Google sponsored links
My girlfriend and I borrowed a TrekT2000 last month and had an absolute blast. We are both strong, experienced cyclists, but neither of us had ever been on a tandem before and we know next to nothing about them. We did a couple of hilly centuries, got good at climbing out of the saddle, and now realize we absolutely need a tandem of our own.
The Trek was certainly a lot of fun, but I have had people tell me that "aggressive" riders like us would be happier with the geometery of a Co-Motion. The difference in price, however, is significant and we are not exactly rolling in dough. While the Trek can be had for less than 3,000, the best price I've seen on a decent Co-Motion is about a thousand dollars more and there doesn't seem to be much difference in weight.
I am also interested in brakes. I did NOT like the stock brakes on the T2000 which seemed both weak and grabby when descending at speed.
Any suggestions/advice on bike choices and/or brake upgrades?
This is an archived thread, you can find the full version of this thread, with images, links and more content
here.
Ready to buy? Check out these two online bike stores:
-
http://www.nashbar.com (you can find the latest bike nashbar coupons in
this thread)
-
http://www.performancebike.com (you can find the latest performance bike coupons in
this thread)
Cya on the forums,
- The BikeForums Team
-
http://www.bikeforums.net
Braking on a tandem is not the same as on a single! More weight/mass to decelerate and brakes are not necessarily better than on some singles. Some tandem teams utilize a 3rd brake for hairy/scary descents. V-brakes and some discs work well on tandems. Utilize your front brake more (no, you'll not do an 'endo' as on a single)!
You can get a Co-Mo in the same price range as the Trek2000 (Co-Mo prices start about where top end of Trek leaves off). Other excellent options include: Burley Rivazza and Paso Doble, C'dale road, KHS Milano, Santana Arriva . . . all in the same $$$ area.
A used top-o-the-line tandem is a good choice also.
Be sure to test ride before you decide to buy! They all will feel different and have certain idiocyncrasies that you may or may not like.
Price and weight are not the only issues: fit and handling are paramount.
Hope this helps!
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy & Kay/Zona tandem
If you are looking for livelier steering a fork upgrade will be much less than $1000. Before I did that I would get a short ride on a Co-Motion and see if more trail was to my liking. Hop on over to tandem@hobbes and look at the recent carbon fork posts.
It seems to me that you are not the first person to complain about the brakes on the Trek. I can't remember what solutions were tried, but a few searches here should turn up something. From your description, it sounds like a pad change should help.
I will be out at the FWBA long ride tomorrow on my tandem.
Thanks for the suggestions. We'll do as much test riding as we can (although we have to go pretty far to find stores with tandems).
I know braking is different on a tandem, but I don't think it should be weak and grabby. Does anyone have any opinions on the relative merits of various types of brakes?
Thanks again for the info ....
What kinds of brakes are you accustomed to now? What kinds of brakes were on the trek? We demo'd a cannondale with disc brakes & hated them. Mostly I think because they weren't adjusted properly, but I don't miss not having them on the bike we bought.
I haven't ridden any tandem other than the Trek, with its stock center pull brakes, so I'm not really accustomed to any particular tandem brakes (I have Record brakes on my single bike - but I certainly don't expect a tandem to brake like a single). I'm mainly interested in hearing any opinions on what types of brakes give the best performance on a tandem - especially from people who ride in hilly/mountainous terrain.
I was impressed with the lack of heat build-up on the Bontrager rims. After a lot of hard breaking down a technical descent I expected them to be hot enough to melt the tires, but they were nowhere near that bad. I guess all that metal makes a pretty good heat sink. I wouldn't go to disk brakes due to heat problems, in other words, but I would consider them if people think they offer smoother braking. Even taking the tandem's extra weight into consideration, I thought the stock brakes on the Trek required way too much force (even after I put on new pads and carefully adjusted them) and, worse, they did not brake smoothly, but tended to grab and jerk under hard braking at speed (making a noise that my stoker/girlfriend did not find reassuring).
Have you been to the "brake upgrade question" thread yet? There is a way to get more leverage with cantilevers and reduce the force required at the lever.
Weak brakes might be unsafe. I would certainly want to believe whatever system I was using had reserve capacity above what I was using.
While I have toured in Colorado on a single, I have only ridden a tandem in North Texas, and there are none of the long, steep, twisty, slow descents that are a maximal test of most road vehicle's braking systems (test to brake fade), anywhere near here. On my various tandems, I only have double-pivot sidepulls or cantilevers. I have used v-brake / direct-pull brakes on a single mountain bike.
I like the double-pivot sidepulls a lot. Lots of modulation and power. The cantilevers are good enough. I have an intense dislike of v-brakes for no good reason. The troubles are that the pull cable enters from the side, and therefore has to make a 90-degree curve (with some of them only) to enter the brake, and I could see the cable housing bumping the stoker's leg with every pedal stroke on some Santanas. Also they are not ideally suited for use with STI levers, and may require some kind of cable travel multiplier, etc.
On the other hand, if you must have giant tires (700 X 32 or larger) or fenders (you live in WHAT rain forest? Ha! We are still in drought down here in Texas. Doesn't rain much....) you will find that this is hard to do with sidepulls. There's just not enough room under the brake arches. I have heard rumors in the last year that there is now a long-reach Ultegra caliper, but I have heard practically nothing about it. Anyway, before you could consider using big tires / fenders with sidepulls, you would have to find a production tandem built with long-reach calipers, given that you are not yet considering a custom tandem.
I don't know that there are too many stokers who look at the weather forecast and say "Oh, look, there are going to be thunderstorms with straight-line winds this afternoon. Quick! Get the tandem out!", so given that we are not going to set out to ride the tandem when it is wet, we could perhaps do without the fenders and the monster tires, and then the double-pivot sidepulls would be my choice, though in desperately steep terrain where rim heating would have to be considered, if I were building a custom, I might very well consider three disks, two on the front and one on the back, which would then require a custom fork, etc.
If I were shopping for a production tandem, I might look for sidepulls, or make sure the frame would accept them.
I expect to be out on my tandem this Saturday at the FWBA Stan Ford Venus ride.
Yeah, I've read through the past threads on brakes and the most interesting thing I found was a guy who upgraded a Trek T2000 by installing Motolite V brakes with travel agents and compressionless cable housing. He says that was a major improvement. If I get the Trek I guess I'll probably try something like that before spending a pile on disk brakes (which seem to have their own set of issues). How do you think sidepulls would compare to a set up like that?
How do you think sidepulls would compare to a set up like that?
Brake performance on tandems is VERY subjective and skewed by a lot of things, not the least of which are:
1. Your total team weight
2. The terrain where you'll do the majority of your riding
3. Your bike handling skills
4. You and your stoker's like or dislike of fast descents
As you have probably discovered in your read of the archives, we are a lightweight team (275lbs) that ride in moderately rolling to hilly terrain who like fast descents. Our road tandems are fitted with Campy Chorus calipers: one has dual-pivots front & rear and the other has dual pivot in the front & single pivot in the rear. While I'm sure I could improve upon their performance, I really haven't found a need as they have proven to be "good enough" for our use. Our use has included some very steep descents in California, North Carolina, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and here in our home state of Georgia. Moreover, the calipers are free of the various ailments that seem to plague many of the other rim brakes used on tandems, i.e., noise, performance, or adapter issues. Bear in mind, I don't expect a lot from the rear brake on our tandem aside from sharing the duties associated with modulating speed on long descents as a hedge against overheating the front pads and rim and all those other times and places where it's ability to help slow (but certainly not stop) the tandem are useful.
However, unless you have a fork and/or rear brake bridge that will accommodate a caliper brake, you will need to optimize with cantilever brakes. Again, most of the practical suggestions for your Trek can be found by searching the "Tandem Cycling" archives using key words: Kool Stop Trek Brakes. You can omit Trek and you'll find a few additional entries, but the lion's share of recommendations are embedded in the threads that have involved questions regarding the Avid Shorty brakes on Trek's T1000 or T2000 tandems.
Yeah, I've read through the past threads on brakes and the most interesting thing I found was a guy who upgraded a Trek T2000 by installing Motolite V brakes with travel agents and compressionless cable housing. He says that was a major improvement. If I get the Trek I guess I'll probably try something like that before spending a pile on disk brakes (which seem to have their own set of issues). How do you think sidepulls would compare to a set up like that?
Go for the Trek!
Upgrade to the Paul's Components Motolite V brakes with Travel Agents, compression-less housing, and use the Koolstop salmon colored pads. IMHO other than going to a front disc setup, here is no better braking setup, no matter what brand bike you ride! I upgraded to a carbon fork and disc brake, but I still use the compression-less housing, it gives me a better feel for the brake's modulation. I still use the Motolite V brake in the rear.
IMHO the only issue with disc brakes is the cost of having to retro-fit. I went with a high dollar carbon fork but there are steel forks from Burley and Kona with disc mounts which will work just fine.
Thanks everyone! This information is really helpful.
I am getting the idea that achieving good brake performance may not be as difficult and expensive as I had feared.
I guess at 285 or so pounds we qualify as a light team, but we are not easy on equipment (maybe this will change as we get better at riding a tandem). During the three weeks we had the T2000 we managed to break both chains (timing chain because it was too loose and all our energetic jumping in and out of the saddle finally snapped it -- rear chain because we pretzeled a link shifting under power while standing and climbing). Our last ride on our borrowed twicer was the Grizzly Century near Yosemite where the final twisting but fast 13 mile descent left both of us with no doubt about the inadequacy of the brakes.
We are definitely looking forward to getting a tandem of our own and to seeing all of you out there on the road!
""I went with a high dollar carbon fork but there are steel forks from Burley and Kona with disc mounts which will work just fine.""
Got a link?
OK I can do a Google search for you, but only because I made the mistake of saying the fork was a Burley when I ment Surly ;-)
Surly Link (http://www.surlybikes.com/forks.html)
The Kona site doesn't have the fork shown seperately but the catalog at your local Kona dealer does. It's the fork they use on the Dew Deluxe and the Dr. Dew.
Kona link (http://www.konaworld.com/kw_index.cfm)
Shifting while both standing and climbing is not really a good thing to try on any tandem!
When shifting rear der. always notify stoker you are 'shifting' so she can momentarily let up a bit on pedal pressure to facilitate the shift . . .and don't do that while standing/climbing!
Have broken several drive and crossover chains in our decades of tandeming and 'popped' only one rear spoke while climbing, years ago.
Twice the power means twice the stress/torque on components.
OK I can do a Google search for you, but only because I made the mistake of saying the fork was a Burley when I ment Surly ;-)
Surly Link (http://www.surlybikes.com/forks.html)
The Kona site doesn't have the fork shown seperately but the catalog at your local Kona dealer does. It's the fork they use on the Dew Deluxe and the Dr. Dew.
Kona link (http://www.konaworld.com/kw_index.cfm)
Going back a few years, before suspension on Mountain bikes became the norm, if you were in the know and wanted the best figid fork available, then it had to be the Kona Project ll . They still make the original double butted form of the fork, and I have even seen Triple butted mentioned. They now make a stronger version of the fork for the Freeride group, but The double butted version is still readily available from any Kona dealer. Thanks to no development within the rigid fork department, this will probably still be the best possible rigid fork available. Besides being on the Dew bikes, it is also fitted to the jake range which is the cyclocross bike that takes 27"? wheels.
"Shifting while both standing and climbing is not really a good thing to try on any tandem!
When shifting rear der. always notify stoker you are 'shifting' so she can momentarily let up a bit on pedal pressure to facilitate the shift . . .and don't do that while standing/climbing!
Have broken several drive and crossover chains in our decades of tandeming and 'popped' only one rear spoke while climbing, years ago.
Twice the power means twice the stress/torque on components."
Now that's strange, I shift while both standing and climbing and I have never broken a chain. I shift to keep the gear right for the grade and the speed, and downshift as we sit to get the gear right for sitting pedaling. On the other hand the narrow cassettes we use (11-21 and 11-23) might not present favorable conditions for causing chain failure.
Seems like those statements would not be true most of the time.
Just as on a single (which is what we are used to) we tried to ease off the power a bit when shifting (whether standing or seated). Not having found this forum or knowing anything about tandems we pretty much tried to ride the tandem as we would a single bike. That worked fine except for that one shift (to a harder gear) that bent a link. Actually, it put nearly a 180 degree twist into it! I just figured we hadn't eased off as well as we should have. I'd hate to have to sit down every time I wanted to shift, so I'm glad to hear there's someone out there who manages to do it without trouble. I think we'll keep practicing (and carrying a chain tool).
Another thing that surprised me when I started reading the tandem threads here was all the advice against rocking the bike when standing and climbing, as the climbing style we developed involved a fair amount of rocking. Is there some reason not to rock other than to avoid disturbing the stoker? My stoker didn't seem bothered by it and we both rock our bikes when climbing on our singles.
Actually, I got used to pulling with such force on the bars while climbing that when I got back on my single the first time I stood to climb I just about laid the bike flat on the pavement and almost lost control! Riding the tandem for a few weeks made my single feel like a toy. Almost too light and jittery to be safe.
Well, you know what I think because you read that other thread.
You both seem to be awfully good cyclists and I would think the normal advice would not apply well to you. Climbing around Yosemite will probably sort out cyclists by ability very well.
My advice would be to rock the bike the most efficient amount for you as long as the bike goes straight.
The best stoker is the one who disappears on the back of the bike, and that applies to standing climbing too. You shouldn't be pulling more than you do on your single, and if you do, you are doing some of the work of your stoker. She is not pulling enough.
However, if there is not enough space on the back of the tandem, it won't be possible for the stoker to move forward when standing, and then it will be hard to pull up. I think it has to do with putting the bend in the arm so the bicep can work, but for me it is an observed phenomena from the captain's position: MUCH less bicep work with enough room in back.
I have tried to avoid mentioning the word cu$tom so far, particularly given that you didn't want to pay more than for a production tandem, but you have unerringly found the major difference between properly designed customs and production tandems--the extra space in the back. It is not only necessary to set the single bike fit on the front and the back, but also to allow sufficient space between the riders, which, among other things, will allow the stoker to naturally move forward when standing.
Keep in mind, the vast proportion of tandem owners get by with production tandems, many of which seem woefully cramped to me. Take a look at the link to that Seven tandem near the bottom of the "Climbing on Tandems" thread. Wouldn't hurt to compare it with Moby too. The custom dimension upgrade for Santana and Co-Motion is around $600. For what you get, I think that is money VERY well spent. When I was shopping I was looking at Bushnell too, and my recollection was that his pricing was very favorable, and that he was open to unusual requests.
My custom has been a huge success. It is a wonderful privilege to give stokers the room they need to work, and then I am on a billboard for tandem design revolution. It's great to get out on a pay ride and tear around (we are only about midpack fast--not racer types. you can draw your own conclusions about idiots who do the Mount Evans race) and imagine that many tandem owners and potential owners are thinking about the changes they would make with their next bike. Some of them drop by and ask questions.
Another thing that surprised me when I started reading the tandem threads here was all the advice against rocking the bike when standing and climbing, as the climbing style we developed involved a fair amount of rocking. Is there some reason not to rock other than to avoid disturbing the stoker? My stoker didn't seem bothered by it and we both rock our bikes when climbing on our singles.
So long as you both stand and rock together, it's no big deal. Some teams can do it, others can't. FWIW: I'm a big-time bike thrower and Debbie just goes with the flow on the tandm; no worries. But, then again, when I stand she stands.
Actually, I got used to pulling with such force on the bars while climbing that when I got back on my single the first time I stood to climb I just about laid the bike flat on the pavement and almost lost control! Riding the tandem for a few weeks made my single feel like a toy. Almost too light and jittery to be safe.
Quite normal. I often time find myself jerking the front wheel of my personal bike off the ground after long stints of tandem-only riding as well as locking up the rear wheel when coming to a hard stop.
Thanks, SDS, for some very interesting info. You're either psychic or know one heck of a lot about tandems (or both), because the fact is that my stoker DID complain that she was too cramped. I have to admit that I pretty much blew it off, figuring that on a tandem that's just the way it goes.
In spite of the cramped quarters, she still did an incredible job of "disappearing" and of staying in synch with me both climbing and descending. She thought the ballroom dancing classes we took earlier in the year probably came in handy as she had previous experience following my lead and staying in balance with me. Whatever it was .... we totally loved riding the bike. The cramped quarters clearly didn't stop her from having fun. If I'd realized her lack of space was potentially robbing us of climbing power, on the other hand, I'd probably have taken her complaints a lot more seriously :)
While I doubt we'll come up with the cash for a custom tandem, you have made me curious about lengthened stoker compartments. How much does it lengthen the wheelbase, how much weight does it add, and what effect does it have on performance (cornering, stiffness, etc.).
And, livngood, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has trouble controling a single after extended tandem riding. Actually, I figured out after a while that pulling too hard on the bars was only part of the problem. The bigger problem was that I'd gotten used to standing with my weight too far back. Like you, I was just about lifting the front wheel off the pavement. Once I realized this and started remembering to lean forward, my bike started handling properly again.
So long as you both stand and rock together, it's no big deal. Some teams can do it, others can't. FWIW: I'm a big-time bike thrower and Debbie just goes with the flow on the tandm; no worries. But, then again, when I stand she stands.
A light team or a light/short stoker make wagging the tandem easier. I have ridden with 3 stokers. The shortest one (5'3" - very good rider) is the easiest to stand with, in fact she stands by herself sometimes while I stay seated. The tallest one (5'9"- also a very good rider) I could feel a little more standing and wagging the bike. The middle one (5'6" tall, least experienced and heaviest) is getting much better, but every once in a while gets 'off beat' causing some wondering off line.
While I doubt we'll come up with the cash for a custom tandem, you have made me curious about lengthened stoker compartments. How much does it lengthen the wheelbase, how much weight does it add, and what effect does it have on performance (cornering, stiffness, etc.).
FWIW: Custom doesn't necessarily mean $$$$. Dennis Bushnell's customs (as well as a few other builders) do not cost much more than most production model tandems. Co-Motion charges a $300 - $400 premium for custom sizing which, on a $3k - $4k tandem is money well-spent. Unfortunately, what often times masks the more reasonable price of a simple custom-sized frame are the other upgrades and extras that folks who opt for a custom-sized tandem add when they are buying what is perhaps their 2nd or 3rd tandem. In the many cases, the custom tandem buyers have decided to create that "ultimate" tandem given their immersion in the sport, repleate with all the chi-chi parts and custom paint options and those really drive up the cost of the bike. So, while it's possible to get a custom-sized tandem for say $3,600, it's often times hard to pass on going hog wild with all the upgrades that result in a $5,500+ "personal statement": been there done that.
Regardless, like a good pair of walking, hiking or running shoes, fit is more important than fashion. Thus, when you consider that proper sizing can vastly improve your and your stoker's comfort on the bike and perhaps even lead to more time ON the bike, custom sizing can almost always be justified beyond any other option or upgrade.
As to the other questions regarding the geometry and handling implications, so long as the builder knows what they are doing, an extra-long stoker compartment will not adversely effect the performance or handling of a tandem. As you would expect, every extra inch of stoker top-tube length "should" translate into an extra inch of boom-tube and wheelbase length. All things being equal, the added frame material will add a few ounces to a frame (tubing is not all that heavy) but, again, it's not necessarily something that will adversely effect the tandem's performance IF the builder knows what they are doing; experience counts here.
The ultimate answer comes down to talking with folks who own long wheelbase tandems, the builders, and if possible taking a test ride. For reference purposes, while Debbie is only 5'2", all three of our tandems (two Erickson road tandems & a Ventana off-road tandem) sport rear top-tubes that are 31" long vs. the standard 27.5" - 28.5" found on most tandems. There is no going back to short for Debbie. Even if you don't "need" all that length to stretch out, you get the benefit of some breathing room behind the captain.
"While I doubt we'll come up with the cash for a custom tandem, you have made me curious about lengthened stoker compartments. How much does it lengthen the wheelbase, how much weight does it add, and what effect does it have on performance (cornering, stiffness, etc.)."
First, an inch of stoker compartment is an inch of tandem. Given that the chainstays and captain fit and fork dimensions are fixed, an additional inch of stoker compartment is just that. In rough numbers, though, we are perhaps talking about increasing the length of the tandem 10% or so, with the wheelbase lengthening 12-13%.
As to how much increasing the length of a stoker compartment increases the wheelbase, that depends on the goal you are trying to achieve with a longer stoker compartment. My goal was to make room for me to stoke with normal single bike fit and 8" of stoker stem. This made just enough room for small single bike fit for a 5'11" stoker and Profile Airstryke aerobars pulled all the way out.
Now I argue for setting stoker compartment dimension to allow room for stoker single bike fit, and Airstrykes set to fit that stoker, with the end of the Airstrykes just behind the end of the captain saddle rails. This has at least five definite advantages over production tandem fit:
1) The stoker can adopt any single bike position, including going head-down flat, without having any chance of coming in contact with the captain. This is far better for the stoker's comfort and safety than production tandems. On a production tandem there has to be constant care by the partners to make sure the captain never moves up or back and injures the stoker while doing that. The face and particularly the jaw are quite exposed, and being relieved of that concern allows greater enjoyment of the experience.
2) The stoker can stand up and move forward naturally, which improves balance and efficiency.
3) Given that the adjustment range of the common tandem shock-absorbing seatpost is about 8" and that tandems have short stoker seat tubes relative to the fit of the general population because they are intended primarily to fit women who are shorter than the average height for the population as a whole, the limiting factor of tandem fit is usually length, not height. Providing the length means that you can pull out the seatpost and put men on the back as well as most women, and that opens up a greater number of stokers to you.
4) The additional space allows the stoker to look around more, rather than concentrating on the fine detail of the center of the captain's jersey.
5) Aerobars on the back actually make the tandem faster. You can tell the difference when the stoker drops down onto the aerobars. The drag drops and the speed goes up, and downhill the tandem actually accelerates faster.
I have no clear idea how much weight a longer stoker compartment adds. We are talking about less than 3 more feet of thinwall tubing, less than a foot each in the lengthwise tubes. However, because the longer tubes will in many cases exceed the maximum length of the tubeset (tubesets for making tandems come already butted and cut to maximum length from tubing manufacturers, and then the maker cuts the ends off as appropriate, straight-gauge unbutted tubing would have to be substituted, and that would weigh more. In the case of Moby, an additional stoker stem seatpost seat tube, tube, was added. And another seatpost, to the top of which the stoker stem clamp was welded. I asked for this to keep the 14" (virtual) stoker stem from twisting the captain seatpost with hard pulling by the stoker on the long lever. It's all worth it to me. As far as I am concerned, production tandems achieve their low weight by shortening the stoker compartment compared to what it would normally be, clearly an unethical strategy. Perhaps you end up with another 4' of tubing, and an additional seatpost, less about half the weight of a normal stoker stem, in addition to the normal weight of a production tandem.
Production tandems, by the way, have stoker compartment lengths in the neighborhood of 28". The question is, WHO does this properly fit? The answer seems to be that women of 5'2" are poorly fit, and everybody taller gets bad fit. A woman of 5'2" has a horizontal-seatpost-to-handlebar-center-to-center fit dimension of 22" or so, leaving 6" of horizontal stoker stem dimension, the bare, bare, minimum, and 8" is a whole lot better. Given that the average adult woman height in the United States is 5'4", less than half the women are even poorly fit on the back of a production tandem. Everybody taller gets bad fit.
The ideal tandem is vertically compliant (up to a limit) and laterally stiff. Someday perhaps we will have tandems with small suspended wheels, but today the only place suspension on road tandems intended for spirited riding has proven to be practical is in the seatpost. If we make the tandem longer and change nothing else, it would be no surprise to find that over the entire length, it becomes more flexible in both planes. Torsional stiffness while initiating turns also matters, though this can be addressed in part by the stoker (not sure how this works!).
We believe that the vertical compliance is just right for the moderately aggressive level at which we use it. From time to time this includes laying over into a turn with racers up to Category 2. We also lead out sprints up to 37 mph on level ground (sorry, that's all there is....), and occasionally try to win (no).
The bottom tube is about a third longer than normal, and it's lateral stiffness is important to preserve the power contribution of the captain. Because we couldn't change the tube, I kept the timing chainline close to the tube, and used oversize 50T chainrings to keep the crankarm leverage down. It works just fine, though you do have to use a slightly longer BB spindle to keep the rear timing chainring away from the chainstay.
I have never found steel tandems to be stiff enough to be satisfactory. It seems to me that that darn things just go limp with high levels of effort, because of the small diameter tubing that is traditionally used in order to keep the weight down. Aluminum, on the other hand, with the larger diameter tubing, has always been satisfactory, though the thinner modern alloys have a smoother ride than the older 6061-T6. It really depends on the application, though. For a really heavy or superstrong team, the 6061-T6 is probably unbeatable, and there are some forum posters who have said just that after recent purchases. There are light teams who swear by steel.
Our opinion on tandem brakes-
Road- we live in a very hilly area (White Mountains of New Hampshire) where 55+ mph downhills are common. We LOVE our Cannondale RT3000 which has Magura hydraulic rim brakes. We have had V brakes, cantilever brakes, a rear hub drag brake (previous tandems) but these hydraulic brakes are THE best, at least for our terrain. Trade-off? Can't use integrated brake/shift levers, so we stay with bar-cons for shifting.
Mountain- our Ventana C de M has Hope 8" disc brake rotors/4 piston calipers. True single finger braking but very controllable and smooth.
John & Cathy
We got a chance (thanks to Gold Country Cyclery) to take a short spin on a Co-Mo Speedster a couple of days ago. WOW! Lot's of people had said we would probably prefer the Co-Mo steering geometry, but I hadn't imagined the difference in handling would be so great. It makes a really BIG difference! My stoker said the handling made the bike feel 10 pounds lighter than the Trek (even though it's actually heavier). Also, I was pleased to find that the brakes (rear disc) were strong and smooth. It may be hard for us to go with the Trek/Santana geometry now that we've experienced the alternative!
We ride our tandem off road, so we need the discs. That said, I can't image travelling at road bike speeds with rim brakes. Avid makes great tandem rated disc brakes at very reasonable prices.
What tires do you use on your Ventana? By the way, it's a great looking bike, and I saw that it was built by a couple of Nutts.
What tires do you use on your Ventana? By the way, it's a great looking bike, and I saw that it was built by a couple of Nutts.
As for tires:
All around & unknown conditions = WTB MotoRaptor 2.4 front & rear
Familiar hardpack trails = IRC Mythos XC 2.1
Thanks for kind words on our ECdM; it is our 2nd Ventana & it was the first tandem sold by Alex after opening up MTBTandems.com.
We ride our tandem off road, so we need the discs. That said, I can't image travelling at road bike speeds with rim brakes. Avid makes great tandem rated disc brakes at very reasonable prices.
While we can appreciate the fondness for and confidence in discs given that we've been using them on our off-road tandems going on four years now, we've been using single and dual pivot Campy Chorus calipers on our road tandems since '98. Not being meek about descending, we regularly hit speeds above 45 mph on our local rides and well into the 50s when we ride in the North Georgia mountains and have never felt as though our safety was compromised by using rim brakes. We have the option of hanging a Hope mechanical disc brake on the rear as a drag brake but have never felt the need to use it. Thus, it sits in a box at home waiting for our next trip to a place where a drag brake is actually a necessity due to very steep descents with sharp switchbacks.
As you note, Avid's BB discs are proving to be pretty good for road bike applications; however, they still have a few qwerks and weaknesses that need to be addressed with some shade-tree-mechanic upgrades and there are some teams who would be better off opting for either rim brakes + an Arai rear drum drag brake or perhaps a front disc & rear rim brake + Arai rear drum drag brake.
Previous -
Top -
Next
Copyright 1999 - 2007
BikeForums.Net - All rights reserved.
Common bike forum topics in clue bicycles, cycling, mountain biking,
cycling jerseys, shorts, socks, shoes and bike equiptment selection.