Two's company
A tandem is for life ...

  Tandem riding is a way of life to many people, almost an obsession, we try not to let it get to that point, altghough we've really enjoyed owning and riding our tandems so far. We'll be doing it for a while yet, there's lots of cafes and pubs we've still got to visit...

An introduction to tandems

  Dave's introduction to tandems was in the 1970's with the local cycling club taking partially sighted passengers out for a ride from the Hull Institute for the Blind, a great excuse to go to the pub on an evening as far as everyone was concerned. The next chance to get on a tandem was a pub trip on the back seat of Mark Goddard's Pashley in 1995, seen here having it's tyres inflated in a way that only Mark can manage. We made the first pub at the top of a hill, but nearly ended up in the River Wye when the brakes failed on the way down hill to the Boat Inn, it would have been a great shame as the beer was particularly good that day!

  We bought our first tandem mostly by accident. In early 1998, we were staying with Graham & Julie and they lent us their Dawes Supergalaxy so that we could all cycle to a pub for lunch, a common activity for tandem riders. We ended up taking the tandem home for a longer trial and we kept it and used it regularly until Autumn 2005 when we replaced it with a shiny new Landescapel. We use our tandem for weekends away, days and evenings out, we take it on holiday and to Tandem Club rallies, go touring on it, and during the summer we even go to work on it as we both work at the same place.

The bikes

  That first tandem was a Dawes Supergalaxy, according to it's colour scheme it was manufactured in the early to mid 1980's and by 2004 it was starting to show it's age. A few bits have been upgraded along the way, a conversion to MTB bars and twist grip gear shift, then a conversion to Shimano rapidfire gear levers. Other bits have had to be repaired or replaced, a few more needed doing to keep it running.

  The time arrived for a graceful retirement to a gentle world of commuting to work and evening runs to the pub, it was finally time to look for a replacement. New tandems can be had for the price of a small car, so we spent 18 months thinking about things and looking on ebay but we never managed to come up with anything we liked at a good price, then in 2005, the Landescape arrived...

  The last real outing for the Dawes was a weekend trip to the 2005 York Cycle rally, towing a trailer full of camping gear so that we could spend the weekend at the rally rather than just going for 1 day as we normally did. It was a great weekend, we discovered Pete Bird's new tandem, the Landescape and arranged a test ride a couple of weeks later at JD Cycles. We spent a lot of the rally weekend thinking of questions and reasons why we should, or shouldn't, buy a Landescape. After talking to Pete Bird and having a quick ride on the demo bike, followed by a chat with John and Ruth from JD Cycles, we'd made our minds up, apart from which colour to get.

  The blue Landescape which we test rode around Ilkley.

  A couple of months later, we became the proud owners of a new shiny tandem...read the full story here. We collected the bike from JD Cycles on a Friday afternoon, giving John time to fit and set up the new hydraulic lift. See the full specification for our Landescape by clicking here.

  Another sunny Sunday, a different tandem, the same pub for lunch. The Plough at Allerthorpe is a nice gentle sunday ride for us and is the perfect distance for a test ride of the new bike.

Tandem Holidays

  We've had a few holidays on our tandem, here's a sample of our trips with the Dawes. For the full story, have a read of the articles mentioned further down the page by clicking this link, or see the "Tandem" links from the main menu.

After a couple of weekend camping trips in 1998, we set off for a longer trip in 1999. We'd spent the night not too far from home, on the campsite at Stamford Bridge near Malton. Next morning, and having just packed the camping gear ready to set off to the next campsite, we thought we'd get a picture of the whole outfit in the sunshine. There's a slight look of puzzlement, we wen't sure if the camera was even working, not uncommon that early in the morning. The early start might also go someway towards explaining that suspect choice of colours ... These days, we both pack black, it saves on the washing!
	A couple of days later the weather turned a little colder, we stopped at the pub in Coxwold village in the North York Moors, just to warm up you understand. Has anyone noticed yet just how often we stop at pubs? We'd be a lot fitter if we drank less, but we'd probably have a lot less fun, so who cares?
Later that year , and just to prove we don't spend all of our lunchtimes at pubs in the North York Moors, here's Karen with the tandem at the pub in Glasshouses in Nidderdale in the Yorkshire Dales. The sun came out, we had to celebrate somehow ...
	In late 1999, we loaded two mountain bikes and the tandem into/on our fairly faithful old Peugeot 405 estate and headed for the south of France, stopping for a week at Cantobre in the Massif Central. The great thing about Europcamp sites is the courier offering you a choice of lager or wine at the end of a 700 mile drive in hot sun, it's great. The tandem ride uphill from the campsite to Cantobre village was staggering, but worth it for the stunning ride along the top of the plateau and the drop back down at the other end. Car drivers gave way to the tandem, other cyclists were so friendly, even the non cycling villagers seemed interested. It's a pity that it's so rare to get that sort of behaviour in England. It was very interesting to watch the Tour de France the following year, they rode the same section in reverse, at about 4 times the speed we did it.
In 2001, we had the great idea to take the tandem to Plymouth on the train and cycle back home. We set off to York railway station in glorious weather, it was raining by the time we reached Plymouth and we were soaked by the time we got to the campsite behind the pub at Princetown. We got some very funny looks from the locals as we dripped water on the bar floor whilst booking in for the night, maybe we should have stayed in the pub rather than on the campsite. The next day we got a little sunshine and a couple of punctures. As the weather improved, more and more things went wrong with the bike. By the time we made halfway, the back wheel disintegrated and the holiday was abandonned. After that the weather turned really hot, so we packed all of the gear in the car and went off to Banbury in Oxford, planned as the next campsite for the tandem tour, the one we never quite managed...

Articles by Dave P.

  Over the years we've been riding tandems, Dave has had a few articles published in the Tandem Club Journal, the regular magazine published by The Tandem Club. You can read these articles by clicking the following links.

• "A Tour of the Vales" - TCJ June 2006 - Our 1st tour on the Landescape Tandem
• "A Landescape experience" - TCJ October 2005 - An introduction to our new Landescape Tandem.
• "An oily tour of the north" - TCJ October 2000 - A fraught tandem tour of the northern Pennines

	Landescape Specification

Pictures and text are copyright © Dave & Karen Petty- All Rights Reserved, please don't copy anything without our permission. Thanks, D & K.