Twice The Fun or Double The Alimony?

It sounded so romantic. It looked so romantic. Just thinking about it made us so romantic. We would buy a tandem bicycle! Our Love Bike. CUT!! Abrupt shift to reality. Tandems are, well...a parallel universe to bicycling as most people know it. So familiar and yet so foreign. There ought to be a support group, maybe Tandem Survivors Anonymous.

What could go wrong with this tandem dream team? We are a unit. We were entering 19 years of wedded bliss, with two young children and so much debt we are welded together by the credit cards we've melted from the friction of purchases made one-after-the-other-at-the-speed-of-light for lo these many years. The proportion of those purchases directly related to bicycles and requisite accessories is so obscene as to be offensive even to attorneys! We are similar in height, weight, bicycling experience, handling skills, endurance and speed. We even look like brother and sister. (Well, except for that one incident in 1968 when we were mistaken for sisters. But he has gone bald since those days.) Take it from someone who has been through the chainringer of experience: If you are only dating and your other is talking about wanting a tandem it could be a BIG clue they want to break up. Since we are Married With Children, we have to decide: is our tandem Life In Hell or are we just on Practical Jokes and Bloopers? It is a little bit of both. This is HER story, a true account from HER perspective: A View From The Rear.

HOW TO DECIDE ON WHAT TANDEM TO BUY. In every biking couple there is the tech-freak who will dictate the brand, model and color. He will then leave it up to Her to do the number-crunching and initiate the "rob Peter to pay Paul" creative financing necessary to pay for their Love Bike. Starry-eyed, pockets bulging with cash equal to three years of debt, the Tandem Unit sets out to find a test ride.

THE TEST RIDE/HIS TAIL (uh) TALE OF WOE. No bike shop within a 75 mile radius will have on hand the tandem you are seeking. We got so close to just ordering the bike. After all, we knew what we wanted! We are a Unit! We finally conceded we should at least ride a tandem that was in stock. This was a decision we would live to regret, but was it genetic or environmental? The facts: He was 9 days into recovery from surgery for hemorrhoids. The itchy burning bleeding really bad attitude kind of hemorrhoids. Even the surgeon declared this to be the worst case of all three varieties ever seen in the Western Hemisphere. It is a real party stopper when He shows off His surgery scars. Butt, I digress. He thought He was up for a test ride due to thought processes clouded by major drugs courtesy of the surgeon. He was UP, all right, and definitely should not have been operating heavy machinery, power tools, and definitely NOT tandems. A really asinine thing to do in his condition.


She was stoking and did not see what all occurred on this maiden pedal. She does recall a lot of wobbling and negative barking from Him. Something about contributing to the pedaling. How was She to know that the pedals are all connected together and required in-unison pedaling by both participants? (Usually one of us is "done" first, with the other coming soon after, so this "at the same time" stuff will take some practice.) He was doing it all WRONG anyway. When She coasts it is the left pedal that stays down and when She goes around corners with the pedals parallel to the ground it is the right pedal that is in the forward position. How could He goof up something so basic as that? Besides, She was already totally occupied with freaking out from claustrophobia and visual deprivation back there. She does not want to be that close to anyone's rear on a bike even if He is the beloved husband-for-life. Some intimacies should not be so pubic...errr...public. It should have been called a day right then and there, but No-o-o-o-o! She gets on front, He gets on back and...She has suppressed whatever occurred or was said during that time frame. Only a fragment memory remains of seeing the tandem back in the store and slinking home like a pair of coupled dogs, uh, like a couple of dogs that had been separated by a water hose. Talk about a dream dying. This one derailleured so fast it left our heads spinning.

ONE YEAR LATER. He is off the post-operative drugs, She has a lead on a local owner of the Exact Same Model Tandem they are seeking. The tandem owner drives to their house and lets them ride his so-new-it-still-has-that-factory-smell beauty around for an hour. Tandem survivors like this guy are either saints for letting neophytes ride their valuable machines OR they are worse than drug dealers. "Heeeeere, take a 'free' ride!" And then you suddenly find yourself dragged down into the tandem underworld. Hooked...sooo Hooked!

ORDERING THE TANDEM. Every bike shop said "two weeks; four, tops" from placing the paid order to receipt of the tandem, our Love Bike. The bike is ordered in time for a 19th anniversary ride, 2-1/2 weeks away. As we left we did not recognize those sounds we heard from the shop staff were muffled laughter. He comes home a couple days later, arms laden with the legally required twin suits of bike clothing. She is in a swoon. They rush to the bedroom to try on the clothing and to practice some tandem positions.

FIVE MONTHS LATER. Was that metric time or what? The bike shop has closed down, we are paying interest on our line-of-credit-funded/paid-in-full tandem and making some frantic calls to the bike factory. The factory people handled us very well. They even gave us an option on the color. The option was "red." He had ordered "Black Forest." She is rather inchoherent on the subject of "red" because Her racing colors are red and white. She begged to get a "red" tandem. He acquiesces to Her, the beloved wife-for-life. The Tandem arrives....(!)....on Halloween Night. The children have to delay their trick or treating as we drive with joyous expectation to pick up our Love Bike. It is beautiful---a luscious, deep, glowing....Maroon? Rubyesque? Pretty, but NOT "red." Even the children tell Her "It is NOT red." Serves Her right He says. If He can't have Black Forest, at least She did not get Red either. There is no doubt...Tandem, thy name is Trick Or Treat. So prescient.

THE NEXT DAY - THE FIRST RIDE. 40 mountainous miles await us. The group barely conceals its anticipation of certain hilarity to come. We disappoint them. From our smooth take-off, we "locked and rolled" up and down that road like a Tandem Unit. She suffered some sort of physical discomfort but it was probably that pie She had at lunch. It couldn't have been...Trick Or Treat? Surely just a small adjustment on the fit. Hah-hah-ha!!

WHO'S ON FIRST? WHAT'S ON BACK? Trick Or Treat is a 56/53 tandem. She rides a 56 road bike. He rides a 53 road bike. She is the captain and He is the stoker...for 50 feet. She stops the bike because He has turned the handlebars and Her saddle 90 degrees starboard. Talk about backseat drivers. She daydreams about submission training sessions for Him. He denies having a testosterone/control freak problem. At least He has the decency to be embarrassed by His lack of trust in Her captain skills. She still believes He is secretly proud of His strength.

FITTING THE TANDEM - HER TAIL (uh) TALE OF WOE. He fits the captain end of the bike to His needs and rides as if to the tandem born. He has the typical male body style: long ape-ish torso, short stumpy legs, gnarly body hair. She has the typical female body style: svelte, lissome, supple, long of limb, with glorious, flowing locks of thick, luscious red hair crowning Her winsome head. She has to squash up and curl over and reach way down to the handlebars that are too low for Her because they are attached to the extemely lowered saddle for the stumpy legged one in front. There are many 30 to 70 mile rides. All cause various degrees of stoker pain. He claims He is the one suffering because He has to listen to Her incessant whining voice behind Him. She maturely keeps Her assessment of Him to Herself (call me a whiner? you weiner!) and single-handedly saves their marriage....Again!

300 MILES LATER. The fit problems become resolved at great expense, of course, with accessory parts that have since been removed from the bike, of course, and now languish on garage shelves, of course. All except the road shock to the stoker's saddle. She has continuously said cushioning is the solution. He has continuously said more saddle time is the solution. She is a woman who has never suffered a moment of saddle soreness in Her life from riding bikes or beasts, including Him. Finally friction and heat ferment into a world class yeast infection so severe as to practically require amputation and it is Not between Her toes! Now She is mad. Without permission (gasp!) She finds and buys a gel saddle pad. He balks because it does not look cool. She says it is this pad or a big spring-loaded dork saddle with a fuzzy sheepskin cover......and rides as if to the tandem born. Hah-hah-ha!! grrr...stupidmumble...stubborngrrr...testosteronemumble.

THE FIRST TOUR. He told Her "I want to take you on a 20th anniversary second honeymoon. We will tour 30 miles a day over flower-filled meadow roads; sup in quaint restaurants; sleep on feather beds in country inns with hot running water and bubble baths." She is not able to do the number-crunching or initiate the "rob Peter to pay Paul" creative financing necessary to pay for their Love Tour. Starry-eyed, pockets bulging with $300 worth of traveler's checks, the Tandem Unit sets out on the Alternative/Parallel Universe Tour: 350 miles with 16,000 feet of elevation gain along the central coast of California with 50 people to share the second honeymoon. Amenities included cooking one day for the 50 people, making and breaking camp every day and sleeping on the ground in mummy bags. At least the bags could be zippered together. One romantic night She felt the Earth move. He confessed it was just an earthquake. Most of the time She felt like She had been ridden hard and put in the barn wet. After a week of 60 mile days, no sunshine, skin-peeling headwinds, waiting in line for communal, non-coed, tepid showers and 36 consecutive hours of rain, the Tandem Unit came back home....hooked on tandems. So hooked! Who needs Tandem Survivors Anonymous anyway??

EPILOGUE. He and She have successfully survived tandem interruptus of their married bliss. Trick Or Treat got a companion tandem (Dirty Trick) as soon as She was able to (all together now): do the number-crunching and initiate the "rob Peter to pay Paul" creative financing. The children became stokers so that family rides (and vacation tours) could be at a faster pace. This idea was so perfect! The Tandem Family Unit!! What could possibly go wrong with THAT dream plan??? Hah-hah-ha!!!


And now The Tandem Couple has been together going on A Whole Lot More Years. The children are grown and gone. They still say out loud that the tandem rides were among their best childhood memories. The tandems hang in the garage content in their reminiscing about their Days of Glory. Maybe this year we'll bring them out of retirement. Then again, who needs that aggravation! He still has that stupid, stubborn, control-freak, testosterone issue going on. hahahahhahaha!