wish that I was in it for the right reason, really, but still friendship is always welcome in our household so we would certainly welcome your friendship request. Think Esben (who was VERY impressed with your message) would enjoy seeing some photos from people into tandems for all the right reasons.
You, dear reader, might feel a tinge of empathy, as I did, in reading Tina’s message. Empathy for the health problem that befell her son, yes, and perhaps also that Esben may take some ribbing for using training wheels. Kids will be kids just about anywhere, it seems.
I am impressed, though, that a national health care system will furnish a tandem bicycle for a parent and child who have a legitimate need and a strong want. Here’s an eye-opening elaboration on whence comes that enlightened policy: among Denmark’s population of about 5.4 million people there are more than 4.2 million bikes, a ratio of bikes to citizens that approaches 1:1. (By comparison, the Danes own one car for every third inhabitant.) I will remember this, the next time someone asks me to define civilized society.
I’ve asked Tina and Esben to be regular contributors to this tandem blog. Stay tuned, for stories and photos.

photo at top: Vancouver (B.C.) Sun online, June 9, 2009, editorial by Douglas Todd (http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/thesearch/archive/2009/06/09/memo-to-vancouver-police-cycling-lessons-from-copenhagen.aspx)

the dealer no way just around the corner

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:57:36 -0700

The word tandem had been bouncing around in my head for a few days, when I turned to preparations for attending a conference in Denver. It was to be our first visit (Christine was going along, she said, mainly for daily use of the hotel pool), so I spent time online checking this and that . . . and happened to search for the combination “tandem” and “Denver.”
And there it was: the only bike shop in the United States dealing exclusively in tandems.
(Recently in life I’ve found myself more and more eschewing the word “coincidence,” in favor of “providence.”)
So today here we are, in Denver, and the first item on our itinerary is a long walk from the hotel to a bus terminal, a long bus ride, and a long walk from the bus stop to Tandem Cycle Works of Colorado.
We walk in, meet owners Lynn Dexter and Patrick Gibbons, chat for about five minutes, and are already half-sold.
They are exceptionally personable, passionate, knowledgeable, and attentive.
As the visit stretches to two hours, we know we’re about to make the plunge into tandem bicycling . . . in a big way. I soon see that the rough dollar figure that I had in mind when I entered (though, mercifully, not revealed to Lynn) is laughably off by a multiple of several times.
She should not be criticized for pointing out, early in the conversation, the gorgeous red tandem hanging from the ceiling (not the one shown in this older photo) whose price tag starts with a one, followed by a four, followed by a comma. That’s just good selling technique. But because I have a passion for Ducati motorcycles, I am able to identify this particular bike as being a Ferrari of sorts—and then set about looking, much further down the price range, for a Ducati of sorts.
Christine and I know, soon enough, which tandem is in our future. (See the entry “ex-submariner goes for PeriScope Torpedo!”)
We gather information, literature, answers to questions, a dollar figure (yikes!), an estimate of time needed for custom fabrication and delivery to San Francisco, and a recommendation of a good place for lunch right around the corner.
We leave.
Fools and suckers?
Sold, in all but bank transaction.
Yet authentically jazzed.
_________________________
About the Ducati thing: though I’ve never owned one and had never ridden one until last September at age sixty-two, it’s absolutely a life-shaping passion. You can read more in my Italy and Ireland blog, 2009. Be assured: that blog is about much more than just Ducatis. As a teaser, here’s how it opens.

our first hill

Mon, 9 Aug 2010 21:44:33 -0700

On that first-ever tandem ride, on a hot day in Boise, at our age, and with a heavy one-speed cruiser . . . an incline of the sort pictured above wiped us out.
Regarding fitness, we knew: there’s trouble ahead.
Oh, and maybe having gears would be a good idea.

photo, orange bike: Randy & Nova’s Bicycle Scrapbook, http://locojoe.com/bikeblog

love at first ride

Sun, 8 Aug 2010 18:40:13 -0700

Tandem was just a word to us, until we rode one.
Boise, Idaho, was HOT in the summer of 2005, when we flew up to visit my brother and his family.
We don’t drive, Jerry and wife Betty were working during the day, their house is well outside the city center, and bus lines in Boise have a dyslogic all their own. So we figured we’d rent a pair of bikes for the several days of our visit.
Arriving at the bike shop by way of bus transfer after bus transfer, we saw a tandem as if for the first time. We signed on for a four-day rental and headed back to Jerry and Betty’s. It was approaching sunset, we were dressed as we were, and we had sandwiches and a bag of snacks purchased at the supermarket across from the shop.
It was love at first ride.
What might have been an hour or so of a crow-flying ride back to their place became three hours and more of wandering, turning whenever, savoring (1) the comparatively cool air that rushes over a bike and its riders at any speed and (2) how the sight of a tandem bike brings a grin to the faces of passersby. Or maybe it was the sight of a middle-aged couple, with goofy grins on their own faces, out having a blast on a hopelessly low-performance but high-fun cruiser built for two.
It was hard to imagine how to have more fun, with a wheeled vehicle, at a slower speed than this.
The seed was planted. It survived the next several years of what gradually became two-wheeled toil, and finally a cycling drought.

photo: appleye photography, http://appleyephotosblog.com/blog

are we crazy?!

Fri, 6 Aug 2010 15:53:49 -0700

• We’re sixty-three years old.
• It will be the biggest cash purchase we’ve ever made. It will cost more than any automobile we ever bought.
• We’re not athletic, and we’re not highly experienced cyclists.
• We live in (not just near) a city, and we don’t drive. No car trip to the trailhead; it’s heading out the front door and into the street.
• We could get scraped up, broken, badly injured, or killed.
• We’re sixty-three years old. I might already have mentioned that.
But, on the other hand:
• We’re not too old to enjoy cycling.
• It will cost less than the low-end Ducati Monster.
• We’re walkers, and Christine is a swimmer, and we’ve ridden enough to respect that we have limits.
• We live in a city with a growing network of bike lanes and spirit of accommodation, and we live three blocks from the BART train station to get out of town.
• We could get scraped up, broken, badly injured, or killed if we drove cars every day, to and from work and everywhere else.
• We’re sixty-three years old, which, we hope to confirm first-hand, may be the new fifty-three.
• Then too, there’s something that middle-aged and senior folks tend to fully grasp: life is short.
And one more thing:
• Christine and I are soulmates. We’ve been together—and been through a lot—for forty-one years. We love time spent with one another. We love ballroom dancing, and we’ve heard that tandem bicycling is A LOT like dancing.

[The red bike in the photo, though very similar to the one we’re buying, is a rental from Blazing Saddles here in San Francisco. Photos of the real Finnegan tandem will show up later, a couple of entries further into the blog.]