travel

Finally,   Randounneur it is — My first ever and ours first on a TANDEM. Mixed feeling of anxiety, wonder and joy. Time of celebration after the two months of sweat and perseverance with utmost planning. Doing a brevet on a tandem, as pleasing as it sounds, is quite a daunting task and demands a lot of dedication and focus. Tandem riding, we learnt, has unique challenges. The huge weight of the FANTOM tandem being around 30 kgs , steel frame , plus the cumulative weight of the riders (100 kg) amounting to a total of 130 kgs , in addition to its length, requires perfect coordination to balance and ride it smoothly. Stops, turns, acceleration, deceleration, everything needs to be done together. The stoker (person at the rear) has to trust the person captaining the bike, and the captain has to rely on a stoker who maintains a steady position and is responsive to choices the captain makes.  Having said that, it was a journey full of roller coaster, where we tried to learn from