TandemGeek

What kinds of tandems are y'all riding?

Road, Enduro, Off-Road/MTB?
Brand/Model - Purpose or use?

Just curious and thought it might be an interesting thread that everyone could engage in.

As for us...

Road:
Erickson/Signature - Recreational Riding
Erickson/S&S Custom - Travel Tandem

Off-Road:
Ventana/El Conquistador F/S - XC Single Track

MB1

We have a Santana Team Ti. Get about 6000 miles a year on it. Last year we averaged about 85miles per ride on the thing. It's our third tandem. Miss M wasn't comfortable on aluminum, now she doesn't even use a suspension post.

We'll ride it off road, we don't let dirt stop us. Often ride on the C&O tow path to get into or out of town as part of a long ride. And there are lots of dirt roads around here. We are pretty comfortable on dirt with it. we've even done some single track. In Hawaii on a Santana tour we rode all over the Lanai Pineapple roads in a pouring rain got covered with thick red clay muc. You should have seen the looks we got when we met up with everyone else.

The bike is pretty much stock, we changed the seats and use Performance Forte Kevlar 700X26 tires. It is always a treat to ride.

Already done a couple of centuries on it this year.

redfox

Well we have a cannondale mt800(i think,it doesn't say and the owner we got it from wasn't sure) mtb. We have slicks to go on it for road.My fatherinlaw has a c'dale road tandem and just picked up a trek hybrid t100.We all just share!

Maury Cohen

We upgraded, last summer, from a Burley Samba Softride to a Calfee Tetra Tetra. WOW! 15 lb. weight savings even with bombproof wheels, stoker shock-post and Look ErgoStem.
Kathy and I trade off captaining duties to the Look stem facilitates easy adjustments.
The Carbon ride is AWESOME.
The only nitpics we have are the limitation on the tire width we can run (700x26mm max.) due to the low clearance AME carbon fork, and the fact that Calfee didn't put on the cable stops we requested for our Arai drag brake.
Despite that we LOVE the ride.

UncaStuart

We have a Meridian Cascade, which we use on the road for centuries, club rides, and commuting. My wife Sam has disc problems in her neck, so the Softride beam is a big improvement over our previous tandem.

blwyn

Wow! Some nice looking tandems in the group.

We ride a Trek T-200. Red and ready to go - as soon as the snow melts!

Gus Riley

We ride a Cannondale RT3000. Wish we had the time and weather to put 6,000 miles a year on it! We've done several week long rides on it. It's been just recently where I have been able to find a seat for it that doesn't kill me. None of my long distance seats on my singles worked (I tried!). I had to go with a softer, wider saddle. Now I'm a happy sitter!

Fletch

2001 Meridian Ascension

Absolutely awsome ride!

Maury Cohen

Hey Gus. Regarding seats...I know of what you speak! I settled on the Terry Butterfly (Womens competition seat) with exactly the qualities you mentioned. My experience is that the Captain doesn't have the freedom of movement (especially in the hips) as on a single bike. The wider and softer platform really helps.

Gus Riley

I agree. It seemed strange to me that I could do a century relatively easy on my singles with a minimum of seat pain. Putting the same seats on our tandem....I couldn't get 40 miles without severe saddle area pain! I found that I was in the saddle for longer periods and the saddle padding (which was fine on a single) wasn't thick enough for tandem use. I was bottoming out even with my Terry Fly. Wider seemed to help too. I wouldn't dream of using this seat I have on our tandem and using it on any of my singles. But it sure works on the tandem. I may some time in the future try a brooks.

stever

re tandem

tandem is a thorn voyager enduro from st john st cycles

we chose to upgrade the wheels they are 48 spoke with shimano
xt tandem hubs with screw thread for drum brake on rear[not fitted yet] also sun rhyno rims [excellent]

wheels are 26inch in size.......
re brakes this is our third tandem [named doris 3] long story
we chose magura hydraulic brakes which give excellent braking
even with full load ie yak bob fitted
oh also 8 speed shimano xt chainset which is also great

attached is the photo which was taken overlooking tobermory
on the isle of mull....

the next morning we went by ferry to the ardumurchan peninsula
and cycled to fort william bout 50 miles i think

MB1

I forgot the picture. here we are doing a century 2 weeks ago near Manassas Virginia. It was about how it looks. Most of the ice on the roads melted by the afternoon and we were able to pick up the pace a little bit. In the morning we slipped and slid some but never dabbed.

Brian Hooker

Meridian Quest; got the mtb version because we thought we would spend majority of time on doubletrack and dirt roads. Considering a conversion to drop bars though, since 80% of miles have been on pavement. Changed out the knobbies to Ritchey 2.0 semi-slicks, but thinking seriously about the 1.5 slicks.

jayhardcastle

Hi
You will find us on
1985 Santana Sovereign (Columbus Santana Cro-moli, brazed)

Captained by Jay
Stokers include Linda, Tyler with Tandems Crank Shortner, Justin with Santana kidback.

1995 Trek-T-100
Captain by Jay or Linda, with Tyler or Justin, crank shortners only

For more picts and background
https://www.users.qwest.net/~lindahar...inktandem.html

Trsnrtr

I know I'm 4 months late on this thread, but what the heck...

Here's our ride, a 1992 Santana Noventa that we've logged about 30,000 miles on since May of 1992:

tchazzard

We ride a 2002 Burley Rumba. We put a couple thousand miles per year, but looking to increase it in the future.

NØWE

Just picked up my first tandem today. A 1996 Gary Fisher Gemini (Thomson). New wheelset, cogs tires and shfters. Going to get slicks and do the road for a while to get theskills up. A lot different then being on my S-Works alone.

caadman

A green cannondale MT800 year 2000, with 26 inch wheels, campy chorus egeropower levers and rear derailler mixed with shimano parts (cassette and other things only becuse campy dosen't make certian things for tandems, I'm a serious campy fan though, so I only do shimano when I absoutly have to)..They guy at our LBS knows how to mix the two and make it work, and we've never had any problems....I really love the bike, but we're trying to get a disk brake on it and it may not work with our model, so we may be getting a new one in the future

Trsnrtr

My Noventa 3 posts back is all Campagnolo. They used to make this group for tandems but have since quit. It's a bear to find parts for. I replaced the front deraileur this year with a Centaur racing triple and I replaced the original Campy (indexing) bar-cons with Ergo when It first came out.

bentbaggerlen

Our main tandem, Rans Screamer built up for loaded touring, no really cool parts other then the front Sun hub for lighting. Just standard mountain bike parts, mostly XT and a Shimano XT tandem hub in the rear, A set of Arkel TT-82s on the rack and were set to go.

Off road Cannondale MT, again mostly XT Including the rear hub, after 5 years use its still working fine. I use a FR100 fork up front stoles sup seat post... but I lust after a FS ride

other tandems 5 or 6 older tandems, I lend to people who want to try a tandem.

baldbent rider

My wife and I just got our first tandem last week and it is a recumbent bikeE E2. I know it is late in the year for something new like this but we have to start sometime. Last night was our maiden voyage and it was great ( just 10 miles in the dark).

Trsnrtr

Nahhhh, it's not too late. There's all this beautiful autumn weather to ride in. In fact, we just ordered a new Sovereign from Santana yesterday and I hope to get lots of miles in before the snow flies!

Trsnrtr

And here it is:

David Poulin

I just found a Tandem bike for free (it was abandoned). The bike is a (was made by) Arizona Bike Company (ABC). I'm guessing it was made in 85. The bike has a couple of registration stickers on it dating back to 86.
My wife and I have not ridden a Tandem before (we tried real hard to rent one while in the states, but just ran out of time), but think we will like it. I want to buy a Santana (with couplers so we can travel with it) but didn't want to spend a ton of money just to find out we didn't like it.
I have a friend who is rebuilding the bike while I'm deployed. We hope to ride it once I return home in Dec, I hope!

Does anyone know of a book “Learn to Tandem in a Weekend”? I have seen them for sailing and other sports, but haven’t found one for Tandeming yet.

Thanx,
David

bentbaggerlen

Try to find a copy of The Tandem Scoop, lots of good info for first time tandem couple. One thing you will need to keep in mind is that the stoker has put a lot of trust in the captain.

If you can, find someone who has ridden as a captain, and go out for a ride as a stoker

Bentbaggerlen