Tandem Debut on a Friday Night Ride to the Coast, or, In For A Penny, In For A Pound



Last Friday at midnight, we set off from London for yet another Friday Night Ride to the Coast, this time to Burnham-on-Crouch. This is a gently rolling route of about 55 miles - just about the flattest ride we have in our ride calendar.

And so it seemed a good ride to aim for as a debut for the tandem we bought last September.

This is where it all gets a little tricky. I've admired tandems from afar and totally get the 'romance' of the bicycle built for two, but I've always had a knee jerk "no way!" reaction when faced with the prospect of getting on one myself. Can't see where I'm going? Can't choose the easiest gears possible for my grumpy knees? When the subject first came up a year ago when Adam and I were first dating, mercifully he seemed to agree. A couple we may be, but a tandem was a non-starter.

And then I fell into conversation with our friend Greg last June during our club's first day of its London-to-John-O'Groats tour. His wife has never cycled. Then he rented a Circe Helios tandem in order to do a charity ride with a blind friend, who couldn't ride solo but was certainly able (and keen) to be a stoker. Greg had the tandem a few more days after the charity event, and somehow his wife agreed to give it a go, just to go to lunch at the pub. Turns out, she loved it! (And has since tentatively started cycling on her own bike too.)  The way Greg told it, I found myself thinking - maybe it's not that bad. And it'd be nice to have Adam within easy chatting distance for a whole ride.

So in September when someone on the YACF forum advertised that he wished to sell his 3-year-old but virtually unused Circe Helios.... we decided to go have a look and a test ride.

Neither of us had ever been on a tandem before. We expected it'd be a 'love it or hate it' experience. Imagine our confusion and doubt when we both felt a bit 'this is so weird, I just don't know how I feel about it'. We rode up and down through Paul's beautiful village, out into the countryside and back again, finding the sway and rhythm of a tandem foreign and a little scary but also a little exhilarating. We each found it disconcerting that we could feel the shifting of each other's weight through the pedal stroke - and it felt like we were working against each other, not together! We then tried each riding it solo and were surprised that we both really liked it on our own! Adam found it surprisingly nippy; the handling put me in mind of my Brompton. We ummed and ahhed... and then asked ourselves: If we don't buy this today, how will we feel tomorrow? Relieved? Whole concept of getting a tandem settled and out of our heads? Or would we regret not seizing the opportunity?

We agreed there'd be regret. We wanted to give this tandem thing a chance and knew we needed more time. If we didn't get on with it, we should be able to sell it for a decent price come springtime. So the deal felt momentous, especially as we had to cut short the cycle camping weekend we were on, and make arrangements to get the Helios home somehow.

(C) Adam Bell 2012

Well, come springtime... and we'd still not ridden it. Not as a tandem, that is. You see, the Helios is just about the most versatile bike I've ever seen. In tandem mode, everything is adjustable, so that -- so they say -- the captain's position at the front can accommodate a ride up to 6'6", while the stoker position can not only fit a rider that tall but also be scaled down to a child aged 7 or so. The bicycle is however equally suited to being a cargo bike -- simply take off the stoker's seatpost, fit a long rack custom designed for the purpose and hey presto, you can fit three pairs of panniers (and possibly 2-3 rack boxes) and haul an astounding amount of stuff. Adam used it in this set-up for the grocery run through much of the winter.

(C) Adam Bell 2013

Meanwhile, our area being as hilly as it is though, he took the decision to swap out the 8-speed Alfine hub for a SRAM Dual-Drive, giving us 24 gears of a much wider range.

At some point as winter began to reluctantly withdraw, we (foolishly?) said, out loud, to our friend Mice of the5milecyclist blog that we were going to do a Friday night ride on the Helios. Southend in May seemed the best one to aim for. (This was later changed to Burnham as our Southend café went bust - but Burnham was even better.)  Mice was so excited about this -- much more excited than we were! -- and nagged us about it, in the nicest possible way, at every opportunity. So we were honour-bound to do it.

But time marched on and then suddenly, a month or so ago, we realised we'd better make a start at getting ready to do this!  It was immediately clear that the stoker's 'cockpit' is quite short, so my position would of necessity be much more upright than on my road bikes. I knew my perfect saddle for that position (the Brooks B67) and got one. Then it was handlebars. We had a quite a time sorting out something of appropriate width and reach, that wouldn't mean my thumbs were poking Adam's backside! For reach, bullhorns seemed the best choice. It took 3 tries to get one wide enough, without being too wide for my comfort. We then spent several evenings riding around the neighbourhood, stopping by our garage at each pass to adjust the stem position in order to raise or lower the bars and/or increase/reduce reach. Finally we settled on a set-up that felt fairly comfortable, with most of my weight on my sitbones, not my hands!

With two days to go until the Burnham ride, we did a shake-down ride down to Dunstable and back -- all of 6 miles! Things were going pretty well. The rhythm and balance still felt 'unnatural' but we were gaining confidence with a bit more speed and how to corner. Then we noticed the bike making a strange noise. We spend hours that evening checking things over, adjusting things, taking things off, putting things back on one at a time, and yet this steady zum-zum-zum sound persisted. Could it be the spoke reflectors we'd just fitted? A few were indeed found to be loose, so we removed them. The noise was still there. Could the SRAM Dual Drive be starting to fail?  We put out an S.O.S. to our cycling friends on Facebook. Responses were not encouraging. Meanwhile, Adam removed all the reflectors, tested the tension on all the spokes and found a couple were a little loose. He tightened them up to match the rest of the wheel. Through all of this, I tamped down a rebellious hope that the whole tandem thing would be called off and I'd be able to ride my beloved Pacer after all. But with the re-tensioning, the noise seemed to have disappeared. So it was all back on again.

On the night, we took a deep breath and struck out from our driveway. To date, we'd not ridden it more than six times, with the longest ride being that stop-and-start shake down ride a few nights before. I bit my tongue not to voice my worries and doubts:  Would we find this hard going, too tiring? Would something break down? Would my butt hurt too much in that upright position? Or my hands? Then Adam realised he'd never ridden the Helios clip-less before! The list of possible things that could go wrong loomed every larger and longer in my mind. What were our bail-out options if it all went pear-shaped? Few and far between. (I'm a good worrier.)

But... we'd started. We meant to finish. In for a penny, in for a pound. And Mice would be waiting for us at the start at Hyde Park Corner, bouncing up and down with excitement in a Tiggerish sort of way at the prospect that her dear friends were finally -- FINALLY! -- on a TANDEM!!

(C) Mice http://www.the5milecyclist.com/apps/blog/.
Used with kind permission.

And so... we did it.  We rode 60 miles on our tandem. We learned a lot. We were quicker up hills than we expected we'd be --- overtaking almost as much as being overtaken. We FLEW down hills. I learned truly to relax and trust Adam. After all, I've been sucking his wheel for the past year now and, on my own bike, know I can put my wheels exactly where his have just been. He is skilled and confident, picks the best bit of road surface and deals with potential hazards better than I do. So, I sat back, metaphorically as well as literally, and let myself enjoy the ride. I looked at the scenery far more than I usually do. We chatted about whatever entered our heads, without having to call out ahead or behind to get the other's attention and bring him/her within earshot. Towards the end of the ride, my seat and hands were hurting a bit -- and Adam had found a saddle for the first time in his life that he really does not get on with! -- but we were still smiling. There was no denying it -- riding this tandem is tremendous fun.

And Mice took the photos to prove it!

We rode from Hyde Park Corner down Constitution Hill past Buckingham Palace, then down Birdcage Walk, through Parliament Square and then left onto Embankment... and then we just kept going. Eastward. Through the east London urban grittiness that is Stratford, then into Essex where we swept through a surprisingly quiet Romford and Brentwood (last year the scenes of nightclub chaos, police cars and helicopters and criminal suspects running through alleyways). And then the streetlights were gone and we were in blessed countryside. The nearly-full moon was so bright, we could see fields with thin ribbons of mist floating in between the hedgerows and clusters of trees. The only sounds were the wind in our ears, the occasional birdcall and the sudden scurrying of small creatures just beyond the beam of our front lights.

After 32 miles in three hours, we swished into the carpark of the village hall in Stock, where the Tully family kept up their fine tradition of providing hot drinks, sandwiches and cake. Apparently the bakewell tarts are legendary! The whole family turns out for this "event": mum, dad and three teenagers (one son, two daughters?). They are unfailingly friendly and smiling. They make us believe they think it's the most natural thing in the world to be wide awake serving up food, drink and smiles to 60 disheveled cyclists! (Adam and I kept to our ketogenic diet with nuts, even though we weren't actually hungry and were going strong on fat-burning!)

From Stock, there was only 20 miles to go. We weren't expected at our breakfast stop in Burnham until 7am, so we relaxed in Stock a little longer than we typically do, not leaving til about 5am. By then, the eastern sky was aglow. Within a few miles, the sun was truly rising. It was such a spectacular sight, cyclists were stopping left and right to dig out cameras to try and capture it.

(C) Adam Bell 2013.

(C) Adam Bell 2013.

(C) Mice http://www.the5milecyclist.com/apps/blog/. Used with kind permission.

(C) Mice http://www.the5milecyclist.com/apps/blog/. Used with kind permission.

(C) Mice http://www.the5milecyclist.com/apps/blog/. Used with kind permission.

Mice, admiring us as she passes by.  (C) Adam Bell 2013.

Michael and a few other happy cycling souls. (C) Adam Bell 2013.

PANDA! (C) Adam Bell 2013.

Though it had been cold through the night (about 5-6C), we had got our clothing just about right. As night rolled over into day, we pedalled on beneath clear sunny skies, arriving at The Cabin Dairy right on the dot of 7am.  Adam dropped me off and then went back up the route to relieve the wayfinder at the last junction (who otherwise was going to have a very long wait for the back end of the ride, delayed as it was by several punctures). 

(C) Adam Bell 2013.

(C) Mice http://www.the5milecyclist.com/apps/blog/. Used with kind permission.

I ordered up two "Full Monty" breakfasts while waiting for his return. Meanwhile, a hot drink hit the spot. (Tandem on the drinks menu -- how cool is that?)

Then Mice got her wish -- a ride on the tandem herself.

 

We trundled off around 9am to catch a train back to London, which much to our surprise had a number of "super heroes" boarding (who we later learned were bound for the Comics Convention at the Excel Centre in east London).

"awkward bikes" on a train! (C) Adam Bell 2013.

We ran a few errands in London and reached home about 1pm.