(upbeat music)
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- All right, this is not a typical situation.
Brad and I do not go riding on a tandem bike.
Let's first clear that. Okay. Clear that up, Brad.
So, there's not a discussion about it.
- Right, exactly. We've had enough comments about that.
Well go on, Brad.
- Yeah. Anyway, so the title
of this program is Tandem Bikes,
the 10 Best and Worst Things About Them.
And, we're gonna go over this
and actually Brad is the one that owns this
and he rides this with his wife.
Yes. Someone married him, believe it or not.
And today, by the way, I see Brad,
a couple new people have wandered in to see us.
- Yep. They're very interested in this topic.
- Yeah. Thanks for joining us.
If you are new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain free.
And we upload every day and also scoot over to Facebook
and take a second to like us because nobody likes us.
- Right? Someone's got to.
- We've got to, it's a job you're going to have to fulfill.
- Because we do care.
- So Brad, this is very interesting to me
because I've never tried a tandem bike before.
I mean, I bet you there's people
that maybe want try it
and they want to know what are the good things
about it and what are the bad things about it.
- Right, that's exactly what happened.
We both were bicyclist beforehand and we thought
what about a tandem bike?
So, even backing up before that
how long have these things been around?
- I would guess, since I know the answer.
- Right, it's been on the board.
- Since 1890s, I would guess.
- Yeah, exactly. So a bit over a hundred years,
initially they were used quite a bit
in war time for transportation.
- I find that interesting,
they actually use this during the war.
- Right? Well, you get two people on one bike,
there's some advantages to that..
- I can't imagine over the rough ground
that you'd have to..
- Whatever, Bob, don't worry about it.
It's a long time ago.
So we're gonna talk about the best things
and the worst things about these things.
- If you've ever thought about trying one
of these, first listen to us.
There's some pitfalls.
- Right, and there's some good advantages.
We've had this for seven years,
I actually bought it for my wife
for Valentine's Day, on our very first Valentine's.
- Aww, how sweet, he's a romantic.
- These are, they're novelty, Bob.
That's the word I'm looking for novelty.
- Novelty?
- Right. You know the song crazy,
Daisy, blah, blah, bicycle built for two.
- Oh, bicycle built for two, okay.
- Right, but for us, when we used to ride
and we still do ride our individual bike.
Well, I like to ride to get my heart rate up.
And my wife is more of a recreational rider
and she's looking around more.
So when we ride together, her speed would be so slow
it would absolutely drive me nuts
'cause I was like I might as well be walking.
It's not that slow, but I'm not getting my heart rate up.
- There was no exercise.
- Right. I wanted to get my heart rate up, get aerobic.
- She's going all, I wanna see the scenery,
I wanna enjoy myself.
- And she does want to ride fast.
She likes to get her heart rate up too.
But not as aggressive as me. Here's your answer.
If anybody out there has that situation
with your partner, riding bikes
and you wanna get your heart rate up.
The other person is not so concerned.
Are you at different levels?
And you both want to get your heart rate up,
get on a tandem.
- So are you saying
that one person can work harder than the other?
- Each person can be maxing out as hard as they want
or one person can be maxing out
and the other person can be going just for the ride.
It does not matter for either person.
- So how hard of work is that?
If you're doing almost all the pedaling,
is that very difficult?
- It doesn't matter.
It's just, just pedaling hard.
- Okay.
- I mean, I can tell sometimes like
if Julie kicks in to go up a hill, 'cause she's
got pretty strong legs, but I don't care.
It doesn't matter to me if she's pedaling hard or
if she's not pedaling at all or I don't care.
Because it just changes your speed a little bit,
is all it does.
- Okay.
- As long as the cadence of the peddlers is acceptable
to both people.
- You've got this thing really geared up by the way.
I mean there's two water bottle holders here
and two over here.
- That would make four.
- Yeah, which seems like a lot to me.
But I guess I don't..
- If it's a hot day like today
and you're going to go for a two hour ride,
you'll drink them. I will.
- Oh sure. You got the little mirror here.
- We're getting to that Bob. We're getting to that.
- Oh you're going to talk about that.
- So number two. All right.
- Okay, number two. These are the best things.
- Yeah, the best things. They get a lot of attention.
You're going to be going downtown,
everyone looks and they wave at you.
If you ride your bike, if you're just riding your bike
it's like, oh, you're just a biker.
Sometimes they like you.
Sometimes they don't.
- Sometimes they don't like you.
- Kids always love a tandem.
- Oh do they?
- Yep. And women do too a little bit more, I think.
Aw look at that, the couple riding together.
- So you're like a little celebrity there going
down the road. Do you wear matching outfits, by the way?
- We just have one matching outfit. That's it.
But other than that, we don't.
- I was joking, but you do, huh?
- Yeah. Well, we bought them together once.
We were on vacation, you know how that goes.
- All right.
So, the next thing the person in front's called the captain.
The person in the back is called the stoker.
There's some other terms with that.
- Makes sense. Yeah.
- That's what we refer to each other as.
And the stoker, the nice thing about riding
in the back is you can not pay attention
to where you're going at all.
You can look at the scenery to the right, look to the left.
- That really is a positive thing.
- Right? Yeah. And you could take pictures
or videos while you're on the bike,
'cause you don't have to worry about it.
- Sure.
- Go ahead and do it. There's one thing about that.
You need to pay attention,
your job in the back is to see what's coming
on...
- Oh, from the back.
- Oncoming cars, for safety.
- Sure.
- You don't have to, this person can do it but..
- So if your on a trail, it's not an issue, but..
- It's lot safer, right? If you're on a trail.
Exactly. Okay. The next thing is they're very safe.
They're safer than a regular bike,
if each person does their job.
If you think about it, the person in the front,
all I have to do is pay attention to what's in front of me.
- Sure.
- If you're by yourself, you have to pay attention
to what's in front of you and what's behind you.
- Right.
- And to look behind you, you can't see what's
in front of you, plus you might go
off the road and get on the shoulder and wipe out.
- Yeah. I have a situation with my bike where
at one point I go on a sidewalk.
- Yeah.
- It's just a really bad spot.
And then I have to one point, veer onto the road.
But I'm like, I don't know if a car's coming.
So it's a real dangerous maneuver.
I look, and then I got to make
the decision very quickly if I'm going to go on the road.
- So on a tandem, this person, the stoker's job is
to see what's going behind.
And we got a system going, when we're pedaling,
if there's a car coming behind me,
my wife taps me right on the buttocks.
- Wow.
- Yeah. And she's not getting frisky.
- (laughing)
- If there's two cars, she taps me twice.
If there's one car, she taps me once,
and so on and so forth.
- And if she's mad at you, she's slapping you, huh?
- Right. Well, that's a whole other story.
She's gotta stick for that.
- Yeah, really.
- Yeah. And then a whip on other side.
- And a prod.
- Right. But no,
so they can be safer if everyone does their job.
The other thing is communication.
You ever ride bikes together,
- All right.
- and you try to talk to your partner,
you got to be side by side pretty much.
And then a car comes, or you get tight
then you got to go behind each other.
Then it's harder to talk, but here..
- So you can talk the whole time.
- Right. You're only three feet apart.
- Sure.
- Except for when you get over 20 miles an hour.
Too much wind goes by your ears and then you can't hear.
But the big advantage of that is,
I can always say I didn't hear you, dear.
The wind was going by my ear, in case I wasn't listening.
So there's big advantages to both.
- You can play it to work. However, it works best for you.
- Exactly. All right. So now what are the downsides?
- So those were the top five things.
I mean things that were positive..
- Right, pretty much.
- and now we're gonna the five things that are kind
of worse about it.
- Number one, the cost.
You're probably not gonna get a cheap tandem.
They don't make a lot of them.
They're built heavy so they don't fall apart.
- Sure.
- This one I bought used for $1000.
If you buy a new one like this,
you're probably going to go spend three to 5,000.
- Wow.
- This is aluminum frame. If you get a carbon graphite,
I don't even know where the cost can go.
- That would be out of range almost.
- Exactly. Next thing. Hard to transport.
You, know, how you going to get this thing on a bike rack?
- Yeah.
- Most bike racks are not made for this.
I made my own custom one.
It works out really well in my truck.
- I Just helped Brad take it off that rack,
you did a nice job, by the way. It's really well built.
And, Brad's a handy guy.
So, it's not something I think the average person's going
to be able to do very easy.
- But it wasn't real difficult. If you got a truck.
If you got a pickup,
it's much easier than if you have a car.
If you put it sideways across the car you're going
down road and a car comes close
to you and clips off the front wheel.
Well, so much for that wheel.
- Does this one fit, would this fit in a bed
of a normal truck, you think?
- Yeah. I got a five..
- If you took the tire off.
- I got a five foot bed and I can still fit it in.
- Oh you can.
- It sticks out at the end, but whatever, you know.
- Okay.
- Put a little red flag on it, let it flop around.
- Sure.
- Okay, storage space. If you got some bikes
in your garage already, a lawnmower, this and that,
and the other thing, they take up more room.
- Sure.
- We actually hang ours from the ceiling.
- You do?
- Yeah. Put it, pull it up, got a pulley system
and get it up and then tilt it.
- You got a pulley system.
- It works good.
- Again, that's Brad, Mr. Handy.
- All right. Higher maintenance. You got to change chains
on a bike every now and then.
The back chain is a standard length. The front chain is not.
You have to buy two chains
and put it together to make one chain for the front.
- You have to change the chains on bikes.
Man, I'm serious. I'm asking this.
So I need do this?
- Well yeah, they wear out.
I should change mine every two years but I wait.
We don't put that many miles on, but yeah,
you got to change them 'cause they stretch.
And when they stretch, then the sprockets wear out.
When the sprockets wear out, then it costs a lot of money.
- I got to take mine in then apparently.
I probably need a new chain, I didn't even know that.
- Of course. Then they're gonna say new sprockets too,
so be prepared for that.
- All right.
- All right. So the next one, we talked about
this is stoker and...
- Stoker, captain.
- Right? And Marcy over here tried one out with her husband.
She said, you can't see anything in front.
The first time we got on this bike,
my wife said I don't like this.
I can't see anything in front of me.
We rode a little bit longer, then she realized, oh...
- She could see everything to the side.
- Right. And you don't have to see where you're going.
- You don't have to pay attention.
- Right? Exactly.
- I saw a t-shirt by the way, Brad, about the captain,
the captain says that the captains always right,
always listen to the captain. I'm the captain.
(laughing)
- Well, that does bring up the...
- Yeah, that person's more in control
and this one's got to kind of go wherever they're gonna go.
- Right, on the next video we're gonna talk
about that as well as get more detailed.
But one of the negative things
about the tandem bike is it can cause friction
between the two people and perhaps an argument.
- Sure.
- And I'm gonna, there's some personality types
and actually we bought this bike
from a couple who got divorced.
- Oh my God. So it could push you one way or the other.
- Exactly.
- Together or apart.
- Yeah, exactly. So be careful if you're considering one.
- It could be a deal breaker.
- Right. And if you rent one,
a rental tandem usually are really poor fitting.
It's made for one size fits all.
- Sure.
I mean, it's not going to fit anybody.
You know, Bob could not ride this bike.
You're way too tall.
Your knees would be up to your,
if you were pedaling, you'd be very uncomfortable
in a matter of miles.
So the rentals are not very representative of a bike.
So we've got this adjusted to fit us.
And if we went and used the rental
we would say, this isn't right..
- I don't want to do it. Yeah. And by the way,
also you don't want to rent one
of those bikes that has two in the front
and two in the back. Have you ever seen those?
- Yeah.
- Those are awful.
- Yeah.
- Every time we just laugh 'cause we lived,
we have a cabin down on a trail.
- Right.
- And we just laugh and people are coming.
Cause you can see they're upset.
They're yelling at each other. Cause you work so hard
on those things and you barely move.
- Yeah.
- So, I mean never rent one of those.
- So if you're more interested
in a tandem or you're bored out of your mind
and you have turned the video off a long time ago.
But if you're interested, we're going to have another video.
The 10 things you need to know if you're going to buy one.
'Cause there are some really interesting things
about getting one that's going
to make your life much easier after you purchase one.
To make sure there's no friction and the bike goes smoothly.
- All right, so let your marriage go smoothly too.
All right. Thanks for watching.