Cycling in Melbourne Australia

Double (tandem) standards

For a couple of reasons, I rode my commute today on my Tandem, by myself. This was not an entirely ridiculous idea, I did need to use the second seat for the last part of my journey. After I received a couple of the usual comments about missing someone from the comic geniusus walking on the wrong side of the shared path, and the stupid looks from varios drivers. It struch me that my one vacant seat was attracting an extreamely disproportionate amount of attention compared with the vehicles around me that could have been carying up to six extra passengers. Oddly enough it also felt like I received more road space due to my novelty status (until I got to the section fo bike lane that many locals think is actually for their use as an extended drop off zone, despite signage to the contrary).

Tags: in, seats, tandem, traffic, vacant

Comment

You need to be a member of Melbourne Cyclist to add comments!

Join Melbourne Cyclist

Comment by Geoff Semon on January 21, 2009 at 7:42pm: I did the solo tandem thing the first day of the BNSW ride a couple of years ago. The comments about the missing stoker stopped being amusing after about 20. For some reason other cyclists were surprised when I called them morons and other things!

Comment by Adrian Tritschler on January 21, 2009 at 8:55am: Having had to take our tandem out and about a couple of times by myself and had much the same reaction re. the missing person. The very first ride our tandem ever had was on a Friday night from Brighton to Richmond, straight up Chappel st... challenging and entertaining it was!

Comment by LongLoad on December 15, 2008 at 8:41pm: Apparently in the morning peak, a car carries an average of 1.07 people. Given that I am 1.13 time the average adult male height, I should propably also demand more lane space.

Comment by Fraggle on December 15, 2008 at 5:30pm: I love it!! Keep riding the tandem solo. You'll never know what u might ~~pick up!!~~ catch!!

Comment by Ritsardo on December 8, 2008 at 5:48pm: Yeah, I sometimes go to meet the stoker somewhere, on my lonesome on my tandem. I like the response " ooh no! she hasn't fallen off again has she?."

I thought of attaching a blow up doll to the stokers seat for the solo ride.

Comment by Cory on December 1, 2008 at 12:04pm: Bike pooling!

Comment by Adrian on November 29, 2008 at 3:58pm: Oh yeah, love those comic geniuses with their tandem jokes. I did the Sydney to Gong ride a few weeks ago on a tandem. On 17 occasions we got the 'she's not peddling' joke.

Comment by LongLoad on November 29, 2008 at 7:43am: I leave the house too early to do the school run, but there is a guy around here who rides a tridem (possibly a Bike Friday) to do the school run, then rides back home alone.
I did the Kinder run when I had time off last year, there were a couple of kids that wanted their parents to ride them around as well.

Comment by Stavros on November 28, 2008 at 10:16pm: Need pics long load.... I love the idea of somebody riding a tandem to pick somebody up for a shared ride later. It just makes sense.

From what I've seen so far, you're the sort of bloke that would do a school run with your set up. That would be an inspiration to a lot of SUV mums Ireckon.