Who (goes on the front?)

Alfie, Alfie, give me your answer do,
Will you ride tandem with me,
On the E72?
(This could be translated into Welsh but the only bit I can manage is E72)
Tandems eh? Do you love ‘em or hate ‘em? I suppose I’ve had a love/hate relationship with them over the years but I reckon it’s really a question of who your partner is that matters. When you’re going well with a smooth partner it can be the best feeling in the world, knowing that whatever happens you’re going to give your individual times a right trouncing. But, if you’ve got someone who is a bit ‘jerky’, who ‘shoves’ the pedals rather than strokes them and who pulls and pushes on the ‘bars then it can be purgatory. The trouble is that you won’t know until you’ve tried and if they really enjoy the experience it can be very difficult to say that you don’t want to ride with them again.

Whatever, my experience of tandems started when I was in the High Wycombe CC around the very late 60’s. One of my clubmates at the time was one Richard Oddy (no relation of the bearded twitcher) who was a colonial (South African I think) and into oddball biking. With various partners ‘Dick’ had ridden quite successfully over the season (and in 1973 established a ‘25’ competition record with R. H. Bennett). Despite this, even though they were happy to have the club’s name associated with the prowess of Dick and his partners, some of my clubmates seemed to consider it all a bit ‘left field’. I, on the other hand, was impressed and when Dick offered me the opportunity to ‘have a go’ in a club 25 I enthusiastically agreed. Little did I know what I was letting myself in for. I remember that the event chosen for the inaugural ride of this newly hatched partnership was based on 2 laps of a circuit around the Winkfield area in Berkshire with plenty of corners, hills and narrow roads. Not a DC in sight. No problem I thought. I’m an experienced bike rider, what can possibly happen? Oh, the naivety of it all!

As he was the owner of our lengthy short wheelbase steed - and the one practised in the Lore of Tandemology - Dick took the front position. I was delegated to the rear and soon discovered that the ‘Stoker’, as the rear position is jokingly referred to in Tandem circles, does not have a lot of room in which to practice their art. In fact, it was decidedly cramped. However, thinking that it was ‘only’ 25 miles and would be over quickly, I would put up with it and persuaded my then flexible torso to fit. "Just rest your head on my back - and shut your eyes!" Dick laughingly shouted. After a short (to short!!) practice/warm up we were off, down a hill! This meant that I was going at a considerable rate of knots before I’d even managed to familiarise myself with the concept of not being in control of my own destiny. Dick, of course, was in his comfort zone and, with him having all the controls - including the brakes - I was not!

If you think that this was bad enough (and, dear readers, it was, it was!) it started to rain. No, it wasn’t rain, it was a monsoon! It absolutely hammered down. And not only did it rain - it thundered and lightninged!! Lightning was striking the fields on either side of us as we carved our wet and hazardous way through the flooded roads and the smell of Ozone was hanging in the air (in fact a young lad was struck by lightening and killed not 2 miles away. The lightening hit a pen in his jacket pocket - and we were on a tandem!). After the first lap I was starting to feel a bit ‘peculiar’. It was almost akin to seasickness and I realised why. Dick - although being a smooth pedaller - also had a ‘roll’ through his upper body as he pedalled and this transmitted through the frame - and into me. I eventually had to ask him to stop for me to recover my equilibrium and we walked for a couple of hundred yards until I felt good enough to restart. We eventually finished and did a time not far from the hour which, considering the conditions and our walk, was reasonable and enough to convince me that tandeming was a potentially appealing element of the sport. However, I never rode with Dick again. He didn’t ask me and I didn’t ask him so I suppose it was mutual!

Fast forward 15 or so years to when I was now settled in Wakefield. Around the mid-‘80’s tandems seemed to make a resurgence and became very fashionable. Several ‘pairs’ in the club were regular performers and one pair decided to ‘upgrade’ their ride. The machine they had been using was therefore available and, along with my protégé Eric, I purchased it. It was very cheap. The reason for this was that it was a ‘bitza’ - bitza two solos in fact! It was around 22.5/21" size and the frame used for the ‘back half’ had the head tube removed, the lugs split and rewelded around the seat tube of the front frame, and a fat tube welded between the two bottom brackets. Now this in itself would seem to be fine but - it had not been welded up absolutely straight. Viewed from the rear there was a distinct kink at the junction between the two ‘halves’. This made the handling ‘interesting’, especially on fast left hand corners. Right handers were better as this was the way the ‘kink’ went! Chain tension between the front and back chainsets was by means of bits taken from an old rear mech hanging from the big tube and in mentioning the chainsets - none of the cranks matched (apart from length). However, we got on with it and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, even riding a ‘50’ on ‘Boro and finishing with stiff backs and sore backsides from not being able to get out of the saddle, a feat we never mastered together. Did I mention that I made sure I was always at the front? I wanted full control in my hands and anyway, Eric was to young to drive!

We enjoyed ourselves so much, not only with riding the machine but with the camaraderie that seems to surround the art of tandeming, that we decided to go for broke and order a new machine. This was built for us by M&B in Dronfield and was terrific. I don’t think I have ever had so much pleasure in my racing than what I did on this machine. When Eric ‘outgrew’ me and went on to greater things (like Star Trophy road races etc.) I rode with a couple of other clubmates who were also immediately hooked on this facet of the sport. Between us we won a few prizes and generally went several minutes faster than we would have ever hoped to do as solos.

Technically there was a bit of a learning curve too. Gearing was up quite a few inches from solo machines. The ‘bitza’ had a 56-tooth ring but for the new machine we ordered a 62 which, with the then new 12-tooth sprockets, made a humungous sized top gear. One of the local ‘10’ courses went up a long steep hill to turn at a roundabout at the top. Going up on 62 x 17 was good training (to say the least!) but coming down we often spun out on the 62 x 12 so we must have being going at quite a lick. I tried to banish from my mind all thoughts of what would happen in the event of a front wheel puncture! We were using Clement 10’s which I was told were designed for tandem use and seemed quite durable. For braking we had Dura-Ace side pulls. Very efficient brakes in their day on a solo and ‘adequate’ on a tandem in the dry - but the next best thing to useless in the wet! I remember riding an event near Derby (before the new road was built) when it poured down and, due to a minor road accident involving a lorry that had overshot a junction, a copper tried to get us to stop by holding up his hand. Needless to say we were quite incapable of stopping and shot under his outstretched arm with the brake levers squeezed tight against the bars shouting "Sorry!" and hoping he wouldn’t remember us on the way back. In the event we punctured just after the turn so by the time we made our way back to his position he’d gone. He was probably soaked to the skin and wanted to get home at that time on a Sunday morning.

Sadly my tandeming days ended in early ’88 due to my illness at the time. The last event I rode before being ill was a tandem ‘10’ near Lincoln which we won. Eric, who was still part owner of the M&B, didn’t want it so, along with virtually all my other kit, it was sold. As it happens, my illness was not as debilitating as originally thought and I needn’t have sold anything but it was to late. What is irritating is that it is still hanging in the garage of the person that bought it, virtually unchanged, and I would be quite happy to buy it back - but they won’t sell. Anyway, I haven’t really got the room now, too many other bikes in my stable, ready for the ‘Old Skool’ series next year.

Mind you, even after over 20 years, I still have the urge to ‘have a go’ again if the opportunity should arise - but I’d have to be at the front!

1 January 2009