Folding Bikes - Bike Friday Tandems?

http://www.bikefriday.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/tandem.jpg

I'm thinking about a tandem as a solution to the speed differential between my GF and I. It would be used for 50-100km day rides and touring. I would not plan on folding it frequently.

We have zero tandem experience.

Just wondering if anyone who owns a Bike Friday tandem (http://www.bikefriday.com/tandem) could let me know what their experience has been and what model/setup they would recommend.

Rohloff is also used as a tandem hub. many tour on those ..

many Germans or Thorn /SJS customers in your 26" wheel type.

Borrow a tandem first as tandems are often a cause for loss of a GF. If she and you are compatible enough to ride one then put the money out for a good one. For what its worth tandems which my wife and I love are money pits. Roger

I'm with Roger.. borrow/rent a tandem for a few 30 to 60 mile rides and see how that goes.. the g/f may not be as happy riding as a stoker as the captain (unobstructed views, no sweaty body blocking the wind etc.).. captain gets the sweet ride being in the middle of the long wheelbase, stoker not so much.. with 20" wheels, you'll probably want much more than V-Brakes for the long downhill runs so you won't overheat the rims and blow the tires .. you pick up much more speed on a tandem downhill .. I'd want discs .. my 26" tandem is an older model with front and rear caliper brakes and an additional drag brake hub in the rear.. mine also sits mostly unused in the garage .. if you're seriously thinking tandems, I'd be looking for 26" wheel models for lots of good reasons with comfort and safety high on the list.

There are Bike Friday tandem builds with a removable section,

that it works, when the section is removed, as a single too , so if the tandem relationship doesn't work out ...

Connie & I rented a tandem once... we haven't had the urge to do it again. It was like driving a huge truck compared to the nimbleness of small wheels.

If you're single and love cycling, buy a tandem and find a BF/GF to suit.

The fellow in our tandem club (http://www.doubledates.com/) that organizes an international tour every year says, "No BikeFriday tandems, please! I've never been on a tour when they didn't have problems." The teams I personally know that used to have BikeFriday tandems have switched to S&S coupled tandems.

YMMV

I'm thinking about a tandem as a solution to the speed differential between my GF and I. It would be used for 50-100km day rides and touring. I would not plan on folding it frequently.


Sorry, this is the folding bike forum, not the folding girlfriend forum !!!

Sorry, this is the folding bike forum not the folding girlfriend forum !!!

:lol:

We have a tandem but not a BF. We ride it 3-4 times a year when we want to do a longer ride. My bride is a 7 mile girl on her own bike. With our tandem we can stretch that to 20+.

Definitely suggest test riding one for a few miles first to make sure it is what both of you want.

Aaron :)

I have a Bike Friday tandem, which I got at a great price. I've never taken it apart, so I can't address that. I ride it with my seven-year-old. I have found it to be perfect for that application, because the nested seatpost and stem make it easy for a 5'9" adult and a 3'11" child to ride together. When he's taller, I expect to go to a regular non-folding tandem frame, unless we skip directly to him having his own road frame. I like mine a lot, but if there's not a huge disparity in height between you and your GF and you don't plan to fold it often, I can't see why you'd prefer it over a regular tandem frame or an S&S coupled frame.

s.. the g/f may not be as happy riding as a stoker as the captain (unobstructed views, no sweaty body blocking the wind etc.).. captain gets the sweet ride being in the middle of the long wheelbase, stoker not so much.. .

This design solves the marital conflict issues. She sits comfortably in front with a nice view. Easy to have a conversation because our heads are pretty close together. Has her own derailleur so she can pedal at her own cadence. Rides hands free so she can sip wine and eat crackers and cheese. I'm in the back huffin' and puffin'. The little guy is just happy to be along for the ride. :)

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e157/sesamecrunch/tandem1-1.jpg

I like mine a lot, but if there's not a huge disparity in height between you and your GF and you don't plan to fold it often, I can't see why you'd prefer it over a regular tandem frame or an S&S coupled frame.

I'm looking at all my options. I'm considering the Bike Friday:

- I have enjoyed all my Bike Fridays so far
- cost is reasonable
- smaller wheels are stronger and I have 406 wheels/tires I can share between bikes
- hand made by people I know and like

My GF is 5'6" and I'm 5'11".

I have a Bike Friday tandem, which I got at a great price. I've never taken it apart, so I can't address that. I ride it with my seven-year-old. I have found it to be perfect for that application, because the nested seatpost and stem make it easy for a 5'9" adult and a 3'11" child to ride together.

Have you had any mechanical issues or reliability problems?

This design solves the marital conflict issues. She sits comfortably in front with a nice view. Easy to have a conversation because our heads are pretty close together. Has her own derailleur so she can pedal at her own cadence. Rides hands free so she can sip wine and eat crackers and cheese. I'm in the back huffin' and puffin'. The little guy is just happy to be along for the ride. :)

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e157/sesamecrunch/tandem1-1.jpg

I have seen a set up very similar to this in Paris, only they had a trailer with a little tiny baby in it. They were helping us find a way to our hotel. You should see them go through traffic on that thing! Fearless! I'm still kicking myself for not taking the picture. I love this bike, it's so cool.

Vik, if you want to ask about tandems in general, Machka just got into it quite recently. I'm sure she'll have some advice for you on a regular sized tandem. Just post in touring or general cycling forums.

vik,

If you want to compare a Bike Friday tandem to a full sized tandem, C0-Motion is just about 2 miles from Bike Friday in Eugene.

I have not considered one because wife has expressly said she does NOT want to see my butt 100% of the time. So, separate bikes work best for us. She is also able to deal with 20-40 mile rides on her own Friday.

Lou

Have you had any mechanical issues or reliability problems?None.

I have not considered one because wife has expressly said she does NOT want to see my butt 100% of the time.

I've been tandeming for 31 years and am an officer in our local tandem club.

I've noticed several posts about the poor stoker having nothing to see but the captain's backside. From outside tandems looking in, this would seem to be the case, but I don't know any tandemists who have found this to be a problem in the real world. In fact, just the opposite - the stokers' view is far superior to the captains'. Teams will share their experiences after the ride: the captains will talk of gravel patches and pot holes and the road stretched out in front of the bike, as single bike riders will. The stokers will talk of beautiful views and lovely sights off to the side of the bike that their captains and single bike riders never see.

I'm thinking about a tandem as a solution to the speed differential between my GF and I.

Have you considered a long bungie cord?

Our tandem is a regular non-folding one, but I know two couples that have the Bike Friday models (one Family Tandem and one Two'sDay). They use them regularly and I haven't heard of any issues.

I agree with tcs about the view for the stoker on a tandem. On a single bike we tend to almost always look straight ahead since that's necessary for safety. But the stoker on a tandem is free to look around at all the other sights.

Have you considered a long bungie cord?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3639/3497045290_9750384043_o.jpg

Not to pull a bike, but I do carry a bungee/webbing strap to tow my friend on his longboard.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3184/2507994855_0ba16d722d_o.jpg

My plan at the moment is to just ride my slowest heaviest bike with 2" expedition touring tires. If we go touring I'll just carry everything. That may be our ultimate solution. I'm not sold on a tandem yet, but I figure it's worth some investigation.

Vik, if you want to ask about tandems in general, Machka just got into it quite recently. I'm sure she'll have some advice for you on a regular sized tandem. Just post in touring or general cycling forums.

Thanks for the suggestion. I was aware of the fact she is getting into tandems with her hubby. I am a bit hesitant to draw too many parallels between our situations since my GF has very little in common with Machka im terms of her riding skills/experience.

My plan at the moment is to just ride my slowest heaviest bike with 2" expedition touring tires. If we go touring I'll just carry everything. That may be our ultimate solution. I'm not sold on a tandem yet, but I figure it's worth some investigation.

When my wife and I tour, I carry nearly everything in a 2-wheeled trailer, hoping it'd slow me down. It didn't work; the engine matters far more than the bike when it comes to speed. If you want to slow yourself down, 2" tires might help, but something like a Surly Pugsly with insanely wide tires might do the trick.

When my wife and I tour, I carry nearly everything in a 2-wheeled trailer, hoping it'd slow me down. It didn't work; the engine matters far more than the bike when it comes to speed. If you want to slow yourself down, 2" tires might help, but something like a Surly Pugsly with insanely wide tires might do the trick.

Even if the slowing down works we can't really bike tour if 100-120kms a day isn't feasible - nor can we ride with others. By slowing myself down to her speed we would resolve half the problem.

These guys offer a differential cadence drive train in a tandem bike,
but it would not probably be something that green gear won't offer or build, even as a custom upcharge.

http://www.davincitandems.com/

The Da Vinci on paper is a great idea and do work with the proper stoker. The flaw with them happens when you go into a fast corner and the stoker has his/her crank pointing down on the inside. I have seen bikes crash because of this. Roger

Yea there is no technical fixing for rider error. shifting your weight to the outside pedal and coasting thru a corner
is something to educate people on the benefits, .. of thinking ahead.
It's not good if the pedal hits the ground ahead of bottom dead center and lifts the rear wheel off the ground ..

Yea there is no technical fixing for rider error. shifting your weight to the outside pedal and coasting thru a corner

Why not just raise the rear bottom bracket by, I dunno, a foot? Since it's often the case that the smaller rider is in the back, this would just raise them up relative to the captain.

You would have terrible chain alignment and shifting hassles with a BB raised that much. Roger

You would have terrible chain alignment and shifting hassles with a BB raised that much. Roger
Not really. I raised the rear bottom bracket by at least a foot and a half when our daughter was my stoker at about 4 years of age.

Did you use a child crank kit? That doesn't affect chain line. Roger

Any other folding tandems recommended at all?

I know nothing.

Unlike other posters, have a BF tandem, works very well. Not expensive compared to others, and all advantages of being able to get into a small space like other BFs. Except its a bit more challenging to disassemble, but have only done that maybe 5 times. Setting the timing chain tension has been the annoying part, I don't have a good technique but possibly because my chain is at the limit of being too small.

I think the closer together tubes allow for more torque on longitudinal axis, which can take some getting use to. Dont have experience on other tandems, so dont know what to expect there. But anyone that can get use to the differences between a big bike and folding bike, it's analogous.

The bike is very comfortable, same effect vs. another 20" bike friday with long levers on seat with steel arms.

I think it's a perfect compromise ($$) for a tandem rider that's not willing to spend the big bucks for other big brands, with reliability and company behind it like BF. Add to that the need to get it into something small and you dont have another choice for price.

highly recommend front additional "drag" brake sturmey x-fd or x-fdd , to help on long descents in addition to rim brakes. You could even give your partner one of the brakes. Also cool for you because you can swap the wheels over to your other BFs.
---
Have to add with good schwalbe tire selections comfortability or differences between 26/700c wheels is minimal. We've ridden on cobbles without comfort issues, also have ridden with Stelvios though it's not advised and not necessary. Unfortunately for BF, I think this is the missing gem from their product line they dont market well enough outside.

Have you considered a long bungie cord?

This is actually not a bad idea , after you can see with a few 1000kms on the tandem together if the other person isn't up to "maximizing their cadence" or pedalling all the time, it wouldn't be so bad to match the speed. Would like to see a more developed idea behind this, but have pushed partner on another bike with arm on back for 10s of kms before when we've tried to beat the night into a headwind, so a bungy would be a lot better.

I have often thought about the bungie idea... not tried it though. I am a little worried about sudden situations, requiring quick unhooking of the bungie to prevent the rear rider from getting entangled in it.

Not to mention snapping the bungie and both riders getting whipped. :P

My wife and I have two tandems and five folders, but no folding tandems.

For tandems I have a KHS 26" wheel mountain-bike-ish tandem with 21 or 24 speeds, V-brakes, and a drum-style rear drag brake. I also have a BikeE recumbent tandem with 20" wheels, V-Brakes, and a rear disk drag brake.

We used to ride alot, but my wife doesn't like the small-to-non-existent shoulders on the roads here, and the hills don't help and either.

I have ridden a couple of different Bike Friday tandems and thought they rode OK.

I used to work as a bike mechanic and sold some tandems back in the day... both Gitane and Follis tandems made in France back in the early 1980s.

The key to tandem riding is the right dynamic between the captain and the stoker. I have lots of bicycle experience, my wife had none. When we started dating back around 1997, I thought a tandem would allow us to ride together despite the fact that I rode much more than my wife. For us it worked great! We always have difficulty keeping together on our folders... never had that problem with the tandem!

We used to live near the edge of the civilized world and loved to ride from our house out to the boonies on the tandem. She doesn't like the Bike-E because the frame flexes when you go fast, and on a tandem, it is not hard to go fast. On the KHS/Nashbar we can comfortably ride at speeds in excess of 30 mph and she was never worried when I tried to get up to 40 or 50 mph on big downhills. Never did break 55mph, but it wasn't for a lack of trying.:D

With the BikeE, she gets nervous at about 20 or 25 mph because the frame flexes some. Nowhere near the frame flex of the 1980's tandem, so it doesn't worry me too much, but you really don't want your bike scaring your partner.:eek:

That said, I would suggest you try some tandem rides, maybe see if you can go to a nearby tandem rally. We went to the NW Tandem rally in Corvallis, Oregon back around 1998 and had a great time. Tandems aren't for all couples, but for us it worked great. Whoever is the captain needs to be both a good, confident rider, and a good communicator. You need to remember to tell your stoker what you are about to do.

"We're coming up to a stop sign. I'm going to downshift. You keep your feet in the pedals, I'll put my feet down..."

Starts and stops are the hardest part of tandeming. Lots of weight with a big bike and two people.

Some sort of rear drag brake is essential. We almost blew the tires off our rims on a long decent on a dirt fire road near Sonoma. The rims were so hot when I stopped the bike half way down the descent that I could not touch them for more than a second. The next week I bought the drum-brake rear wheel...

Strong wheels are a good thing. Fat tires are pretty nice too. Remember, two people plus bike weight means that about twice a much of the tire will be touching the road compared with a single bike. For that reason I tend to run higher tire pressures on my tandems. If you run 50 psi in your tires and weigh 200 pounds (in my dreams), make the simple assumption (which is wrong) that weigh is distributed 50/50 percent front and rear, then you have about 4 square inches of tire contacting the road, 2 square inches on each tire. Add a second rider, and a heavier bike, maybe 350 to 400 pounds total. At 50 psi that means 7 to 8 square inches of tire now touches the road, and the forces on your spokes and rims are about double as well. Higher tire pressures mean a more reasonable tire contact patch size.

I like 36 hole rims for tandems and have a 40-hole rear tandem wheel in case we ever get the chance to do one of my fantasy rides - a ride around Mt. Shasta in Northern California, most of which is dirt roads. I have 32 or 36 hole rims on my BikeE.

You and your partner should try and contact a local tandem club and try one out. We borrowed a Santana tandem for a short 30-mile ride before buying ours. My wife would not have been able to do that test ride by herself, but we had a great time and bought our bike shortly after while we were still just dating. Here's a pix shot earlier on the day I proposed to her...
177458

Go for it! Tandems can be lots of fun and Bike Friday makes good ones...

"I have often thought about the bungie idea.."

Young children and their mother can rely on apron strings!

Any other folding tandems recommended at all?

Of course, the Bike Friday tandem doesn't fold. It comes apart and can be packed down for travel.

If it must be a folding tandem, IIRC Montague and Worksman used to make them, and Bernds (http://www.bernds.de/folding-tandem-ls.html) and Koga (http://www.koga.com/twintraveller/us/) still do.

For take-apart travel tandems, CoMotion and Santana (and others) make standard tandems with S&S couplers in the frame. These bikes can be broken down and packed for travel

Thanks for all the replies. I'm going to see if there is a local tandem club we can check out or if any of the LBS stock tandems so we can at least pedal one a bit. There are a lot of factors to consider.

I've had a BF Twosday tandem for about 4 years that I ride with my now 11 year old son. The bike both folds and comes apart. The fold is helpful when you want to shrink the bike size (like to put it in the car trunk) without dissembling and having to take longer to put back together.

17 years ago my wife and I took a 6 day bike trip through rolling hills in Amish country in Pennsylvania. On that trip I carried all our gear myself, but keeping together was still stressful, with me wanting to ride at my pace and then waiting, and her anxious about how many hills I'd take before stopping again.

When I got the BF tandem, I anticipated I might ride with my wife as well, but she's never been on it, and doesn't ride much any more at all.

17 years ago my wife and I took a 6 day bike trip through rolling hills in Amish country in Pennsylvania. On that trip I carried all our gear myself, but keeping together was still stressful, with me wanting to ride at my pace and then waiting, and her anxious about how many hills I'd take before stopping again.:eek:

On our tours I always ride at her pace. The only exception might be if there is a really steep hill and I can't slow down enough, then I usually wait at the top, and snap a piccie of her as she approaches.

:eek:

On our tours I always ride at her pace.

I could do this except that:

- it would suck for me....making me less interested in touring
- unless you can cover a decent distance each day [say ~100kms] a lot of tours are not practical

For example I rode to work with her today since I had an appointment in that area. I let her lead the whole way and it was okay, but I was going so slow I had to fight my natural instincts to speed up at every turn. 20 - 30mins like that are okay...even a whole day occasionally, but not 5 days+.

I'm with Vik on this one...if I had to go at my wife's pace, I would go nuts, and I simply wouldn't be able to tour with my 11 year old son if he and I weren't on the same bike. Part of the fun of touring is all the stuff you get to see - if you go half as fast, you go half as far, and see half as much.

"...without dissembling and having to take longer to put back together..." - of course it's "disassembling", and I'll add that my Twosday has a front, captain-controlled drum brake and rear, stoker-controlled rear brake, giving both riders some piece of mind on the downhills.

My wife and I got a tandem, a used Burley Duet in decent, if not exceptional shape. Probably from the mid to late 80s or so--3x6, suntour components, 27"'wheels. Real star is a Phil Wood rear hub, yum.

We got it because it fell in our lap when someone I'd had bike dealings with died in the middle of negotiations for the bike. Bought it off his widow; didn't haggle. I'd been interested because of the sheer freakbike factor, but my wife admitted that she hoped it would work the way OP is hoping. And it does--keeps us together, keeps her from thinking she's slowing me down.

There's times when I'm definitely putting more into the cranks, and I feel it, but it is also great training for solo riding. We love it. Val's definitely not sold on a Viewpoint, but has been after me to find a mtn tandem for her to captain.

We both went in with an open mind, knowing it might not work out, but it is a of of fun, for sure. Had heard of them referred to as divorcycles, also that riding tandem can magnify positives and negatives in a relationship. Not sure I buy that last part, but we do tandem well together.

A bike rental place might have a cruiser style tandem. Not the best choice to get a sense of extended tandem riding, but can be a hoot--we rented one down in Sanibel FL and had a blast.

Been thinking of a BF tandem at some point in the future as well, so this thread's been helpful.

20"-wheeled tandems from the Airnimal people. Saw 2 in a LBS here in Brussels. Look nice, haven't ridden.

http://www.circecycles.com/Frontpage/Home.php

@Vik : did you get to sample the BF tandem ?

I have often thought about the bungie idea... not tried it though. I am a little worried about sudden situations, requiring quick unhooking of the bungie to prevent the rear rider from getting entangled in it.


Very late response - but there are some other sports where similar need for quick release of "pulled-body" must happen. Kayaking often uses a tow line that you carabine to the trailing boat when rescuing it, or also to a paddle. Of course when it takes longer to get out of harms way, the "body-puller" needs to disengage. Problem with the "tow-rope" solution for an ad-hoc tandem pair is what happens with the rope for the second person! Maybe reversing the towing person is better as pulling a slack rope is less dangerous than pushing it. Or a recoiling rope/shock-corded rope that the 2nd (albeit more blind as following) person releases.

Any more thoughts on this idea Jur?

@Vik : did you get to sample the BF tandem ?

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5259/5496546245_d981d95907_b.jpg

Yes! Thanks to everyone for their feedback...:thumb:

I had been thinking about swapping one of my two Tikits for a smaller size that she could ride, but our speed differential would remain. So then I thought I might as well drop one Tikit from the fleet and add a tandem.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5056/5497138500_def3569f17_b.jpg

I stopped by Bike Friday on my way home from Baja this year and they had my lovely tandem ready for me (http://community.bikefriday.com/tandemxl)...:love:

I posted about our first ride in the tandem section here. (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/715178-First-Tandem-Ride...)

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5135/5497137742_2f9f9a0e21_b.jpg

So far things are going really well. The bike is much stiffer than I expected in terms of stability with two of us on it, but between the Greenspeed Scorchers and the multi-tube frame only the largest bumps need to be called out.

My GF loves riding it and we can keep up my normal pace on the flats no problem. The smaller climbs in town have been easy. I won't take her on any uber steep climbs for a while so she can get used to the beast first.

We even have a 100K populaire planned this summer with my rando club. Prior to the tandem that would not have been possible.

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5011/5470718131_8f63f01c10_b.jpg

I must admit even though I am a BF fan I had some doubts about a BF tandem simply because of the extra weight of two people and the fact there were so many tubes to join securely. I may be a fan of the Tikit and NWT, but I am not foolish enough to assume that two great products means every single bike made by BF will rock my world.

OTOH they have never steered me wrong in the past and casual day rides/tours are the missions my GF & I will undertake so a Bike Friday tandem seemed like a logical choice. I looked around at my other tandem options and realized that BF deserved my loyalty given how their other bikes performed for me.

Nevertheless that first ride I was nervous that I wouldn't like it or that my GF wasn't going to like being a stoker...:twitchy:

We had planned to take the tandem to a large empty parking lot to work on our skills, but we decided at the last minute to just go for it. You can read my verbose account at the link above, but long story short we went from zero tandem experience to mixing it up for a few hours in downtown/city traffic the same day. I'll take some credit as riding cargo bikes seems to be a good thing for developing tandem captain skills, but I have to also give credit to Bike Friday for making a tandem that is so easy to ride...:)

I haven't got a handle on the tandem's performance yet, but in the city we are going at similar speeds to what I would do alone, but with slower accelerations. I would guess running errands we'll be at about 80% overall speed compared to me riding my single alone, but compared to my GF on her single we'll be at 130%! Which is great...:thumb:

The big question is how we'll do on steep sustained climbs, but at this point the fact we are even riding far enough out of the city to get to them in our area is already amazing. The tandem allows us to tackle rides together that just wouldn't be possible on single bikes due to my GF's slower speed.

Anyways it's still early in the game so I'll hold off on saying too much more until we've had a chance to do more tandem rides together. Again thanks to everyone who took the time to reply to my original question...:thumb:

Yes! Thanks to everyone for their feedback...:thumb:


Excellent, great fotos. I still think, especially for those questioning getting into tandems, this is the perfect bike, as the price is quite competitive with other big name tandems out there + the advantages of actually being able to transport this (many full size tandems are not practical to move by car).

See that you got the setup with the proper timing chain to the left tandem style - they also have a less expensive that uses the inner chain ring of a three ring cluster for the rear as the timing chain, of course that limits gearing.

Am curious about your thoughts on the torsional flex - if you get the opportunity to compare on a full size tandem sometime to see that. But it's mostly a moot point, like you said after a couple hours your bodies learn to anticipate any other differences and account for this well. Climbing out of seat on these, especially at different mixed cadences, also seems like it might be different than a full bike experience.

Excellent, great fotos. I still think, especially for those questioning getting into tandems, this is the perfect bike, as the price is quite competitive with other big name tandems out there + the advantages of actually being able to transport this (many full size tandems are not practical to move by car).

Yes. That was my thinking as well. No matter what happened we'd have a packable travel bike we could take with us.



See that you got the setup with the proper timing chain to the left tandem style - they also have a less expensive that uses the inner chain ring of a three ring cluster for the rear as the timing chain, of course that limits gearing.

I normally deal with Walter or Jordan at BF and I've learned that they know their stuff so I explain what I am after to them and then trust them to make the right choices for me. In this case that was specing the more expensive timing chain setup. They've never steered me wrong.


Am curious about your thoughts on the torsional flex - if you get the opportunity to compare on a full size tandem sometime to see that. But it's mostly a moot point, like you said after a couple hours your bodies learn to anticipate any other differences and account for this well. Climbing out of seat on these, especially at different mixed cadences, also seems like it might be different than a full bike experience.

I have no experience with any other tandems so I can only speak about this BF. I was really surprised how little flex I felt while riding. I anticipated a significant amount because of the packable frame. We haven't tried climbing out of the saddle as I've read that's a bad idea until your experiences with your tandem and last thing I want to do is dump my GF on the ground and make her less stoked to ride. To be clear I'm not saying the frame doesn't flex because I'm sure it must be, but you don't feel that negatively at the bars when controlling the bike.

The Traveller XL is supposed to be BF's most stiff tandem which is why I selected it.

I sent back the sizing stem/steerer for our Bike Friday Tandem Traveller XL so we could get the final part made for us. I had an out of town 2 week project which was the ideal time to send it away. The part is on it's way back from Bike Friday HQ and my GF has been asking when I'll be putting it on the bike so we can ride next...that's a good sign...:D:thumb::love: