So, having bailed on the Irish Mail on Saturday, Andy and I found ourselves with time on our hands on Sunday, but with little inclination to do anything serious. We decided to go to the seaside to have some late lunch.
I suggested that we could go on the tandem and I could have a go at riding the front. It's a fairly flat 2 km from our house to the promenade, mostly on the off-road (but tarmaced) cycle-path. Thus instant death was unlikely.
It was interesting. We had to wheel the bike to the end of the street so I could start off on the flat. I then took over 4 minutes to set off at all. 2 false starts later where I started veering off toward parked cars and we were off - slowly. Wobble wobble. I can't hold Andy's weight to set off, so he had to scoot a little bit whilst I control the handlebars. At the end of the road there was a corner. A bit more wobbling followed, but I made the turn onto the cycle path. Amazingly, as we approached oncoming pedestrians they all lept off the path I as came wobbling slowly towards them scream "oh no, I'm scared."
On the way back I sort of got the hang of it. I could actually steer around corners and eventually managed to take a hand off the bars. It was pretty scary though. I think I'll appreciate Andy's bike handling skills a bit more though now. I might try to practice a bit more though, I was significantly better on the way home than the first half.
