Dales Tandem Weekend in November

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The weekend of November 9-11th 2012 will see strangely-shaped bicycles descend on the little village of Fremington. Organised by our own Mr Chipps, it’ll be a weekend of tandem mountain biking and all of the MTB tandems in the country are invited.

Older readers might remember that there was an event called ‘Tandemania’ organised in mid-Wales back in the ’90s. Primarily for road tandems, it was quick to welcome new-fangled mountain bike tandems as they appeared. Tandemania was a weekend of bike rides, tests of skill and the odd good natured race too. Chipps is hoping that this will be an event in a similar spirit. It’s being held at the famous Dales Mountain Bike Centre in the North Yorkshire village of Fremington in the middle of the Dales. There’s bunk-barn style accommodation on site (bookable directly with Dales MTB Centre), a café and there are local pubs. (There are other places to stay too if you’re too posh, but why would you? There’s 24hour cake access!)

There are more of these strange machines around than you think. Let's see if we can get most of them to Yorkshire in November.

The idea is to turn up on Friday night for a meet and a beer/cake/chat and then Saturday will involve a tandem ride through the Yorkshire Dales on bicycles made for two. The trails will mostly be rock and gravel, Land Rover style tracks and should be accessible by most levels of mountain bike tandemists. After the ride, weather permitting, there might be a few tests of skill to keep the appetites up (see video for an idea) before heading to nearby Reeth for dinner (unless you have your own plans).

Sunday will involve another XC mountain bike tandem ride before sending people off on their way in time to get home.

There’s no charge for the weekend other than accommodation at the Dales Mountain Bike Centre.
So, do you have a mountain bike tandem? Know anyone who does? Make sure they see this and help keep the Spirit of Tandemania alive.

dalesbikecentre.co.uk
Or call them on 01748 884908
enquiries@dalesbikecentre.co.uk

Think that mountain bike tandems are a bit of a gimmick? Here’s some idea of what can be achieved on one…

You can join in the Forum discussion about the weekend here: http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/mtb-dales-tandem-weekend

 

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Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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