A Bicycle Built for Two

I have been just a tiny bit less crazy with my riding schedule these past couple weeks (I only rode 467 miles last week), but I do have a couple of noteworthy updates to share.
 

 Yesterday was a milestone day for two reasons:

 

1) I reached mile 8,000 for the year. So far this year, I’ve ridden over 8,000 miles on my mountain bike. (That’s like riding from Los Angeles to New York and then back to Los Angeles and then back to New York again.)

 

2) I rode five miles on a tandem with my delightful wife. Ok, I’ll admit that five miles does not seem very impressive; however, once you hear our story, I think you’ll agree that this truly is a momentous occasion that outshines even my 8,000 mile mark for the year.

 

The Story

  

This story begins when I was a very young boy [cue smooth ‘memory’ music]. My parents owned a tandem and they gleefully rode it through our town. I’m sure they even sang tunefully as they rode (though that’s probably just in the movie version because my dad couldn’t carry a tune if his life depended on it). When they had children (my sister and me), they added seats on the bike for us too—one on the front for my younger sister and one on the back for me. We, a joyful family of four, rode through the town and the countryside singing ‘the hills are alive with the sound of music…’ (again, minus the singing, but it really would make a better movie). We even made the front page of the local newspaper.

As I grew older I enjoyed many peaceful hours riding the tandem with anyone who would jump on the back and ride with me. And when nobody would join me, I simply rode the tandem by myself (but that’s an entry for my other blog: CrazyManOnATandum). Suffice it to day, I loved that bike!

As you can imagine, when my sweet wife and I got into biking in July of 2007, I naturally assumed that one day we too would buy a tandem and gleefully ride it through our town, the countryside, perhaps even the whole country (without the kids in tow, of course, and defiantly without the music—fictional or otherwise).

But my dream of joyful life of tanduming with Trena was suddenly and unequivocally shattered in June of 2011 on Prince Edward Island when I foolishly jumped on a tandem with my wonderful wife. Two seconds into the “ride,” (if you can call riding a couple rolls of the tires through a parking lot “a ride”), she said to me (and not in her normal sweet, loving voice): “GET ME OFF THIS THING!” And that was it, the end of my dream of riding blissfully through the countryside with my adorable wife on a bicycle built for two (queue melancholy music, for the movie of course).

If this was the end of the story this momentous day would not be quite as surprising, but, as is often the case, the story continues, and continues, and continues…Those of you who have been married for any length of time might have an inkling of what I’m talking about, but for the rest of you, let me spell it out: The subject of tandems became an opportunity for never-ending “discussions”—you know the kind of discussions that end in uncomfortable, angry silence because your voices are hoarse from yelling…and yet you continued to whisper until they were finally and mercifully silenced? Yeah, that kind of “discussion.” (And this is only a slight exaggeration.) It may seem strange that such an innocent topic could reduce two rational people into two screaming maniacs, but truth is often stranger than fiction. So, for the sake of our marriage (and our voices), we amicably agreed never, ever, for any reason whatsoever, to bring up the topic of tandems. And if someone was bold enough to say this seemingly innocent word in our presence, my wise wife simply walked away before another “discussion” could ensue.

So, you can imagine the shock, awe, and heart-pounding exhilaration I experienced when my enchanting wife one day a couple of weeks ago casually said, “I think we should test out a tandem for a long ride in the countryside.”

I believe my exact response was, “Who am I married to?”

The very next day I began looking for someone, anyone, with a tandem who would let us take it on a test drive.

This is how yesterday’s milestone came to be. And you can be sure that I was patient. I was careful. I chose my words cautiously. I made sure every moment of that 5-mile ride was comfortable and safe.

Well, I must have done something right, because my loving wife agreed to test it out for a longer ride: 7 Cities Century Ride (www.7citiescentury.com) here we come.

Keep watching for updates on how the weekend ride (August 10-11) goes…