It takes a while, but finally, there’s a crack.
Until now, Benjamin and Jen Sharp — husband and wife and two-time couples tandem bicycle champions at El Tour de Tucson — have been simpatico, in lockstep, unbreakable.
Their bond off the bike sounds just as harmonious as their time on the bike.
But now we learn that Benjamin doesn’t particularly like grocery shopping with Jen, and this small nugget could overturn this conversation like the small rock in Jen’s cleat that derailed their chances for a three-peat at El Tour last year.
Deftly, Benjamin swerves.
“But I don’t really like grocery shopping with anyone else,” he says. “That’s just me.”
They’ve never crashed while on the bike together, despite top speeds of 65 miles per hour.
Nor off it, it seems.
Cycling together
Both cycling coaches in Boulder, Colorado, which has its fair share of cycling coaches, the Sharps take to the streets of Tucson almost as a getaway.
Some couples go to Cabo.
This isn’t some couple.
They compete at the highest level of their respective age ranges — Benjamin, 46, and Jennifer, 40 — with Benjamin, a former U.S. Olympic team coach, acting as Jennifer’s coach, and sometimes vice versa. They are used to endurance, and fitness, and nutrition. That’s their life.
So when they can steal away for a few days down to beautiful Tucson in their camper van, it’s not so much a go-for-the-gold as it is a time to see friends and take to the familiar streets. They’ve taken part in the last three El Tours.
“El Tour de Tucson is a highlight for us, but we race our single bikes 40 or 50 days a year, and we deal with higher pressure situations individually throughout the year,” Benjamin said. “One thing the tandem allows us to do is ride together. When we’re both working hard, we sometimes get separated on the road. This allows us to experience those efforts together.”
They began their endeavor not long after Dec. 13, 2014, the day they were married. Their elite tandem bike was funded by wedding guests. They literally registered for pedals and gears and seats. Benjamin describes it as “an amazing bike, the nicest bike either of us own.”
It is custom-built to Benjamin’s specs in the front, where he is pilot, and to Jen’s in the back, where she is stoker. At El Tour, they regularly average 23.5 miles per hour.
Their first El Tour was in 2015, only about a month after they got their bike, and it remains the only group race they do.
“We both have this, I guess, need for speed,” Jen said. “We get going so fast, and because I’m on the back, if we get into technical turns, I give up all control and close my eyes.”
So far, they’ve been lucky.
“We haven’t crashed,” he said, though both said they’ve crashed countless times individually. “We’ve had a couple moments, but it’s been pretty safe. Crashing is always in the back of our minds. I’m keenly aware of the risk of crashing, and I’m certainly more cautious. I know the most important thing in my life is sitting two feet behind me. I haven’t let my competitive juices overcome that.”
working partners
It hasn’t all been red roses and candlelit dinners on the course, either.
At the second water crossing at El Tour last year, Jen got a rock wedged in her cleat, and couldn’t clip back onto the bike. They lost contact with the peloton.
“I was panicked,” she admits.
This was not the time for disaster: Right after the water crossing is a climb, one of the “lumpier parts of the course,” she said.
It took a good 20 minutes of hard effort for the Sharps to catch up to the pack.
“That’s one example in the Tour where I was like ‘Oh no, I’m letting my partner down,’” she said. “He talked me through it. I believe he didn’t get mad at me …”
She laughs.
“Here comes the marriage counseling — it’s what you choose to do when you react to something that gains the trust,” she said. “For him to not yell at me or get upset, to not let the competitor in him override it …”
“Perspective is the right word,” Benjamin interjects. “That second crossing, as Jen said, is a pivotal part of the course. There’s a large stretch of very straight road that leads into that section. It’s important to be near the front when you enter that. The peloton is dynamic right there. And I made an error going into that section that put us in a bad position, and we were further back in a group than would’ve been ideal. Because of the crowding, we had to get off of our bike, and that’s when she got the rock in her cleat. It was a compounding issue. I screwed up, we’re in a bad spot, and because of that, Jen got a rock in her cleat.”
Diplomacy 101, folks.
“There been rides I’ve been the weaker link, and there are rides I have to carry more weight,” he said. “Sometimes that happens within a ride at certain points.”
Benjamin isn’t just careful with words with his wife listening to the conversation. There are times, particularly when he’s serving as her coach, when he has to measure what he says.
“Sometimes I have to say, ‘OK, when I’m telling you this, I’m wearing my coaching hat, not my husband hat,” he said. “Sometimes you have to be straight-forward and not sugarcoat things. And she’s able to observe me, too, in a way that’s unique, that I’m not able to employ on myself.”
Theirs sounds like an ideal partnership, and Benjamin says, yeah, pretty much.
“It’s as easy as we make it sound,” he said. “Not only do we love each other, but we also like each other, and I think that’s a big part of it.
“Both of us have personalities that are not particularly argumentative. We like seeing each other succeed.”
