Dean V

No problem for me.
As long as they are competent.
Same applies for a male captain.

Carbonfiberboy 

One of my female riding buddies trolled for captains on her tandem for several years before she found the right guy. Now they are very happily married, crazy in love for the past several years. It works.

I just gave that advice today to another one who's been going through men too slowly and painfully. She says they always ask her to stoke for them because she's a strong rider and she's always refused. She thinks now maybe she'll take the next one up on that offer. Life's too short to suffer in a bad relationship.

JanMM

Tandems are great if you have someone who wants to ride one with you. Not so great if not.

My stoker and I enjoy riding ours. Together.

Binky

Try BEFORE you buy, even if it means renting or borrowing.

I have a nice tandem that my wife has been on exactly ONE TIME.

I ride it alone sometimes.

Bink

IPassGas

Not sure, but after 100K+ miles and many fully loaded tour this guy has come to the opinion that I would like to stoke. My wife is constantly scanning the scenery for birds, wildlife and those weird globe things on a pedestal in peoples yards. She is able to take in the scenery without being concerned with the road ahead and other captain stuff. She points out things that I miss, which I am grateful for. It helps to have a tandem with a longer than normal stoker compartment. Yes of course drafting helps to go further, but more important is the camaraderie.

Doge

We live in SoCal. Just closed on a house in CO.
Decided to take the tandem to CO with all the hills and keep singles here to ride on rolling coastal routes. That seems like a totally backwards was to do it, esp since I just swapped out disc brakes for rim brakes, but my wife and I both thought the same thing.

Part of it is that https://www.gardenofgods.com/ is one lot from out new place and the roads are perfectly smooth. Just there are not enough of them.

alias5000

I am putting active effort in into making this happen, because I would like to be able to swap roles. At this time, the hurdle is non-conforming frame sizes, which means new tandem, which means a lot of money (escape route: rent a suitable tandem for a day, hopefully happening this summer). Isn't it a wonderful idea and exercise to keep swapping the role of who needs to fully trust the other person? [I'm sure this would be a wonderful thread topic on its own :-) ]

reburns

Carbonfiberboy 

My wife hears some potential stokers saying, "I sure wouldn't want to look at his back all day!" My wife says, "I never look at his back. Why would I do that? More importantly, I also never look at the road." It's a pleasure having her along.

IPassGas

Great comments. I have tried to get tandem makers to consider raising the BB of the stoker position so that the stoker rides a bit higher than normal. That is, angle the bottom keel upward towards the rear. Unfortunately, the geometry is fundamentally different so they don't wish to consider. Perhaps the bike would look funky, but I still wonder if the vision benefit would overwhelm the disadvantages of a higher BB from the ground for the stoker.

Carbonfiberboy 

I think you want your combined CG as low as is possible considering crank length. I've stoked on a tandem which had the stoker's BB lower than the captain's, I suppose for this reason. The cranks were the same length, so if the captain really laid it over while pedaling, the stoker's pedal would touch first, which didn't take the bike down, just hopped the rear wheel a tad. Feature or bug? Feature, IMO.

I don't really think one wants for the stoker to see the road ahead, lest they react to what they see and do so differently than the captain is reacting. That's how teams go down or hit something. Stoker should be plenty busy with modulating effort, scenery, navigating, signaling, watering, feeding, all that stuff, which is a reason that it's fun to captain: One can just drive the bike and not worry about another thing. Safer that way, too. Big deal. We had a single rider go right into the back of a parked car while fooling with his Garmin. Broke his femur.

Yeah, tandem bikes are better.

LV2TNDM

I hope to say I'd welcome the opportunity to stoke for a woman up front. It just so happens to be that I'm the male of a typical male/female couple who outweighs my stoker by a factor of 2 and am eight inches taller, so we tend to conform perfectly to the typical tandem geometry where the larger rider is accommodated in front much better and the smaller rear geometry accommodates my wife better. Fits the traditional gender stereotypes? Yes. But it also conforms to function.


That said, I gained even higher respect for my stoker (who mountain bikes with me wherever I propose - be it Sierra single track or the Whiskeydrome!) when jumping on the back of a tandem for a quick test ride with a colleague. The complete lack of control and sightlines made for an uncomfortable experience - and we didn't do anything close to resembling fast or challenging. All hail our awesome stokers!


Although I don't consider myself the typical "control freak," I realize I've probably been conditioned more in that direction than I'd like to admit. And that said, I'm (usually) happy to let my wife take the wheel in the car and have the utmost confidence in her driving ability. She's a former commercial driver who regularly put chains on her vehicles in the snow. Petite and cute, she surprised many a male chauvinist with her vehicle knowledge and skillset. Sharing duties four wheeling in a Jeep in Moab made me appreciate her skills even more. (My only real complaint with her driving is her passivity behind the wheel. Nowadays, if you aren't aggressive behind the wheel in the Bay Area, you are forever being cut in front of by aggressive and selfish drivers who can't be bothered to follow the rules of fairness by getting in line with the rest of us and using signals to politely show your intent to others behind the wheel.)


So yeah, I'd like to say I'd welcome the opportunity to stoke behind a woman. (But it's easy to say when I fully know I won't be stoking down a 60mph descent anytime soon!)

Leisesturm

You may see that as a fault but I'll bet your insurance company doesn't. I am old enough to know when insurance companies could, and did, charge women far less than men for the same coverage. My driving instructor always insured his vehicles in his wife's name even though she didn't drive. Saved him tons over the years.

Leisesturm

You are correct, however, it isn't so much the combined CG, but mainly that the difference between the Captain's CG and the Stoker's CG should definitely be a negative number. This is our newest tandem. My CG is about 15" higher than my wife's on this bike. There really wasn't much lower they could run her seat but it was so important to the builder that the Captain CG be enough higher than the Stoker's so that there would not be any perception of the Stoker's mass during maneuvers they put my seat 28" off the ground. I'm on tiptoe at stops. It works though. There isn't any sense that a considerable mass is right behind you like on a regular tandem. The bike rides the same sans Stokeur as avec Stokeur. That wouldn't be the case if our CG were identical and it certainly wouldn't be the case if she sat higher!

Carbonfiberboy 

I think I'm very lucky to have a superb stoker. She's not strong, but she's quiet and fun to ride with. We're always off the back in hilly terrain while riding with a group where I would be near the head on my single. But that's fine. I prefer it.

Anecdote: On one of our first long tandem rides, I pulled into a shopping center for a coffee stop and tried to get off the bike as we rolled to a stop just like I would on my single, trying to throw my leg over the saddle. Of course we both wound up on the ground, the point being that I was completely unaware I was even on a tandem. It's slower to accelerate, slower to stop, but otherwise it handles about like a single. Stoker is utterly quiet, no upper body movement. I call it The Racing Limo because it's so smooth and comfortable and we push it as hard as we can.

bgross