lowflying

...and make no sudden moves...I'm stalking a deer, or rather I'm grooming my non-bike riding wife to be my stoker!

Bought an Apollo Syncro 700. Did a lot of reading here and elsewhere, which has been very useful in terms of being warned of dumb things not to do on a tandem, especially to do with not pissing off the Rear Admiral. I've already got new bars, grips and a gel saddle topper to make her as comfy as possible. She's only little 5'1" and 51 kg and is used to being on the back of my motorcycles so there's that. Mostly it's going really well. She's taking on the turn signalling and letting me know about rear traffic, which I thank her for even though I've got a nice rear view mirror on my right bar and my head is on a swivel when I ride, a system which has got me to almost 58 years old! She doesn't seem to mind bumps as long as I let her know, but she has figured out that if she sees me bump she's going to feel it next when it hits the rear wheel. She gets pissed off at phone walkers and generally unaware dilly dallyers in the middle of the road and bike paths, but I'm trying to get her to see that it's all part of the challenge and the whole idea is to chill and have fun. My M.O. when biking is to share space with everybody and be nice and understanding about lost wanderers in my way. Usually a bit of niceness gets acknowledged and reciprocated, and if it doesn't I'll let karma sort the person out after I'm long gone.

I'm pretty happy with how things are going. I'd like to do this 2-3 times a week, but I'm easing her into it and told her I'm happy with once a week for now. We're lucky in that the beach is nearby. We can do an 8 km loop and get in some good sight seeing and a coffee down at Cronulla. I take it easy with her as I have an MTB for harder exercise with my buddy in the Nasho and a new gravel bike for general bashing around the suburbs.