Originally Posted by
mwandaw
The only time that we made money off the sale of a tandem was our first tandem, and I think it was a Town and Country. We bought it at a garage sale, and it looked really bad. We just wanted to see if we liked tandeming.
I spent an hour or two polishing out 3/4 of the rust. I poured oil on everything that moved. Then we rode it, and we liked it so much that we quickly decided to get a more sporty bike. We sold the Town and Country for 25% more than we paid and put the money toward our second (of four so far) tandem.
I remember the bike flexing so much that we could actually see it. I remember scary sounds when we pedaled hard, and I remember wondering how long it would take to stop when I squeezed the brakes. I also remember lots of big smiles!
You can feel the triplet flexing...it's sort of odd, but you get used to it. Those are pretty thick tubes - it seems to hold together. If I eventually have a failure I'll run it over to Tom Kellogg to fix.
Did yours have the drum brakes? I'm actually pretty impressed with how well the triplet stops for its size and weight.