Ah Ha!

That is the sound of me and Andrew, my 2 ride pilot this past week, figuring out some tricks and ideas for tandem riding. My wife and i had an initial shaky ride, as the bike is too big for her. However, Andrew came home for a bit from Vancouver and volunteered to get out for a couple rides with me. Nothing major but we did two rides of 55 and 56km...avg bout 32kph, not land speed, but gave us time to figure some stuff out. The videos are from last night after our second ride, Mindy took the camera as i wanted to show the start, and how "smooth" we've gotten it to. Starting is definatley the hardest part of the tandem game i've found so far, but Andrew and i after a shaky first 1k of the first ride, got some ideas worked out.
What i am saying in the first video, is that we both clip our left foot in, and on the 1-2-3-Go, we both give a good solid push with that left leg, while giving a general body lean forward (it is all about gaining as much forward momentum to start the lumbering beast up)....
Once you are on your seat, you one legged pedal for a few strokes, then coast and clip in. The KEY to success, we found was making sure you gear down low enough at stops...this allows you to get a few good and quick one legged pedal strokes in, to gain that intial momentum. We learned that hard way with some big wobbles, if Andrew didn't gear down far enough; and my left leg did not like trying to overcome that much initial torque.
The second video is just when we turned around, i wanted to us it to gauge my positioning....which i found isn't bad for the seat, but the handlebar reach is an issue(as it is on all non-custom tandems)...so that is a work in progress, in order to keep my hands from falling asleep and back from hurting...would be open to suggestions.

Anyhow, am off to Niagara on the Lake on friday to meet up with Syd, my new buddy and pilot for Peterborough 1/2 Ironman in 1.5 weeks (yup jumping right in), and for the New York City triathlon at the end of July. Syd has been following me story, and stepped right up and volunteered to help; this dude is seriously fast--9:49 at IM FLA last year... He and his wife came to visit us a few weeks back, and they are both very very nice people who i hope Mindy and i can forge a long lasting friendship with.










A couple short notes:

1) Syd is the founder of www.canadiantriathletes.com and a member of Team Running Free, he has gotten me a sponsorship with them today... So i get some sweet discounts on running/tri gear, and get to promote a Running/Tri store that "gets" us hacker-athletes out there...well ok, i'm just a hacker i guess..far from a speeddemon

2) We SOLD our house, after 7 months of trying (just making sure thier home inspection goes well, but if that is the case, the house is sold)..and we are moving to some new digs within the city, something brighter, w/ a garage, and bit more BLIND friendly perhaps..