Tandems.co.uk

South America on a bicycle made for two

• 20/12/2006
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On our first ever tandem tour (Sheffield to John O’Groats) an idea was born: the length of South America on a bicycle made for two. Sounds daft eh? We thought so too, so we revised our plans to Equador and Peru instead. The, bike, a Santana Picante, was purchased from JD Cycles in Ilkley (many thanks for all the help and advice) and christened ‘Johnny’ after his place of conception. We bought a map and some spangly new shoes, and spent many hours making phone-calls and writing letters to try and get some kind of assurance our beloved would be accepted onto the plane. No joy. KLM do NOT carry tandems, even if it does fit inside the bike-box that they provide. We took a risk and parcelled Johnny up like a solo bike, and kept our fingers crossed they wouldn’t x-ray it and find too many saddles. The other problem was the weight limit – the bike would only be carried free if we did not exceed the weight limit. After the bike and all it’s packaging, that left us only 12Kg plus hand luggage for ALL our equipment. Only one change of pants then. We were about 1Kg over our limit, but the Gods were looking down on us and we arrived in Quito, Equador, with us, bike and luggage intact.

Posted in Experiences by Johnny.

The Dartmoor Devil on a Tandem

• 12/12/2006
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Well the day started off find, we loaded the tandem on to the back of the car alright and the weather forecast was sunny with no wind. So far so good, things started to change as we drove up to the start at Bovey Tracy, the light board decided to come off, luckily only on one side. It didn’t hit the deck so I just clipped it back on and we arrived at the start.

Posted in Experiences by Johnny.

100 miles on a tandem with 5000 feet of climbing

• 10/10/2006
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100 miles on a tandem with 5000 feet of climbing, one day’s tandem experience each, and both of us old enough to be grannies. People thought we were mad to enter the Lancashire Valley Loop charity cycle ride, and I suspect a few didn’t think we’d finish. We’d practised – for half an hour the day before, and could stop and start without falling off.

Posted in Experiences by Johnny.

2 Go Mad on 'Phil and Friends'

• 23/08/2006
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This is one of the CTC challenge rides and took place on 13th August. Basically it’s a very hard sportif with a 105km and 150km option starting and finishing at Stannington near Sheffield.

We are both Phil Liggett fans and have tandemmed the event before and I solo’d the 150km option several years ago. This year with our new Santana ‘Beyond’ and corresponding improved performance believed we had a chance of completing the 150km version.

Posted in Experiences by Johnny.

Pennine problems – an oily tour of Northern England

• 18/07/2006
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It’s good when a plan comes together, unfortunately this wasn’t one of those occasions. It began when we decided to start our July 2000 camping tour by catching a train to Sheffield. Tickets were booked before we found out that Northern Spirit don’t carry tandems, getting the refund kept Karen busy for a couple of hours!

Posted in Experiences by Johnny.

A Landescape Experience Part II – The Pub Crawl

• 15/07/2006
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We didn’t intend to do a tandem tour in 2005, too busy with the new business and we’d already had a couple of holidays earlier in the year plus some good weekends, it should have been enough for one year. However, you can’t have too many holidays and having accidentally bought a new Landescape in August, we felt it was only right to give it a reasonable test ride.

Posted in Experiences by Johnny.