I may have been about to get married, but would I really look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle made for two? Hopping on a tandem isn't normally near the top of the list of things to do in the months before you tie the knot. The idea may sound romantic but think of all the potential pitfalls: the arguing over directions, the back seat driving, the enforced togetherness and, with the back rider's feet clipped in, the potential for a nasty accident should the front rider take offence at any of the above and let the handlebars "slip".
Yet my betrothed and I had agreed to a weekend exploring north Shropshire by tandem. Our host for the weekend was the Tandem Experience, a specialist bike hire and sales outlet founded by Peter Bird in 2003, 20 minutes' drive south of Telford, in the village of Jackfield. To make a weekend of it, we would be tying together two of the company's day rides to make one bottom-bruising escapade.
The first was a day-long "tandem experience" course where visitors are shown the ropes in the safety of a Jackfield car park before being let loose on one of the area's cycle paths. You might think that riding a tandem would be as easy as, well, riding a bike, but it turns out that there's a bit more to it than that.
"You do need to learn how to do it, even if you've cycled a lot before," said Peter's business partner, Rob Wade. "The usual scenario is that the guy's done a lot of cycling and the woman less so. They have to adapt to each other's pedalling speed, anticipate changing gear sooner and co-ordinate stopping and getting on and off; the last thing you want to do is fall off. The bikes tend to attract attention and you'll probably have a crowd watching."
For a couple, there's also the slightly thorny issue of who sits where. "Nine times out of 10 the woman rides on the back," shrugs Rob. "They're smaller but also men often have more experience, whereas the woman has maybe been persuaded to come along and give it a go." There's also enjoying an easy ride. When I realised that the person at the front does all the gear changing, steering and braking, I was sold. If I sat at the back, all I'd have to do was pedal – and keep quiet.
After a few practice goes, we managed to stop, start and pedal competently enough to graduate from the car park to a local lane and, finally, to a longer route, of which there were several choices.
The most obvious was a tour around the immediate neighbourhood. Jackfield is in the Ironbridge Gorge, a Unesco world heritage site that's home to pavements edged with iron, and, yes, the world's first iron bridge, built in 1779. The history told in the gorge's 10 museums also forms a significant chapter in the story of the Industrial Revolution, thanks, in the main, to the conjunction of coal, iron ore, limestone, clay and the inspired Quaker ironmaster Abraham Darby.
It was tempting to spend a whole day museum-hopping around the gorge, especially when we saw signs to a brass band festival and a bunting-laced tearoom, but we were here to cycle rather than step back in time. We headed away from the gorge instead.
"People assume it's steep here because of the word gorge," said Rob. "But you can cycle all the way to Bridgnorth, eight miles away, and only have to tackle a 2% gradient."
We followed his advice, and set off in the sunshine along a recently opened cycle track, following the line of an old railway into some of the most glorious scenery in Shropshire. For what was once such an industrial area, this part of the county is unexpectedly beautiful. We snaked out past fields, flotillas of canoeists on the river Severn, riverside pubs and the occasional quintessential country cottage, complete with Mr McGregor garden. Best of all we passed through a little tunnel of trees, moist, cool and pungent with wild garlic.
In an hour or so we came out at Bridgnorth, a town of literally two halves, connected by a quaint Victorian funicular, with a pretty market square at its heart, and the smart new Lewis' Brasserie (lewis-brasserie.co.uk) for lunch. We stopped for Pimm's and a smoked mackerel salad before heading back the way we'd come.
"I thought you'd be OK," said Rob as we returned to Jackfield full of the joys of tandeming. "One in three of our customers becomes a fully fledged tandem-rider and we've only ever had one couple really hate it," he said. "They got to the lunch point and she didn't want to get back on afterwards so he cycled back on his own."
The following morning the plan was to tackle the promising sounding Wine Tour Day Ride, a 35-mile loop around the north Shropshire and Staffordshire countryside, calling in at Halfpenny Green Vineyards (halfpenny-green-vineyards.co.uk) for lunch.
Along for the ride were Peter, his wife Sarah and their 11-month-old daughter, Daisy (so blase about the tandem experience that she happily spent most of the morning's ride snoozing away in a trailer attached to her parents' bike).
As we pedalled along those quiet country lanes, Sarah told us how she'd grown up in a family of passionate cyclists. Her father had worked in the Glasgow shipyards and had joined a cycling club as an escape. "A similar thing is happening again now, with people needing to escape their computer screens," chipped in Peter.
I suddenly realised we were having a four-way conversation, a feat that would have been impossible if we'd all been on separate bikes and shouting over our shoulders into the wind. While some people, like Sarah's father, might prefer speed and silence, for others the ability to enjoy the scenery, and to share it with a companion as they go, is the whole attraction.
As we chatted, the countryside rolled by beyond honeysuckle-tangled hedgerows and walls heavy with scented lilac. Occasionally, on a downhill straight, we'd get a sudden wide-angle snapshot of a field and farm-peppered landscape, or a glimpse of an artisan brewery.
At lunchtime we arrived at the vineyard, for a lunch of sandwiches, jacket potatoes and local wine. I don't know whether it was the alcohol or the post-cycle glow, but I think at one point I asked Peter if he knew anyone with a cream-coloured tandem we could cycle off on after our wedding.
• Tandem Experience (0845 606 6456, tandeming.co.uk) self-guided rides cost £30pp including bike hire. The next Wine Tour Day Ride takes place on 28 August and costs £35pp. London Midland (0844 811 0133, londonmidland.com) has returns from London to Telford from £20. Double rooms at the Valley Hotel (01952 432247, thevalleyhotel.co.uk) in Ironbridge cost from £60 B&B. A "passport" ticket to all 10 museums in Ironbridge Gorge costs £22.50 for an adult, £14.75 for a child (01952 433424, ironbridge.org.uk). For more information on the area, see shropshiretourism.co.uk
