I have a pet peeve. I cringe every time I see a heterosexual tandem bike team. Why? How many tandems have you seen with the woman sitting in front? Watching for many years I have seen exactly one such pair. Invariably, the man pedals in front, has a 180º view, and controls the handlebars. He is usually also considerably larger and blocks his partner’s view. Whatever happened to equality of the sexes?

My husband and my male friends tell me that the man sits in front to protect the lady. “The back seat is much safer,” they say. “The heavier person should always sit in front. That’s the way bikes are designed.” Well, if safety is the only reason, then why do I see fathers sitting in the back with their teen son occupying the front?  Surely, they don’t want their child to get hurt. I fail to buy into the safety concern as the prime reason. Besides, if bikes are engineered in such a way that the front seat is unsafe, surely our engineers could come up with a better design. No, I suspect it has something to do with old-fashioned chauvinism. What do you think?

But let me tell you about the one instance in which I actually did see the woman sitting in the front seat of a tandem. That afternoon, my husband and I were taking a leisurely walk along Shelter Island when I spotted a heterosexual tandem team ahead of us. Clearly, it was a woman who was pedaling in the front and a man doing his part in the back of the bike. You can image my joy. Finally, there was a man who was willing to relinquish the front seat to his female bike partner. I squealed with delight as I pointed out the sight to my husband. Fifteen minutes later, the tandem returned. Barely able to control my excitement, I ran up to the two bikers. “Congratulations,” I shouted to the lady at the helm, “This is the first tandem I’ve ever seen with the lady in the front.  How did you do it?”

After a brief and uncomfortable silence the woman replied, “My husband is blind.”

Since then I just keep my pet peeves to myself.

For a sneak peek at the first 20+ pages of my memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, click “Download a free excerpt” on the home page of http://www.walled-in-berlin.com. Walled-In is a story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War.