"Bikes for 2: Romantic, Now Rugged" (Business Day, Sept. 7) reports that the bicycle built for two is coming back into style. Then you state:"Tandems, as they are known by the cycling savvy, never really went away. But the last few years have seen a spurt of growth, thanks in large part to family-oriented fitness enthusiasts, graying baby boomers and some new technology borrowed from mountain bikes."
You could have mentioned that nowhere is male chauvinism more arrogant, or female subservience more pitiful, than on the tandem bike.
Common sense would dictate that the shorter person sit up front and the taller person in back, where he or she could look over the driver's shoulder. That is not what happens.
The male, who is almost always the taller, sits up front at the controls. In their expedition into the great outdoors the man's share is the great outdoors and the woman's share is 12 square inches of the noble man's back.
—Daniel Farber
Worcester, Massachusetts
[Ed.: I asked a bike store owner about this, and he said that, due to the design of the tandem bike, it always makes for an easier ride when the "stronger" person sits up front.]
