A Tandem Tale

Woohooo! I won a blog giveaway!  

It’s a signed copy of this book straight from one of the authors, 

Dayle at A Collection of This and That.

Thanks, Dayle...

It’s full of wonderful stories to warm the heart and secrets for the married soul. 

Since today is our 28^th anniversary, I thought I might share one of ours. 

Do you know what it is?
We learned to ride a tandem.

It’s true, folks. We started way back in the early ‘80s.

Note the kelly green walking shorts

 and spiffy visor.

We rented that tandem on our honeymoon, but we own one too. You see, way back in our college days,  Sir Lotsa Hair inherited an old tandem from his brother and brought it back to school. When we weren’t busy strolling the streets of Athens, we would ride.

That’s how I knew that he was the kind of boy I wanted to marry.

source

Tandem riding, you see, is all about teamwork.

By design, a tandem bicycle has only one front seat, and a choice must be made as to the front seat rider.  Let’s face it. Most of us are inclined to want that seat.  At first glance, it sort of looks like the glory seat.

You don’t have to ride in the glory seat very long, though, to figure out that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.  For one thing, the front seat rider has to pedal.

This might seem obvious, but if you’ve ever been the backseat rider, you know that you can sneak a little break or two and rest your feet on the bar.  The bike will still roll for a while. Not quite as fast, of course, and it’ll start to get a little wobbly, but as long as the front seat rider is giving it all he’s got, he can pull the load.

The backseat rider has a choice to make. She can either give it all she’s got too, or she can be a bike slug on a wobbly ride.

And then there’s the whole steering thing.  

The front seat rider might have to pull the load, but he also gets to steer. It’s the front seat rider who controls the route.  That's why he has a choice to make, too. 

He can either be a big old bike bully or love the pedal pusher behind him enough to make it a team effort.   

Folks, that boy was a terrific front seat rider.

He never took a turn without asking me first. He steered away from potholes and stray dogs, even though he has no fear of  them whatsoever. He warned me when the road up ahead looked a little bumpy. When we were headed uphill, he told me to lean in and pedal hard. When we were headed for a downhill plunge, he let me close my eyes and scream. 

Yep. 

We were pedaling along just fine

until the day we had the big blowout.

source

It happened the way blowouts generally do, in the most inconvenient of locations - miles from where we wanted to be. The fact that it was the tire beneath the backseat rider is purely coincidental and not at all related to this post…

But blow it did, and we were left with no alternative but to walk that tandem all the way home.  Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever walked a dead bicycle, but it’s not that easy of a task.  You have to  lift the seat over the flat with one hand and steer with the other.  

Which is what I was prepared to do.

It was my flat after all.

I am woman. Hear me roar.

But the skinny boy had a different plan; he insisted that we switch places. I distinctly remember arguing with him that day, and I’m almost positive it was the first time that he called me Deb-or-ah.

He told me to march my stubborn self to the front of the bike, steer, and let him carry the load.   

I punished him with silence all the way home...

I've since learned to admit that he had the better plan. 

And that’s pretty much the way we’ve been riding ever since.  

He rides in the front.

I ride in the back.

We pedal together.  

I'd love to say that all roads have been straight and easy, but you would know it was a tale. We've had more than our share of stray dogs and potholes in our road. It’s been an uphill climb and a downhill fall, and we’ve had some more blow outs along the way too.  Yet here we are... still pedaling after all these years. 


Of course, we won't be pedaling on this anniversary. Oh, I wanted to,  but the tandem has suffered another major blow out. The fact that it's the tire beneath the backseat rider is merely coincidental and not related to this post...

Tandem riding.

I think it should be a marital prerequisite.

That's our secret. 

What's yours?