Tandem Cycling - Interesting Tandem on eBay

This tandem has 4 brakes - a caliper and Phil Wood disc on the front, and two rim brakes (a caliper and a V-brake) on the back. The description makes it sound as if the owners are pretty serious cyclists.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Tandem-Road-Bike-Liotto-Gino-Italy-w-Campagnolo-/230470103826?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35a916b312

Interesting tandem....I don't know this builder but love old school Italian stuff.
Seller says "about 34 pounds" !!!...????

Bill J

Campy tandem cranks!?
I like how the stoker stem is standard and separate from the captain's seat post.
I think that would be a good design for a modern tandem although it would look a bit odd.
It would nice to be able use standard stems and adjust the fit by changing the stem length from 90 to 120mm
Would also allow adjustment of the captain's seat post without loosening / changing the stokers bars.

Campy actually made a tandem group at one time. They're quite rare.

Also, R&E Cycles in Seattle, WA, routinely reworks Campy single cranks to create tandem crossover cranksets for it's Rodriguez tandems and, yes, they look spectacular. I'd actually thought about doing the same thing for our Calfee using Campy's carbon cranks, alas... they didn't make a carbon triple at that time.

Back to the tandem being offered, the Phil Wood disc would best be left as an object d'art and not used. They were problematic, at best. There are some other comments regarding the Phil Wood discs in the archives that I've previously posted if anyone wants to go look. As for the dual rear rim brakes, back in the 70's and 80's all kinds of interesting brake configurations found there way onto tandems as folks who were new to tandems found their stopping power lacking and/or experienced rim-heat induced tire blow-offs. In hindsight, some of these configurations don't make a lot of sense now, but older tandems like this or from Osell with multiple rear rim brakes and efforts by Phil Wood to develop an early disc brake demonstrate that there was a need to come up with better brakes. The Arai drum remains one of the best solutions and just about all of the contemporary brake designs are far better than what was offered 30 - 40 years ago.

That's a beautiful bike!

Nice older twicer!
34 lbs for a 30+ year old tandem is not impossible. We had a custom 1977 Assenmacher that weighed in at 34 lbs.
This is only the second older tandem we've seen with a double boob tube (believe 'tana made one with S&S a while back) . . . at that time oversized or ovalized boob tubes were not yet available.
Yes the Phil disc was a bit of a problem.
Tandem brakes a that time were nothing to brag about. Had our first tandem (1975 Follis) set up with back-to-back rear rim brakes.
It certainly was better than the Atom drum that originally came with the bike!
A nicely kept and very rideable collector's bike.
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem