What do you ride?

[NuTz4BiKeZ]

It doesn't look much.. and it doesn't have very good components but building this was the only way I could ever get a tandem.
It sure is fun to ride though and the coolest thing is that my not so keen on cycling wife likes going out on it.:D:D

http://www.eomtbc.orcon.net.nz/EOMTBC19.jpg

[JohnC]

We just added a Paso Doble to our collection. :D

[Kingofbeers]

A shot of our Longbikes cooling it's brakes -

[NitroZip]

We have a Trek T100 setup for road, Have had it for about 10 years and just love it.

[RdRunner]

Here is the Co-Motion Speedster we just got yesterday.

Watson and Vicki Bishop
South Alabama

[dread]

That's a nice one! Congratulations on the new bike and have lots of fun at STR!

[Big H]

Hi

Here is a pic of our tandem as I promised a few posts up on this page. I did not bring the work digital home I went and bought my own!!

We did a 3h20mins 103 km race on the bike this weekend.... not bad for two fifty year old ... if I may say so.

Keep those wheels spinning!!!!!

Big H

[Big H]

Hi

Here is a pic of our tandem as I promised a few posts up on this page. I did not bring the work digital home I went and bought my own!!

We did a 3h20mins 103 km race on the bike this weekend.... not bad for two fifty year old ... if I may say so.

Keep those wheels spinning!!!!!

Big H

[NitroZip]

I guess my post got wiped out last night by thr forum problems.
So I will repost our tandem pic.

[RdRunner]

Nice lookin Trek, Nitro. It looks like you have it set up for the long haul.

[IowaParamedic]

Mine looks wiped out too. Hmmm.... Here is another pic of the 1995 Trek T200

[brnigrl]

We ride a Santana Arriva. Have really enjoyed it and tandeming but am still very much a newby. My husband,however, is a road and off road cyclist.
Some people have teased us about the tandem being a 'divorce' machine but we find the opposite. cool pix on this page. Sorry, no more technical info, but the captains not around

[trevordog]

Well to add to the list...

Aluminum Santana Sovereign with S+S couplers (brushed aluminum finish). We have logged about 2000 miles and LOVE it!! :p

Though to be honest, we haven't done a trip where we have broken down the tandem and placed it in the carrier/suitcase. So far (besides around home) our trips have been road trips where we have a tandem carrier (Thule's for the record) on top of our Subaru outback. But we wanted the option to go to Europe for example... maybe someday soon! :rolleyes:

[Trsnrtr]

Originally posted by trevordog
Well to add to the list...

Aluminum Santana Sovereign with S+S couplers (brushed aluminum finish). We have logged about 2000 miles and LOVE it!! :p

Though to be honest, we haven't done a trip where we have broken down the tandem and placed it in the carrier/suitcase. So far (besides around home) our trips have been road trips where we have a tandem carrier (Thule's for the record) on top of our Subaru outback. But we wanted the option to go to Europe for example... maybe someday soon! :rolleyes:

:) We went on a trip last year where several teams had S&S couplers. We saw people with handwritten instructions and a couple of teams with photographs to help them pack and unpack. :)

Despite the hassle of packing and unpacking, I'd still love to have a coupled tandem. It would make traveling sooooo much easier!

[OnYoLeft]

Hello Mark, and all,

We just purchased a 2000 Vision Recumbent Tandem in the beginning of 2003. It's a Blue VR85. Our last tandem was a mid 70s Schwinn Twinn Deluxe Sport that we just couldn't get my wife, Paula, comfortable on. So, this fixed all of our problems.

If some of you recognized these jerseys, yes this photo was taken at the 2003 MTR. :thumbup:

[OnYoLeft]

Hello Mark, and all,

We just purchased a 2000 Vision Recumbent Tandem in the beginning of 2003. It's a Blue VR85. Our last tandem was a mid 70s Schwinn Twinn Deluxe Sport that we just couldn't get my wife, Paula, comfortable on. So, this fixed all of our problems.

If some of you recognized these jerseys, yes this photo was taken at the 2003 MTR. :thumbup:

[George Handy]

Here is a photo of 'Proud Mary', our highly-modifed Trek T-100. The only original components are the headset and crankarms! It may not be the tandem of our dreams, but it's paid for!

http://home.comcast.net/~glhandy/Tmp5.jpg

[Gtscottie]

Santana Arriva. It is new to us as tandem riding is and we are loving it. As a matter of fact Mrs Gt gets a pout on if I suggest we ride our singles.

[Litespeed]

Just got our new Co-Motion Speedster about three days. Today was our "maiden voyage". I know we are really going to enjoy this bike.

[Litespeed]

Forgot to include the picture.

[mtessmer]

Hey, Roman Myszczak, nice Double vision! We've had ours now for two years and we love it. We covered more miles this year on it since we started tandeming in 1983.

[OnYoLeft]

Hi Bikeman,

Thank you! We enjoy it also!

We started tandeming in 2001. 2003 was our serious start date though because this bike has been so comfortable for the both of us, it has made the both of us enjoy tandeming so much more. We've joined a local tandem club, CATS (Chicago Area Tandem Society), and have gone out on most of their rides and made a lot of great new friends. We also attend organized rides more because we can do the longer mileages together. Paula enjoys riding so much now, that we even take the tandem out for weekend trips that start from our house. We've become such touring fools. We even placed the Roadrunner on the front of the tandem. As you know, with a tailwind or a downhill, these visions "fly." We've also attended two rallies this year, the Prairie State Tandem Rally and the Midwest Tandem Rally. Both were awesome with great people.

We've become members of TCA, Adventure Cycling and LIB (League of IL Bicyclists). Paula has even incorporated of job into her new sport. She's an event planner and we're hosting a rally next year. I'll be posting it all of the net as soon as we finalize all of the details of the ride and finish the website. www.geocities.com/mykidsrsaints

This post should've been titled "How Much Do You Enjoy What You Ride?"

[Ren V.G.]

We have a Cannondale RTS 1000 named Ruta-Beth and A Co-Motion Breve' we named Lamar. We love them both..Lamar is faster and a very fun ride but Ruta Beth is a good stable long distance cruiser. This summer my wife rode her first organized ride. The WOW ride (Women on Wheels) I was the token male on the tandem! LOL..anyway it was a 50 mile jaunt..fun afternoon.

[mtessmer]

Hi Roman!
We're memebers of the TCTC (Twin Cities Tandem Club) and have been since 1983. I'm quite familiar with the CATS, our club has done a number of activites with them. My wife and I haven't been to a rally in quite a while but one of the most memorable ones we went to was the "Woopee in Dundee" in Dundee, Ill.. That was a while ago. Our club has a fair number of recumbent tandems. It took a long time for me to talk Mary into a recumbent tandem but now she'd never go back. Your rally sounds like it would be fun.

[jergofish]

Pictures of Burley Baby and my other bikes are on my website,
www.touringonbikes. us

Hope it's not a yawner! :o

[TandemGeek]

Pictures of Burley Baby and my other bikes are on my website,
www.touringonbikes. us

Hope it's not a yawner! :o

Actually, it's a suspense novel.... the link doesn't seem to be all there and adding .com and .org doesn't do the trick either.

[darrencope]

Actually, it's a suspense novel.... the link doesn't seem to be all there and adding .com and .org doesn't do the trick either.

How about .us

http://www.touringonbikes.us/

[shutterbiker]

we just bought/ordered our tandem. we got a khs comp, size 20x16, in burgundy. we are really exited and looking forward to it coming in. i'll post pics
when we get it. :D

steve and anne

[VArodie]

we ride a burley duet a great bike, rock solid. If we did any sort of serious hills with it the brakes could stand to be beter, however it is flat as a pancake here!

[mwatkins]

We just took delivery of a custom (well all Bushnells are custom) Bushnell, Al frame, 26" wheels, and somewhat controversial (in some circles) dual disc brakes. Still not sure what we should call his deep-mango coloured beast. We dearly love it and can't wait to add a stablemate.

Why custom? We found virtually all production bikes to be somewhat cramped in the stoker compartment. We are not big people but even still, my wife found my butt closer to her than she preferred. The deciding factor however was being able to size a bike such that either my wife or me to captain (slight compromise for her) but most importantly our 6 year old or my wife to stoke, without resorting to "kidbacks". I figure in another month or two my 6 year old will have grown enough such that I can remove the home made "pedal thickeners".

Dennis Bushnell and his family (they work with him) were a pleasure to work with.

[zonatandem]

Howdy from Tucson!
Mark: we ride a Zona c/f road tandem; just retired our custom Co-Mo with 57,000 on the odo. After 50M we reckon its time for a new one!
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay

[stapfam]

Tandem is Dale MT2000 and is only set up for off road,

Most of my riding is around the South Downs in Sussex, and although cannot be termed extreme terrain, or high, or technical, you try 6 x 600 ft climbs on green chalk in freezinng fog, over rain rutted tracks that have a thick layer of clay over the top. Terrain can be difficult, but generally is just good fun. I ride with a bunch of younger solos, but if a solo can do it, then so can the Tandem.

Took up tandem riding after a couple of serious operations, and am now fitter than I was 7 years ago. Proof came with the South Downs Way randonnee in 2003. 100 miles offroad in one day, done on the Tandem. 14 hours and the first Tandem to finish in the 6 years of the event

Most of credit must go to Pilot, (Stuart) but we both agree that Tandem riding is Team Work, and if the team don't work. you go nowhere, very slowly. Favourite part of tandem riding is downhill,(Still offroad off course), Who needs brakes when you have confidence in your co-rider.

[Retro Grouch]

Santana Noventa. It's our fourth tandem and a far sight from the 60 pound modified Schwinn Twinn that we started with in 1976. Probably our coolest experience has been our daughter and son-in-law buying a Burley tandem to ride with us.

[Offroad team DK]

Cannondale MT 2000. Only did 500 miles on/offroad yet... and loved every one of them :D

[zonatandem]

Howdy from Tucson:
We ride a carbon fiber Zona tandem built by Bob Davis in Peoria, AZ
Been riding in-tandem for over 29+ years, this is a great riding 2-seater![IMG]

[johno]

Early 90's Cannondale, probably a 91 bought as a bare frame - 140mm axle width. We got it last summer, been riding off and on ever since. Right now, outfitted with Suntour 7x3, looking at upgrading to 8 or 9 with Shimano STI shifters, so I can put on a flightdeck and see what gear I'm in.

Love the 'dale - plenty of stoker room, so much so that I'm looking for a longer handlebar stem for my wife. Velvet smooth ride.

[TwinTraveller]

Howdy from Tucson:
We ride a carbon fiber Zona tandem built by Bob Davis in Peoria, AZ
Been riding in-tandem for over 29+ years, this is a great riding 2-seater![IMG]

Zonatandem,

Nice bike. I noticed that your pedal "seem" to be "unsynchronized", then again, they seem to be off by a perfect 90º angle. Coincidence, or deliberate to get better continuity? Doesn't is bother you in the turns?

Cheers,
TwinTraveller

[CO-Tandem-Dawg]

Well, I've been a passive reader for far too long. Last Friday, my wife and I picked up our daVinci Joint Venture and we're absoultely thrilled. So now it's time to join and get active. Being my first post :lol: , we'll all see how I fare with image attachment, here goes...

[madpogue]

Wow, that's some faincy drive system on that bike. It looks like the chainrings are forward of the stoker crank, on a third BB, and there's another little timing chain between it and the stoker crank. Right? Hard to tell from this side of the bike. I wonder why they'd do that.

On, and what's with the phase between the two cranks? It's obviously not zero, but it looks like it's less than 90. What is that, maybe 60 degrees? Any idea what the philosophy is behind that?

[CO-Tandem-Dawg]

http://www.davincitandems.com/
It's the independant coasting system, the two drive chains are linked to freewheels so the captain and stoker are not linked through a timing chain. We tried Burley and Co-Motion before choosing the daVinci. Check out the link.. cheers

[madpogue]

Yeah, I visited their web site after posting (foot in mouth disease?), and was just about to edit my post. Duh, of course, no "phase". I assume that's also why the stoker's top tube has to be kinda long, to avoid interference between the two cranks.

It seems, however, like whoever is the stronger rider is always going to be pedaling such that the other rider's crank will always be freewheeling. Fixed drive between the pilot and stoker has the effect of forcing a sharing of pedal effort. Seems like with this independent drive, even if the weaker rider wanted to, s/he wouldn't be really sharing the pedal effort. Or do you just establish a sort of "harmony" between pilot and stoker, so neither is out-spinning the other? What effect does the independent drive have on things like starting and stopping, and maintaining a desired phase between the cranks?

[CO-Tandem-Dawg]

We've only put about 200 miles on the bike, but from what we've found, starting is no problem at all. Stopping is easy, she is in tune to when I stop pedaling and when I brake I let her know. We haven't had any "out-spinning issues" yet, give me another few hundred miles and I'll have more information for you. We haven't had any "phase issues" at all. Sometimes we're in phase, sometimes out. We are new to the tandem world and fell in love with the bike and the drive system. We test rode others with a more standard drive system and the daVinci felt smoother and we really took a liking to Todd. He really worked with us to get the sizing down and answered WAY too many newbie questions. Since he builds/designs the bikes he wanted to be sure we had the right bike for us. The personal service was one heck of a help!

[TandemGeek]

Just being a camel with my nose in the tent here...

daVinci's "standard" top tubes @ 70cm (27.63") are about average in length for most tandems. You'd have to have a pretty short frame before the captain and stoker's feet/cranks/legs began to interfere with each other. That said, the one pictured "appears" to be a little bit longer than the standard frame.

For teams who work together, ICS doesn't seem to pose any problems. In fact, most teams we see riding the daVinci's on the road tend to remain in phase except on climbs when they go 90 degrees out of phase for obvious (well, at least I think it's obvious) reasons.

In your scenario where you have a team where both riders aren't putting out 100%, the ICS is also a plus for the rider who has the greater output in that, unlike a conventional tandem drivetrain, they don't end up having to push the weaker rider's legs around. So, given the choice between having the weaker rider "soft pedalling" on an ICS equipped tandem vs. having to deal with added resistance on a fixed drivetrain, the ICS would have the advantage.

In practice, if a captain found himself with a weak stoker on an ICS equipped tandem they are essentially with a "rikshaw". Of course, for many of us who ride tandems, given the choice of going it alone vs. driving a "rikshaw" with our beloved, we gladly suck it up and enjoy their company and the time together.

Starting and stopping are essentially the same as a standard tandem and maintaining phase is a function of cooperative effort on the part of the tandem team... kinda like a marching band or troops staying in step.

Note: We don't own a daVinci but we have test ridden them and I talk with Todd Shusterman every now and again on a variety of topics. Neat guy, great engineer, and top-quality products. As for riding the ICS tandems, they are very unique with a slight learning curve but, for the folks who own them, they really seem to be quite pleased with them.

[Eurastus]

Here's another "new" da Vinci Joint Venture to add to the list.

I purchased it this week but it's rained every day since I got it home...until this morning before school/work. The bike is a '98 model that has sat on the bike store floor for the past 6 years (it had been there longer than any of the employees), so I guess you could call it NOS (New, Old Stock). I paid a very good price from my standpoint; the shop was rather motivated to move it as you can imagine. It's seen it's share of test rides, though, and somewhere along the way lost it's original rear seatpost and saddle. However, as you can see from the size of my stoker, we needed the saddle almost all the way down; I would have had to swap out the suspension post anyway.

As you can also see from her expression, the first test ride this morning was a big hit with her. We really appreciated the Independant Coasting System on the da Vinci. It makes riding with a 9-year-old particularly nice; if she doesn't want to keep up with my high cadence, she doesn't have to. By the time we had gone a block, we were both used to the system. She mentioned that by the time we had gone two more blocks, she had learned how to sync up the pedals when she wanted. I noticed that throughout the short 5-mile ride around the neighborhood, she had the pedals sync'ed most of the time.

We're pleased with our purchase.

Hope to see ya' on the road sometime.

[chuckfox]

Here we are on our new Burley Samba and a well used trailer bike. Both girls started out on the trailer bike at about 5 years old, so they are both pretty good stokers, although being teamed up on the pedalling is taking a little practice. We're getting ready to go to school in this shot. We got a lot of comments when we arrived!

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=12049&stc=1

[tornadobass]

After reading about all these nice bikes, I'm a bit shy to admit that my wife and I recently bought a Raleigh Companion. It's a comfy bike that should suit our leisurely interests...although she used to be able to ride 75 to 100 miles solo when we met 20 years ago. I'm glad we waited this long to get into a tandem...we're able to discuss options while we're riding and come to some agreement :-)

So far, we've done several short rides to work on seat and handlebar adjustments and we're getting really close to having it set up now. First time we got up past 20 mph was pretty exciting!

Dan Berkowitz
Iowa City, Iowa

[zonatandem]

Howdy from Tucson!

Nice photo of your new Samba ChuckFox! Looks like you'll have your choice of stokers too; lucky fella!
Dan B: it's is not what you ride that counts; you two are riding twogether; that's what counts!

Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy & Kay/Zona tandem

[chuckfox]

Thanks, Rudy and Kay. We are still working out communications, but becoming a team is really going to be a great bonding experience. So far both Sharon (my wife) and Caitlin (the stoker pictured) have been great stokers. Few complaints and fairly quick success. It's hard to ride this bike without a huge smile on your face!

Chuck

[tornadobass]

Dan B: it's is not what you ride that counts; you two are riding twogether; that's what counts!

Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy & Kay/Zona tandem

Good advice...I'll keep that in mind...and will probably be posting some questions as we get in a bit deeper.

BTW, I took out our 1985 touring bikes from their storage in the shed...one actually did RAGBRAI, but with a different rider...it was funny seeing those big frames and skinny, skinny tires. I forgot how far our preferences had changed.

Dan

[bentbaggerlen]

This is our latest ride, it will head out on it's first tour in a few weeks. It's a Organic Engines, Troika trike