Standing on a crowded train near my bike on the hook staring off into space, glazed over, when the couple in the jumpseat asks me what the toptube pad says, what it means, what it’s all about?...
EXTREME, I say, it’s a road sign, highly reflective. Which leads to an exchange of bike things, bike stories, bike experience, bike wisdom. Some of which was lost in the heavy tunnel train noise. But here’s the gist of it:
-Yes that’s my bike, I tell them
-Oh we ride bikes too — 50,000 miles together ridden on our tandem
-Wow, I say. I thought tandems made people split up, driving them to divorce?
-No, tandems just accelerate the direction the relationship is already headed in. We’ve been together for 40 years.
-Right on, I say. That explains it well
Then they got off the train
I’m not a tandem guy. No thanks. I’ve been passed by tandems bombing downhill at 53 mph in the middle of Iowa. I’ve passed tandems grinding uphill at 7 mph in the middle of Iowa. I see plenty of fair-weather tandems on the Burke-Gilman trail.
I’ve seen entire families on bicycles built for 4 with a trailer for the littlest little kid in the back. A parent-child tandem ride brings a smile to my face.
I have a lot of respect for the frame builders of tandems and the mechanics that maintain them. But I have no interest in riding one. Even if the stoker is a teddy bear or a zombie or an olympic athlete or an inflatable doll on RAGBRAI.
My relationships are already moving in the direction they’re headed, they need no extra push, no extra pressure. I like to ride bikes to get away from horseshit. An escape. I don’t need a bike to accelerate my personal relationship horseshit one way or another.
Ride on
Rock on
that happy 50,000 mile tandem couple inspired this one-of-a-kind tandem postcard
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