Tandem Cycling - Should I try to get this bike or pass?

My wife (infrequent rider) recently expressed some interest in riding with me (recreational roadie, started riding again in '03, 2,300 miles in '04) and I immediately thought - TANDEM! Looking at mostly paved bike trail rides up to a few hours, maybe we'll work up to metric century distance. Also looking at a 184 mile 2-day ride on the C&O Canal towpath in September (Tour de Canal). Neither of us have been on a tandem before. We have yet to ride any, some quick looks at a LBS and web browsing.

Saw a Burley Rock n Roll, "small" frame size (if you call 18" "small") on ebay that looks promising. Off-road capability for the towpath, and I can put road tires on it for the rest of the time. I like the specs on the bike on Burley's site, but have a few questions:

- Fit: I'm 5'5", ride a 50cm (525 mm top tube) Trek road bike and 16" hardtail MTB, legs on the short side (27.5" inseam). My wife is 5'7", she'd probably fit a slightly larger road or MTB than I would. I can ride her current bike (old Fuji hybrid). I've seen the comments on other threads (notably the discussion here - http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=62236&highlight=Burley+Rock+Roll ) so I'm a bit concerned that the Burley would be too big. I'd like my son and daughter to be able to ride this, too. He'll fit anything my wife or I could ride and is still growing, my daughter might be on the small side for stoking for a few years. As inexperienced riders, my family might actually prefer a more upright posture.

- Bike has a softride boom for the stoker position. Is that an add-on (allowing a conventional seat post if we need the height adjustments?) or are we stuck with that arrangement?

- Since we have not ridden a tandem at all, should I just pass on this until we've done some test rides and decided if we can even share the same bike together? (and if nothing else, I may have just helped advertise that bike and ensure the price is bid up if I go for it

Thanks in advance. :(

I posted some general comments on Softride beams in the "Burley Samba Softride" thread. I imagine you have already read those.

In addition I would note that, if in the particular application, the Softride beam is not intended to be used with a riser block between the beam and the saddle, a lot of the standover height goes away because the beam is right underneath the saddle. With riders who are small for the bike anyway this is a problem.

Of course, a lot of these issues are relative to the price: if the tandem is cheap relative to other options, then it is a tolerable investment for the intended use. If the price begins to approach that of other used tandems, you would be better off with one of them.

If you are willing to consider this as a first tandem, with another possibly following in a year or two, there is no reason not to leap. If on the other hand this is the only tandem there will be for a long time, perhaps you should not.

I tried to quickly research how the beam is installed on a Burley, both to consider standover height and whether a seatpost can be installed, but owing to the fact that they are no longer manufactured that way, there was no photograph on the Burley website, either under the model or in the owner's gallery, so these are general comments.

It appears that this bike is being offered by Mel Kornbluh at Tandems East (based on the location on the listing.). We bought our Cannondale from Mel and feel he will honestly answer your questions.

My wife and I tried one of these at a LBS and found the frame too big. I'm 5'8" and my wife is 4'10".

Good luck,
Doc