A day of two rides
The Onderwater Tandem XL continues to be both a constant challenge to go out and ride, and a test of my patience. Niggles to resolve include the Nuvinci drivetrain shifter (the piece of old rubber handlebar grip I bodged onto it keeps slipping off and making it very stiff to operate), the damaged cam cable-end housing on the cable interface necessitating another wheel removal (although I’ve got the parts), the noisy chain guard which won’t line up with its bracket, and a whining from the dynamo hub which I am told will want copious amounts of grease - and yet there it sits, provocatively on its stand, just waiting for a turn of the key and an immediate trip into town. It doesn’t need lights finding, or a change of footwear, never mind clothes, to ride it - and it will carry several children and a load, at the drop of a hat. Of all the bikes available to me, it’s the most useful, the most practical.
In the hall, sits a very different machine. About a sixth of the weight, snazzy paint, fitted carefully to my frame, goes like jet-propelled roller skates; stops me like a brick wall. Will carry me a hundred miles or more in a day; chase Strava segments. To ride it, though, requires a modicum of premeditation; clothing, shoes, water bottles. Charging of lights and computer. Calibration of the power meter before I set off. If I want to carry even a modest load, I need to strap luggage to it - and when I reach a destination other than home, I have the headache of securing the thing, and the constant nagging worry about theft.
This afternoon, I rode them both.
Having not made it out first thing for a blat round the lanes on my road bike, the Onderwater’s provocation got the better of me, and I proposed to Rhoda that we might go for a potter into town, thinking that 30 minutes of such pottering would at least land me my Vitality points for the day.
Unlike with Thomas Ivor at the weekend, Rhoda probably contributes less than she costs by being on the bike, other than for short bursts. We set off around the edge of the town centre; my heart rate rocketed, and good grief, was I hot. Yes, you can ride in your normal clothes, but within the first ten minutes or so, it was clear I was going to need a change when I got home. Everything was a battle - things like the gear twist-shifter going in the opposite direction to what you’d expect, are not yet second nature.
It was still fun, though. The novelty of sitting bolt upright on a sprung saddle hasn’t worn off, at least for as long as the road isn’t rising. We stopped next to the River Nene for five minutes of recovery, after just 15 minutes of riding. Rhoda, fresh as a daisy, ran off to look at the swans. It all looked very civilised, but truth be told, I was shot to bits!
Riding a heavy cargo bike causes you to make a reappraisal of gradients, a bit like how a road you’ve driven in the car turns out to have far more undulations when you take your road bike over it. It’s like trading an electric train for steam. You can still shift, downhill, you can hold your own on the level, but when the road rises, you don’t half notice.
I got back to the house after 40 minutes. I’d travelled just five and a quarter miles. Most of that had been spent at tempo, or threshold, heart rate zones. I was literally dripping with sweat. my shirt was wringing, my eyes stinging with salt, and the seat of my trousers was redolent of Roosevelt E. Roosevelt in ‘Good morning, Vietnam’. You could indeed have cooked stuff down there. Off to the shower I went, depositing everything I’d been wearing, in the laundry basket en route. Rhoda was pleased to have been out, and I fixed her up with an ice cream for good behaviour and good company. The ease with which I’d dug the bike out had been rather offset by the state it had left me in, at the end of the ride. I can certainly see the appeal of e-assist, if we decide to keep the Onderwater for the longer term.
Decidedly cheesed off as she was about the fact that Rhoda had polished off the last of the ice cream in the freezer, Ruth was duly offered the chance to come out with me for a ride on her own bike. Before I knew it, scarcely recovered from the pounding of the Onderwater ride, I found myself donning lycra and recovering my computer and lights from chargers.
Off we went, this time climbing out of town into the Northamptonshire countryside, to the usual accompaniment of Ruth whinging. By her own admission, Ruth is a champion whinger in the first 15 minutes of a ride. She always pulls through it and gets the bit between her teeth, but she’s a slow starter, and on this occasion it became apparent that she was bored of the route we’ve recently been using, which she now knows intimately. She wanted some variety, so I hurriedly cooked up an unexpected right turn and a new route with which to pique her interest. It worked a treat.
The evening shadows were lengthening but it was still a bit warmer than is ideal as we headed towards the A509, where we stopped for a drink and a Haribo for Ruth. As always, she got stronger and more enthusiastic as the ride wore on, and by the time we swooped down into the River Ise basin, homeward bound, she’d turned in 10 miles in well under an hour, and was complaining that her gears were still restricted from her last race outing before lockdown! It’s time we let her tackle a bigger challenge on her own two wheels, methinks…
I got home and opened Strava, feeling considerably less festering than I had on my previous return to the house. Sure enough, Where 5.28 miles on the Onderwater in 35 minutes had landed me a relative effort score of 59, riding just over 11 miles in an hour, with twice the elevation gain, had earned me a measly 15 points on the road bike.
As interesting as the heart rate data is, Strava’s power estimates are as good as useless for heavy and unorthodox multi-rider bikes; I’d love to be able to measure the power numbers for some of our less common setups, because today, the ‘come hither’ of the ‘convenient’ Dutch bike proved far more physically costly than the lovely run out on the highly-strung racing bike, which it precipitated!
If anyone in the trade can help with lending us between one and three sets of power metering pedals for a short spell, please get in touch - we would love to do some measurement of various family cycling options, to see what they cost the adult rider - and just how much the children contribute!