I have a confession to make. I’ve acquired yet another vice, that of tandem wheel sucking. For those of you who tuned in late, wheel sucking is the art of staying behind one or more riders, where you get shielded from the wind, and end up doing a lot less work than the bike in front. I had pretty much reached the height of perfection with ordinary single bike wheel sucking, but tandem wheel sucking is another plateau entirely.
Tandems give you a much better ride than singles. They have much more momentum and are not subject to the jerky acceleration you get with singles. They are great to be behind in a strong wind, and the speeds they get up to on flats and downhills can be positively scary (note to self: maybe I need an 11 tooth cog if I’m going to keep doing this).
I know it’s wrong, maybe a disease, but I can’t keep myself from doing it. I’ve been known to cruise the parking lot looking for likely candidates. “Hey, that’s a fine looking tandem you have, mind if I stick to it like glue for the next fifty miles?” Or I’ll be riding quite happily with my single bike buddies, and a tandem will cruise by and I’m gone.
I recently had the pleasure of attaching myself to Barry and Linda Nelson. This was a match made in heaven (at least I thought so). They are a strong, steady team, and as it happened we were riding most of the day into a fierce headwind. I became as one with the tandem, Barry would call out “shift” and I would. I memorized every tread on their rear tire. I realized then this would be a tough habit to kick.
After attaching myself to a fine tandem team, I get downright possessive. On Pamela and John’s ride, for instance, I was supposed to be a coleader, but ended up being a cofollower. On this ride, overcome with guilt and shame, I decided to take a token pull so I could feel righteous about sneaking behind again for the next twenty miles or so. When I returned to my spot, I discovered to my horror that it had been usurped by another rider. I had to content myself to being a tandem wheel sucker wheel sucker until I was finally able to regain my rightful position.
I know I should stop, but the lure is almost irresistible. Maybe I’ll cut down, just matching tandem teams, then cold turkey. I’ll start in January.
Please send corrections, additions, comments and praise to