I rode my first tandem World Cup races last week. It was a enjoyable but very different experience to road racing. Everything on the tandem seems to happen in slow motion, you can see where you want to move in the bunch but it doesn't pan out the way you imagine it. I am not entirely sure of the reason, the bike is a lot less responsive than a standard solo bike - slower to accelerate, slower to corner and cumbersome to maneuver.
I rode a 21km TT and a 108km Road Race finishing pretty much middle of the road in the races. The result was roughly as expected for a debut off the back of a difficult Ras.
A very enjoyable week for the squad was capped off by a Gold Medal performance by the girls tandem (Fran Meehan and Catherine Walsh) and a double Gold for World Champion Mark Rohan.
It's back to road racing on the solo bike for me but the week in Segovia was a welcome change of pace.
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