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2000 Tandem road race at Gippingen (Switzerland)

Original ride report as sent to Tandem@Hobbes, the international email list for tandem enthusiasts, on May 2, 2000:

"I didn't know people could go this fast on bikes!

I love the togetherness of tandeming and I love the high speed-thrill of road racing, but so far I had never been able to combine the two for a lack of suitable events. I've done quite a few long-distance off-road races with varying stokers over the past two years. I had not heard of a tandem road race within driving distance. A few weeks ago, a member of the German language tandem list posted a note about an annual tandem race held in conjunction with the GP Aargau in Gippingen (near Basel/Switzerland). This was it! BTW: The pro race was won by Telekom rider Steffen Wesemann, and Lance placed fourth.

As the coach of the university's cycling group I didn't have to look around long for a suitable stoker: "Fast Holger" earned his nickname on many long rides, he is light and he has an excellent smooth pedaling style. Little did it matter that he had never been on a tandem until a week before the event; he was excited enough to be willing to risk it anyway.

Tandemists are usually a quite relaxed crowd, especially in Europe, where tandems seem to be used for touring more than for competitive cycling. Thus, we were a bit surprised when we got to Gippingen and saw all those experienced-looking racers with well-trained legs. We were even more shocked when we learned that most of our competitors usually competed in international tandem track races or had already raced in the Paralympics (about half of the stokers were blind)! Geeze folks, we thought we'd just show up for small bike race...

The race consisted of seven laps on a 9.4 km (5.9 mile) loop with a long climb and a short downhill. Right from the gun several teams tried to take off, stretching out the field on the very first climb. Holger and I had intended to go easy on the first few laps and hide in the pack until we had gotten a feel for the competition - so much for our strategy. Already on the first lap we were hanging on for dear life!

We saw the positive side of the tough competition on the first downhill, as the captains all seemed very experienced racers who knew how to handle a bike in a tight pack on a descent. I felt safe around everyone at all times (if you've ever been in a Cat. 4 or 5 race you know what I'd been afraid of). The downhill was followed by a long flat stretch winding back to the finish line, and since two teams had gotten a bit of a gap on the field the rest of us were fighting to reel them back in. I didn't know that a tandem field can do 65 km/h (40 mph) on the flats. I almost fell off my bike when I looked at the speedometer! Of course, I could have known because my legs were telling me that we were going pretty fast indeed.

The pack split up the third time up the hill. Three teams managed to get away. We were able to get into a second group of six teams. No matter how hard we tried, our group never got organized well enough to bridge back up on the flats. On the last lap our group was shattered on the climb. Four more teams rode up ahead, while we and a Swiss team stayed together until the end. On the descent I asked Holger "Long or short sprint?", and he decided that being inexperienced our chances would probably be better in a long sprint. Thus, we hopped out of their draft with about 500m to go and met with little resistance.

The winning team rode an average speed of almost 44 km/h (27.5 mph), and even our time was less than last year's winning time. We finished 8th out of the 21 teams (4 DNF'd), so we didn't make the podium - but we sure had a lot of fun!

For the complete results see http://www.gp-gippingen.ch/radsporttage2000/resultate/default.htm

Chris"

Tech Report (not part of the original posting):

We rode our regular 1995 Santana Visa with only a few modifications: We activate the Arai drum via a Suntour Command shifter (though we didn't need it during the race, of course) and we changed the tires to 25mm Continental GPs. More about the bike and a pic (due to UCI regulations we rode without the handlebar extensions, of course) elsewhere on my site.

The other 20 tandems were a wild mix: There were only two Santanas, which is a tiny number compared to their huge market share. I guess this goes to show that their European distributor Wolfgang Haas is more of a touring-oriented rider than a racer. In addition, there were a few Cannondales (among them an MTB tandem with an old RS Judy DH fork - very brave or very stupid!) and tons of French and Swiss tandems I had never heard of. I didn't see any other tandems of better-known makers (Co-Motion, Burley, etc.). One woman captained an old Pinarello: very classic looking and very flexible! Most teams had STI shifters and only two chainrings. Everybody we talked to wished for longer rear top tubes!

The most interesting tandem was ridden to 2nd place by a Swiss team: They had Hope disks front and rear, which they activated via cable-actuated hydraulics cylinders mounted in front of the handlebars (kinda like the Ibis LoveUnit of old). They love the brakes, but hate Hope for spare parts are VERY hard to come by. They also had a 600g Morati Ti fork that is supposed to be very stiff, but looked a bit out of place on a road tandem (H-shape like the old Chris Chance forks).