Six hours later we arrived in Pendelton, a neat but otherwise unremarkable rodeo town in the far northeast of Oregon, close to the Washington border. We were directed to a baseball field where we set up our tents and unfolded the bikes. Hanz had brought along a life-saving foldable gazebo which was to provide some respite from the searing heat. That evening we hosted a pizza and pint night at a local pizzeria attended by around forty Bike Friday tandem folk. I gave a slide show on my millenium Cuba trip, in which I expounded the virtues of travelling rough and real, camping in dodgy places and staying in people's houses illegally, the joys of bucket baths with tepid water if you're lucky, the difficulty of finding decent food, being assaulted by a flasher in Cienfuegos…I could see the attendees falling over themselves to buy their plane tickets, via Mexico city of course…

I was astounded at the seniority of many of the Bike Friday tandem owners, their riding prowess and commitment to this demanding sport. I saw togetherness. I went to bed wondering whether someone had done a PhD thesis on the effect of tandem riding on nuptial bliss. One couple boasted a combined age of 130 years. It seemed the elixer of youth, the answer to everlasting peace, love and understanding, til death do us part….

"GEORGE, WAIT UNTIL I GET CLIPPED IN HERE OR YOU CAN RIDE BY YOURSELF!"

The following morning we prepared for the first ride of the weekend: a 64 mile spin out to an Indian reservation, with a 35 mile shorter route option.

Some 240 bicycles built for two jostled into position like on the starting grid of the Tour de France. There were Co-Motions, Santanas, Bushnell's, Cannondales, Burley's. Then there were our little-wheeled Bike Fridays, which were regarded with a mixture of affection and amusement, depending on whether you owned, had ridden one, or had never seen one in your life.

"Let 'Er Buck" was the catch cry of the Rally, echoing Pendelton's fame as a town of excitable horses. Our counter cry could have been "Let 'Er Fold", though hopefully not whilst in motion. The stopwatch beeped 9am and we surged to the middle - Mike and Mindi on a Traveler XL, Hanz and Pete on the divine Twin Air, and Tim and I on the Q, the bike that becomes a single when married life gets tough. As the tide of tandem swept out onto the highway Tim became all misty-eyed and sentimental about the "beautiful sound of wheels". I made a mental note to burn a CD with three hours of that seductive white noise and gift it to him for Valentine's Day.

Just as with cars, the driver (captain) is usually a man and the passenger seat driver (stoker) is usually a woman. Tim and I dutifully conformed to this stereotype, Hanz and Pete conformed to a more open-minded model, but Mindi & Michael dared to fly in the face of tradition completely - Mindi was the captain of her ship whilst Michael manned the starboard. Mindi thus drew respect and admiration from the entire contingent of male captains at the rest stops, and Michael, we understand, was invited to partake in crocheting circles and women's bonding groups.

The road bisected an undulating, treeless landscape of green cropland butted up against blue sky. Hanz and Pete sliced through pelaton after pelaton to liberate the TwinAir, leaving the big-wheel tandemers gaping. Tim and I mused that it wasn't a race, so why the hurry? Hanz later made a good point: when you have a ground breaking product, you have to be seen to be breaking ground, or you'll be lucky to break even. So off they shot. And off we shot - and I could not believe the speed at which we chewed up that ribbon of highway. I had Tim's digital camera slung around my neck and tried in vain to capture the frozen smiles and furiously spinning legs of the Bike Friday tandem TwosDays, Travelers and even a Triple as they drew level with us. I made a mental note to ask Hanz to build a swivelling photographer's stoker seat. The treeless hills and farmlands rose and fell against the cloudless sky and the rest stop loomed before I had even digested my breakfast. I crawled out from behind Tim and peeled my brain off the back of my skull. I have no idea how fast we went but all I can say is that I have blinked faster than we covered that 15 miles.

"Careful, you can put on weight at these rest stops", cautioned my captain helpfully. Sure enough, we were plied with bagels, cream cheese, bananas, oranges, apples, and no-name muesli bars. There was a large queue for the portable toilets. I asked Tim if it was OK to just go behind that rusty old car and take a leak there, as I had become accustomed to whilst living in Central America.

"Well, if everyone did that this would be the River Ganges - so no", he replied.

Hanz and Pete were in the saddle again before most people arrived. Already there were favourable murmers and whispers about our bikes.

"Everyone's gonna want a Bike Friday", commented a girl on a Santana as we pulled past them.

"You oughta get a new job so we can get one of those", yelled another back seat driver to her captain , as the TwinAir slithered past.

The stark blue-green minimalist landscape soon merged into shaded, wooded country which offered some respite from the heat. This was the Indian reservation. The lunch stop was an idyllic glade dotted with gaudily clad couples in lycra, a little like Noah's Ark meets Jane Fonda's Workout video. We were plied with more food - great chunky sandwiches and apples and chewy choc chip cookies.

We beat it back to base camp by 3pm in order to set up for the vendor Show'n'Ride. That was the work part of the weekend. A competitor tandem builder sauntered up and remarked how surprised he was at the speed of the TwinAir. Score one to us. People eyed our bikes warily, which is understandable if they've paid $4000-5000 only to discover their big-wheel tandem is a royal pain in the inseam to travel with.

The next day we swapped partners - I rode the TwinAir with Hanz,, and Peter and Tim made a chunky duo on the Traveler XL. After some swapping of seats and pedals we were whipping down the road at an even greater rate of knots than the day before. On the long hill going out of town, my four years of slogging up hilly roads carrying ridiculous amounts of survival gear finally payed off - Hanz commanded me to switch to turbo mode and we barrelled up the hill leaving a quarter of a mile between us and the pack before people had even clipped into their pedals. On the descents, however, the thoroughbred Co-Motions with the combined heavier weights of riders caught us and graciously allowed us to slipstream. This was a real life, wind sucking, whirring, gear-clicking take on Einsten's theory of relativity - four tandems at a standstill making amiable exchanges about tubing and tires, but rocketing along though space and time as one sticky molecule.

There are two different styles of tandem communication between captain and stoker: verbal and mindful. Tim was of the first school, notifying me whenever he was about to change gear, coast, or encounter a bump. Hanz was of the mindful school, which meant me being mindful of what he was about to do in the next split second and react accordingly. Both methods seemed to work and I was not often caught with my knee jammed up my chin or my lower legs shredded by furiously spinning pedals. The only time I blew it was by adding too much turbo, which on one hill had Hanz almost stokering the stoker in front.

The fastest we went that day was around 45mph. The best I can describe riding the Twin Air tandem is like riding a knife blade cutting along the road. Hanz blithely informed me that 65mph was more of the clip he was accustomed to. At those speeds I start to get religion - praying for strength of inner and outer tube, bolts, spokes, bike frame - and no flying objects thank you. Which is exactly what happened - Tim took a swig of his water bottle and it flew out of his hands towards us. Hanz ran right over it on the Twin Air. The bottle was flicked away by the front HED wheel at twice the escape velocity of our maximum speed. We kept going. It could have been worse.

The rest stop came at the most inconvenient moment imaginable - at the bottom of a downhill. Collective "Oh no!'s" could be heard against silently screaming drum brakes as riders skidded towards yet another smorgasbord of excess calories.

That night the witty MC had a field day with our humble donated raffle merchandise. He admitted that he knew everything about organising rallys and nothing about bicycles.

"Wedge Pack … where on earth are you going to wedge it?" he asked the woman who came up to claim her prize.

"Campy chain rings … come up number 37 and collect your set of kitchen shredders. And now - a frame pump, to pump up your frame". ..

On the third day we rose again at 5am to pack and head home. Tim had charmed one couple into ordering one of our tandems, after madam had ridden a few feet on it and declared it 'fabulous'.

We stopped at a diner for breakfast, and I got to experience "biscuits and gravy": a thick layer of white sauce glooped over three giant stodgy scones. I envisaged chocolate chip cookies smothered in brown turkey gravy. Well, this is the land where anything goes, as long as it's big enough, rich enough, fast enough and costs enough.

Copyright 2001 Lynette Chiang All Rights Reserved