Two Up

Guess what I've gone and bought?

I found it on Facebook Market in Dursley, which is some 30 minutes away from us. Been after one for a while.

As it happened, I had a customer car to drop off in Dursley and arranged for Hay to pick me up in the Galaxy, without telling her that I was collecting a tandem on the way home. I just managed to get it into the back of the car with the front wheel removed. Hay was actually quite pleased with it.

The chap who sold it to me has a tandem hire business and hires them out to disabled people. How the hell disabled people ride a tandem is beyond me, unless the front rider is fully abled, which is probably the case. He sells off old ones for £100, which I think is a bargain. This one's a Dawes, which is a decent make. Hay, however, wants to replace the drop handlebars with something more upright. Might be a bit difficult, given the brakes and Tiptronic gear changer are integral to the drop handlebars. 

Riding a tandem is not straightforward. The front rider is termed the pilot and the rear rider the stoker. The pilot performs all the control with the stoker being passive. Problems occur when the stoker tries to control the bike.

Those who cycle competitively have the seat really high in order to maximise leg leverage and come off the seat before stopping. I'm not used to that and would simply fall off, as I prefer to be able to touch the floor while seated. The pilot's seat therefore had to be lowered substantially, which was only enabled by cutting about 4 inches off the seat post, as it wouldn't go down any further than in the photo before coming to a stop.

It will join us on trips in the motorhome when taking the Mobylette is not practical. Now for figuring out how to mount it on the bike carrier. I seem to spend half my life trying to fix things to the bike carrier.

I ordered a pair of rail extensions for mounting tandems on bike racks, as seen in the publicity photo below, for £43.

However, I'm not sure I actually need the extensions. I can rest the lower frame bar on the existing rail and a few straps can easily secure it, as you can see from my photo below.

As luck would have it, I received an email from the extension rail seller the same day saying they'd sold out and they were refunding me. I actually think they realised they were £20 cheaper than all the other sellers on e-Bay and had underpriced it.