The Tandem

Me and Simon ride a tandem bike to school. Well, it's not really a tandem, it's more like a small bike attached to a larger one. He doesn't have to stear or pedal, but sometimes he does and most of the time it's entirely unhelpful. For instance, when I'm slowing down for traffic, he thinks to himself, "Why aren't we going faster?" and proceeds to pedal (something that he did not help with when climbing the hill just before this intersection) and I have to break harder while asking him to stop pedalling. He then very promptly obeys my command and we halt unexpectedly fast.



Simon also likes to stear the bike, even though his handle bars are there for support rather than to help the driver manuver. I think that he likes to pretend that he's in a race car video game when we're going down hills because we'll start swaying in one direction or the other once we get going pretty fast. Then I'll say, "Simon! Was machst du?" What are you doing? And he'll simply respond that he's helping me stear. Somtimes, however, he does admit that he's trying to throw me off the bike. The other day, when I was having a particularly rough time driving on accounta him, he gasped through fits of laughter that I had no idea what direction he would turn next. True, Simon. Very true.

Simon has recently learned how to ride a bike by himself. I think this may make our mornings a little easier.