Tandem Cycling - Chain jamming

We have had a couple of times when my husband goes to shift and the chain jams causing us to immediatly stop. We also have had the problem of when my husband shifts to the small chain ring, it goes beyond and we get chain suck. Besides trading in my husband are there other solutions? :eek:

Upgrading husbands seems kind of drastic.

I suspect that you need well experienced bike mechanic to check your front derailleur adjustment. If you use the Park Tool front derailleur adjustment instructions, disconnect the shift cable and start at the very beginning. That'll usually fix it. A gizmo like a "Third Eye Chain Watcher" or a "Jump Stop" will prevent your chain from overshifting the granny chainring.

Second the suggestion on the 'chainwatcher' or 'jumpstop.'
Do keep der. properly adjusted . . . and keep your husband; have your LBS do the adjusting or have hubby/pilot (or you the stoker!) take an introductory class on bike mechanics. Some shops or clubs will offer that for free or a small fee.
Have a good ride!

Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

Is hubby waiting to long to shift gears and then making a desperation shift after finding out he is in to high a gear? You can't shift a tandem like a single (and shouldn't shift a single like that either).

Once your candence drops, you can't shift the front at all and shifting across the cogset in the back can lead to jamming the chain (as you have found out) or worse, breaking the chain. If you force a front shift at low candence, you will drop the chain a lot of times.

Rule of thumb on a tandem: Be in the right chain ring at the bottom of the climb. If you are not sure you can make the climb in the middle ring, use the granny.

I was having the same problem until an expert (Larry Black) gave me a tip (applies to shifting all bikes, but becomes especially relevant with tandems).

"Shift with conviction, pedal gently."

Bofore learning this technique, the more worried I became that the gear transition would be poor, the more slowly I eased the lever over, so the more slowly the chain moved laterally and hence the more it "bounced" around between rings, often jumping off. A firm shifting pressure against the STI lever, pushing it all the way to the over, causes a rapid and (almost always) smooth shift.

I had the same problem of the chain dropping off the granny gear and jamming betweeen the chain stay and granny gear. The problem was fixed by my LBS when they discovered that I slightly bent the granny gear earlier. Works great after a few well aimed rubber hammer blows.

We have had a couple of times when my husband goes to shift and the chain jams causing us to immediatly stop. We also have had the problem of when my husband shifts to the small chain ring, it goes beyond and we get chain suck. Besides trading in my husband are there other solutions? :eek:

We've had a very similar problem, the rear-mech would spring too far rearwards, causing the lower jockey-wheel guide to bury itself into the cassette. This was not a fun experience!
As a result of this episode, a small chunk of the chain guide for the lower jockey-wheel got sheared off!
A piece of metal the size of a pinky finger-nail...gone...because of a poor set-up.
I took the bike (2005 Cannondale Mounitain Tandem) to my local repair shop who were amazed that the bike had been designed with the current crankset components. Turns out that Cannondale put some badly sized chainrings onto the crank, causing all manner of problems with the length of the chain.

Do you use the whole range of gears?

We find that the small chainring is too small, I never shift that far down.

There's a number of possible issues, the cheapest being to have the front and rear mechs tweaked and adjusted by a pro. If you feel that the small ring is too small, or the large ring too big for that matter, then you should consider buying a more suitable selection of chainrings.