stapfam

Not many will admit to it- but in quite a few of the pictures of bike storage areas-I see a lot of Tandems.


So how many have a Tandem?- How often do you ride it? and who do you ride it with?


I have a full offroad form of an adapted Cannondale MT that has been greatly modified. It will take the punishment of offroad without any problems. It has not been out too often this year thanks to Stuart- My pilot- Having a career problem at present and Doing a University course to further his career in the Police.

Can't delete it but I posted in the wrong forum- And one thing I cannot imagine is a folding Tandem so sorry.

14R 

Bike Friday Two'sDay





LINK

LWaB

Montague used to do a folding tandem and Berndt still do.

Bacciagalupe

Co-Motion does many separatable tandems....

E.g. https://www.co-motion.com/Primera.html

I think Bike Friday does a pretty good business with their tandems, always seems like there's numerous models in their annual catalogs.

14R 

Oh, and how could I ever forget the chariot of the gods, K-M:

eubi

Now that's sick!

I mean that in a good way.

I've got to ride one of those!

pm124

I hate to correct you, but this is sick:



https://www.bikefriday.com/travelerqt...eExternalId=13. That is the way to go, since you will inevitably want to take a ride by yourself.

Of course, being a Birdy fanatic, I'm partial to this:



Nothing rides like a Birdy (except maybe a Bridgestone Moulton), but I don't get the idea of a folding tandem that has a unified frame. You would have to ship it in an oversized poster tube!

Sammyboy

I've come close to bidding on a couple of 70's folding tandems - they look rickety, but fun as hell. I did not resist bidding on this - my son and I ride it together, my wife and I ride it together - it adds a LOT to my riding time, and I love it. I ride it to the school to pick my son up, just me on the front. That sure gets some attention.

Pine Cone

OK, they are not folders, but I do have 2 tandems.

SesameCrunch

OK, I'll 'fess up. Here's the whole family on the Counterpoint tandem. I ride upright, she rides recumbent, and the little guy rides free....

Bacciagalupe

Egads. So what do you do, put a master link on the front chain and pop off the whole chain for the solo config?

stevegor

I wish my wife was happy to ride stoker on our tandem...but she hates it
at least my 16yr old son will

jur

SC: That rocks!! Jealous...

SesameCrunch

Thanks! Even I'm starting to think I own too many bikes...

PS: I just ordered a Strida5. But, I'm selling the Strida3, so it doesn't really count as a new bike, does it?

SesameCrunch

PineCone:

That tandem at the bottom looks like a recumbent!? Got any other pictures? Looks interesting...

Pine Cone

It is a BikeE recumbent tandem. Nice and comfy until the speeds get high. We can easily do 45mph plus on the KHS/Nashbar and feel comfortable, but the BikeE starts to flex above 35mph. I ride as stocker in front and it's not as bad as the old Gitane and Follis tandems of the 1970's but she doesn't like it so we try and keep it under 35mph!

We rode tandems a lot more when we lived in the far north of California (Redding area) with wide road shoulders and little traffic, but here there are lots of hills, narrow shoulders, and lots of cars so she doesn't like it much. We can't easily ride from the house like we used to, so mostly the tandems stay at home now.

I'll look through the photo archives and see if I have some better pictures.

Love that counterpoint of yours though! Who steers, the person in front on the recumbent portion or the one in back on the conventional bike part.

I think that the bottom line is that many of us here seem to have more bikes than we can ride in a week at a bike-a-day.

Could be worse though, I spend a year in New Zealand and almost 5 months in Oz with no bike at all. Serious withdrawals... I figure I owe it to myself to go back with at least a folder sometime...

awetmore

We've owned (in this order):
* Cannondale MT1000 (with drop bars)
* Bike Friday Tandem Two'sday
* RANS Screamer Recumbent Tandem
* Burley Rock and Roll

The folding tandem had the least miles, but we had one fun trip with it and then sold it for about what we paid. The recumbent had lots of touring miles and was sold to a friend who was looking for one. The Burley and Cannondale were similar ("mountain" tandems converted to drop bars) and perhaps the most boring, but they are also the most useful for us.

alex

Leigh_caines

Tandem

My lady has a disability or two.
She said she’d love to ride like me… with me and by herself.
Bought a new upright bike with easy step over and high handlebars.
She loved it but…
We live on top of a hill and while she could ride on the flats she couldn’t make it back up the hill. I lowered the gearing but still no go.
Next…
I put an electric motor on
She could get up the hill without worry.
But…
As at the bottom of our hill is town, on the other side is a bike path but to get there one must go though town. As she can’t turn her head to the right [only left of center] she found this scary and we could both see it was only a matter of time till someone wiped her out.
So for a month or three I put my folder [one of my many bikes] in the car and her bike with motor on the back and drove her out of town then we had a ride and I loaded the bikes back on and drove home where I unloaded them again. We had fun but it was a bit of a chore instead of just hopping on our bikes and going for a ride.

“What about we get a tandem?”

This would solve many things…
We would be able to ride from home…
I could be the motor…
I can turn my head any which way…
I would be using the brakes [her hands have been giving her problems]
No more using the car.

But we’ve already spent a lot on trying things so we’d best start with a cheap tandem.
The cheapest one we could find was a “Beach Cruiser” on “E-bay”
Under $500 [Australian dollars}

It arrived and I put it together.
I could see straight off there were a lot of crappy parts on this bike.
So I donated one of my MTB’s that had good bits on it.
Changed…
Wheels…
Front and back derailers
Brakes
Gearing from 6 speed to 8 [on the back] up to 11/32
Gearing on front to 22/34/44

We went for our first ride…
She loved it but…
She had to keep pedaling if I was and this was to hard for her.
Back to the drawing board…
I put a freewheeling hub in her crank and changed the chain line so it’s all on one side.

Out we go again and this time success !!

She loves it
I love it
We can’t get enough of it

Sammyboy

This is just awesome. My wife gets a sore back if she rides too far, and can't see a thing from behind me on the tandem, but doesn't have the confidence to captain. This would be peeeerfect. Is it expensive?

Leigh_caines

stevegor

Leigh.....you are a lucky dog.

SesameCrunch

Sammyboy: Unfortunately, yes. https://www.bilenky.com/viewpnt.html

PineCone: The person in the back sitting upright does the steering. The person in front can ride without hands and has their own derailleur. The best part is that our heads are close and we can talk.

ivenn

Entire family rides a packable (not foldable).
Here's a picture of our BF triple that fits in 2 suitcases. Soon littlest will move from Burley Cub to Piccolo. You can see Moose Rack already mounted in picture. Today I'm breaking it down to a tandem since one of us is staying home today.

ivenn

Here's what it looked like after just 3 of us went for a ride.

Simple Simon

You guys are just sick I love this forum !