Who Leads The Way?

Susan B. Anthony remarked that the bicycle did more than anything else to liberate women.

Sometimes I wonder what she would have made of couples on tandems.  Almost any time I've seen a male-female riding duo, the male is in the front, or "captain's" position and the female is in the rear.  That means the man/boy is steering and, depending on how much input he gets or takes from his partner, is determining the course of the ride. 

Is there any way to correct that imbalance?

Piloting From Behind

Can a tandem "stoker" be a "back seat driver"?

Gender Role On A Tandem?

Seeing a tandem on the road isn't quite as rare as a UFO sighting.  But it's uncommon enough that I tend to remember it for a while.

Therefore, I feel confident in saying this:  Every time I've seen a man and a woman riding a tandem, the man was the "captain" (in front) while the woman rode as the "stoker" behind him.

I confess that when I was a man and rode a tandem with a woman, I also took the front seat.  However, there was a very good reason for that:  She was blind.

Most men, though, don't have such a rationale.  They might argue that they have another:  Most of them are taller than their wives, girlfriends, daughters or other females who ride with them.  Now that I think of it, I wonder what Tammy and I would have done if we'd ridden a tandem:  She stood three inches (7.5 cm) taller than me but, as athletic as she was, I was still the stronger rider.

Which of us would have been the "captain" of this tandem?:

1996 Coventry Quadracycle For Two

Lyn And Lyn Win



As I've mentioned in earlier posts, I have riddent a tandem twice in my life.  Both times, I was the "captain" or "pilot":  That is to say, I was in front. 



On my first tandem ride, my "stoker" was a blind woman.  She wanted to ride with a group that, at that time, toured various ethnic neighborhoods in New York to sample their foods and restaurants.   The Light House called the group with that request, and I volunteered to pilot a bike Light House supplied.



I soon realized that she needed a tourguide as much as she needed someone to steer the bike.  She was blind from birth, so she had no idea of what, say, a terra cotta-hued cornice looked like.  Unfortunately, perhaps, for her, I was (at least at that point in my life) better at spinning wheels than at spinning narratives.



Someone named Lynette Nixon also piloted a tandem for a blind (or, at least, visually impaired) cyclist.  That is about where the similarities between her experience and mine end.



I don't think Ms. Nixon was as much of a tourguide as I was.  You see, she and her stoker Lyn Lepore were riding on a velodrome--in Sydney, Australia to be exact.  They won the silver medal  in the women's 1km time trial event of the 2000 Paralympics.  Their compatriots, Sarnya Parker and Tania Modra, took the gold in their home country.

L-to-R:  Silver medalist tandem duo Lyn Lepore and Lynette Nixon with Gold medalists Sarnya Parker and Tania Modra at the 2000 Paralympic Games.


Nixon and Lepore also accomplished something else I never will:  They may have been the only tandem whose first names were "Lyn".  I would have loved to hear the crowd cheering for them:  Lyn! Lyn! 


(Hearing such a chant but not seeing them might lead someone to think they were Chinese. )