My Tandem Story
You said post a story, well hear is my tandem cycling story with a few photos.
I purchased my Santana Rio new in 1999 while my wife and I were living in Turkey. I had no previous experience cycling on tandems, and I purchased my Rio without any research relying on bike shop assistance. I bought the Rio while on summer holiday in Southern California from a small bike shop in Carpentaria. The bike shop owner (Dennis) was a travelling tandem enthusiast, and I guess I was lucky to find his shop. Dennis was very helpful in organizing a quick delivery from Santana of a complete S&S coupled Rio that he calculated would fit my team and planned cycling. The Rio purchase was made without my soon to be stoker any the wiser; she was already back in Turkey at work. The Rio arrived on schedule, I watched Dennis breakdown the bike, and the bike was packed up for shipment to Turkey. So started my tandem cycling adventure!
Three months later, I was back in Turkey when the bike finally arrived; long story I won’t go into about the drama of shipping my bike. It is amazing how much one can forget about assembling a tandem in three months time. Once again Dennis was very helpful, and assisted me via telephone communication on how to assemble my tandem. It was early winter when my stoker and I set off on our first tandem ride in the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey. This tandem team’s cycling experience in Turkey was limited to 99% off paved roads. To cycling on a paved road was way more dangerous than this team was willing to tolerate. So, the Santana Rio MTB tandem proved an excellent choice. My stoker and I enjoyed countless hours of cycling along dirt country roads, and down livestock tracks. Yes, Turkey is a country of very few fences. This team’s first three years of tandem cycling was low speed, technical riding, with the occasional trip to Cappadocia to cycling in the bike lanes! First photo was taken during a cycling trip in Cappadocia, Turkey. Cappadocia was our long weekend get away from Ankara, and a chance to cycling on roads with limited traffic. Cappadocia is also where this tandem team experienced their first, and hopefully last, high speed crash; a story for another time.
Round two of this team’s tandem cycling experience was Japan. Shortly after moving to Japan, and a few rides into the mountain, the Rio started a slow conversion into a quasi road tandem. MTB tires were replaced with slicks, and MTB drive train was replaced with Ultegra road drive train. This team also had their first serious doubts about cycling down steep hills. Previous to cycling in Japan, we had never been on a descent that the drum brake would NOT effectively reduce the bike speed. Our first mountain ride in Japan down a +15% descent taught us a lesson in physics. We smoked the drum brake, burned up one set of rim brake pads, and nearly needed to stop mid ride to clean our cycling shorts. This was one tandem team that was never so happy to see the bottom of a hill! A serious overhaul of the drum brake, new rim brake pads, and a whole lot more respect for steep grades managed to get this team through 5 years cycling in Japan without any crashes. I almost forgot to mention the 24 tooth under drive conversion; yes, the hills in Japan are steep. Photos three and four were taken in the mountains South of Hiroshima, that is a 26% grade my stoker is looking at.
Travel touring was the next big step in this tandem team’s adventure cycling. Tour in the NW USA San Juan Islands, Columbia River Gorge, Central Coast of California, Smoky Mountains, and Burgundy France turned this tandem team into luxury supported touring cyclist. Photos 4 to 6 were taken during some of our tandem tours.
This tandem team’s current home is in the Middle East on the island of Bahrain. This has not been a cycling friendly place to live. The tandem has collected a lot of dust sitting unused in the storage room. This tandem team has had to fly to Europe, or the USA, to go cycling. We might branch out a bit, and try our luck in Oman; however, a recon trip this September is planned to discover if Oman will be a tandem friendly destination.
So that is my Tandem cycling story to date. This time next year I hope to be writing about five weeks of fun, riding a new CF race tandem, around the Central Coast area of California.