In Which We Break Out the Tandem

Tandem on the driveway after the ride.

Today, on a warm and humid Iowa day, I rode to campus to meet with students, and then took the longer trail route home. My wife and I worked on the gardens for a while, ate supper and then got the tandem bike out for the first ride of the season.

It was again a bit of a learning curve. Starting on a tandem is the tricky part, that and remembering to “narrate,” to say when, for example, you want to stop pedaling. There were a few times when I started too quickly and my wife was unable to get her feet in position—and other times when I had trouble getting the bike to go because the position of the pedals didn’t allow me to pump.

Well, we still managed to go out the Lowe Park. It was my wife’s first view of the new playground they are building there, and we’re both excited to see the results. We think it will be a favored park for the grandkids when it opens.

We decided not to use the Boyson Trail on the way back—home climbing the hill there with the tandem might be an ordeal. We may inspect the new playground again soon on our separate bikes and do a trail ride then. Or, we may use the tandem, if the weather has been dryer and we feel more confident about unpaved trail conditions.

Still, although we were getting used to the tandem again, and it was humid, the first tandem ride of 2019 was pleasant.