Team Wiggle Tandem

Made to measure

Riding a tandem is a tricky thing. Riding one for upwards of 15 hours against the clock is not only tricky but specifically designed to test each part of your body until it screams to be allowed to vacate the unfeasibly hunched position you have crammed it into in order to gain maximum aero effect.

Training for long hours both on the road and on the turbo will certainly condition our minds, as well as bodies, to being tucked down, something that we intend to quantify and refine in the wind-tunnel before we make an assault on Britain’s long standing road records, but get the equipment wrong and you are finished as a serious record prospect. As the team structure comes together our Focus Cayo training and Mares Cross Expert bikes are being pressed into serious action and master frame builder Terry Dolan aims to have our record attempt tandem ready to ride by Christmas. .

When the rather bizarre idea to try breaking road records popped up last summer, other attempts by far more famous athletes than Jez and I hadn’t emerged, but, as the failure of multiple Olympic champions James Cracknell and Rebecca Romero to break the mixed tandem record from Land’s End to John O’Groats shows you just can’t do enough preparation for road records. Luckily for us the bike left over from the abandoned attempt has become the everyday workhorse for our dual training and a process of constant position refinement on this test bed machine has sped up the build process of what we hope will be the fast tandem machine ever constructed in the U.K. when it rolls out of Dolan’s Ormskirk facility.

Mind you the weather hasn’t helped much, neither the fact that my wife Jan dislocated her elbow eventing a horse in the course of the last month. The upside is that I have caught up on a lot of movies whilst sitting on the turbo trainer at ungodly hours of the day and night, a not so subtle mix of inspirational blockbusters and cycling offerings of such gruesome pain that they make you realise that actually, you’re not suffering at all…

When it’s not been blowing a gale here in Shropshire it’s been raining but one of the upsides of having a sponsor is the range of wet weather kit available. Honourable mention must go to the dhb Wickham eVENT waterproof jacket. Unpretentious and classically uncluttered, the Wickham has generous arm and back length, good close fitting tailored cut, breathable fabric and packs well for the rear pocket. These are all qualities you want wish to see in a top flight lightweight waterproof jacket but what makes the Wickham stand out is it’s exceptional waterproofing which is refreshed by washing and then cool ironing the garment…I have never come across this before in a jacket but believe me, it works.

Look out for a whole range of clothing and kit thoroughly long term tested by Project 7 Racing and Team Wiggle Tandem over the course of 2010 for all the features that matter to riders. Not just a magazine style day tests, or a week or even a fortnight but the punishment of day in day out riding, washing and yes, in some cases even ironing!

Ride safe

DH