My friend and I are 15 days into a trip to Mexico from Vancouver along the pacific coast and it’s been so sweet so far! We had the idea to do a trip about a month ago and thought the idea of taking a tandem bike was really funny. We’ve never ridden a tandem bike, never done a bike tour and never biked more than 15km at once. There’s also a 3lb dog riding with us who is like carrying a bag of peanuts around…. It’s been a wild ride so far full of random campsites (we like to stealth camp), generous strangers, a few crazy drivers who’ve honked and shouted slurs and insults (people don’t always fw tandems), beautiful coastal scenery and A LOT OF BRUTAL HILLS (it’s a tandem we weren’t expecting it to be easy).
We especially love this bike because it’s been so trusty through thick and thin. It’s a 1991 Yokota Twin Peaks steel-frame tandem that I bought off Marketplace in Vancouver from a guy who’d had it in storage for the last 25 years. The bike came with all kinds of whacky bits, like self-energizing brakes and a retro Softride seat that feels like sitting on a yoga ball. It’s definitely rough around the edges, to say the least—from pedals falling off on my very first ride, to the rear brake giving out on what was supposed to be our first day out, to finally replacing our beloved Softride seat because it kept sliding on the frame and causing chafing. This bike has really been through a lot. I was warned about taking a beater vintage tandem bike on a tour but I just didn’t feel like spending over a grand on a newish tandem bike and I also love the challenge of learning to fix everything on the fly even if we have almost no experience with bikes…
Also if you’ve never ridden a tandem bike with 400lbs of weight on it down a steep hill, it is a truly terrifying experience. We only have rim brakes (a drum brake would be nice but not enough time to find one) so a lot of the time we just say a prayer either the descent ends or doesn’t get any steeper or we just get off the bike and walk ourselves down the hill cause we’re too scared. We still love it though and we’re praying it’ll get us to Mexico!
Right now we average about 80-90KM a day (did like 170km one day and that was a terrible idea) but we’ve been caught with some nasty rain that’s keeping us from moving a lot. I would appreciate any advice for dealing with the rain on a bike tour. We tend to just hunker down in a fast food restaurant or our tent and wait till weather is clear to make a big push. Right now we’re near the southern part of the Oregon coast and we don’t have anywhere to stay until the Bay Area so the rain is really challenging.
We’re also doing this tour as a little fundraiser for the American Institute for Boys and Men, if you’re interested in supporting us we’d really appreciate it! You can find more information at our fundraising page:
I also post every day on Strava, I’d love to find more bike touring community on there so message if you’d like to connect!
by Glassdoor13221