One more question / observation, this time regarding the rear brake cable routing. I see where your frame also has the rear cable stop positioned in the optimal position for the rear disc.... which is to say in a sub-optimal place for the rear caliper.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3595/...91205acc_b.jpg

I also ran my cable around the seat post to deal with the close positioning of the frame's cable stop and the brake caliper's stop, but found that snaking the cable housing between the brake bridge and seat mast provided the most direct routing...

http://www.thetandemlink.com/Images/...rake_cable.jpg

Geez, I hate to be picky, what after you've gone to the trouble of photographing and uploading and everything, but since the bike is in the shade, in front of white siding in the sunlight, all we can see is essentially a shadow.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3406/...427e05963d.jpg

The bike looks TOO LIGHT! If you want, I could send you some of the excess poundage from our KHS.

Right vs. Left brake control: Back in my early teens I did that to be different. Everybody said you want your strongest, most coordinated hand grabbing your back brake. I thought that was silly because you stop with your front brake... It was also funny to watch friends hop on my bike and grab a fist full of front brake and almost fly over the handlebars...(boys at age 12-15 are amused by things like that).

TG: on the brake routing in the back, I got the idea from your pictures and it seems to work. I may shorten it by going between the seat stays and brake bridge.

TG: How long is your headtube and how many spacers do you have under your stem? It looks like I have less vertical space for the cable bends than you do.

As for the photo in the shadow. Sorry I didn't have anything that I could lean the bike up against in the sun. I will surely take more pictures.

As for the first ride: 25 miles, 80 minutes. It feels smoother. The bumps don't feel as sharp. I don't wince as much when I do hit a bad bump. Also the c-dale had 28mm wide tires @ 100-110psi where as the calfee had 23mm tires @ 120-125. I seem to be able to place the bike on the road where I want it to be (bumps are also easier to avoid) where on the cannondale I would come across a bad section of pavement and steer to avoid it and the front would kinda go where I wanted it to and the back was lagging behind vs calfee, think left flick the bars left/lean left and the whole bike just avoided that pothole. The only time there was any problem with toe overlap was on a u-turn to rescue a waterbottle that jumped ship.

Interestingly enough, I've only experienced toe overlap on the Calfee when I resumed riding in late April after breaking my ankle in February and had to resort to wearing Shimano sandals with their extra large soles vice my Sidi Dominator MTB shoes which have a few mm of clearance. Toe overlap even in my Sidi shoes was simply an accepted condition on both of our custom-built Ericksons and most of my custom and stock single bikes: consider it a by-product of being vertically challenged @ 5'7" (I've apparently lost an inch of height in the last year based on my recent physical; yet another reality of the aging process). Anyway, less I digress, I simply learned to pedal with my heels up / toes down whenever I was negotiating U-turns or other slow-speed turning maneuvers.

No doubt, as I suspect my seat & head tubes are at least 2 cm taller and my bars have continued to get closer in height to my saddle ever since I passed the age of 45: I think they may only be about 6.5 cm below nowadays.

http://www.thetandemlink.com/Images/...imensions0.jpg

See below for all of the pertinent dimensions.

http://www.thetandemlink.com/Images/...imensions1.jpg

In this photo the dimensions between the bar-tape end point where the derailleur & brake housing exit out from under the bars is measured in a straight line to the integrated cable stops in the headtube, noting my brake's cable stop is further forward on the frame than is yours.

http://www.thetandemlink.com/Images/...imensions2.jpg

It was the first nice morning in quite a while up in here. We took the cannondale out to see how different the ride really is. I was once again reminded that the reach was too high and a little bit too long on the cannondale. The handling was no where near as good and the road vibration through the bars was much more noticable. Before this ride Kayla was not sure how big an improvement in ride quality the calfee is. She finished the one hour ride a little bit sore when she wouldn't have been on the new bike. Also because of the short stoker compartment she was unable to use most positions on the handlebars comfortably and her hands were getting numb after 15 miles. Actually another reason for taking out the cannondale was that the insert in the alpha q fork did not bond well (it wasn't a problem with the cheap headset, but after the bike shop changed out the cheap HS for the chris king the headset could not be made tight). Upon futher inspection I found that the insert was slipping and when I pulled it all the way out there were only a few spots where the epoxy looked to have bonded well on the inside of the steerer and on most the insert the epoxy just flaked off. A new insert should arrive from true temper early next week.

It is nice to look at the bike and reaffirm that it was money well spent.

Welcome to the 'what the... club'.

I believe the problem lies with the lousy 'epoxy-like-substance' True Temper sends along with their forks. On my previous 3 Alpha Q's I used good old JB Weld and never had any trouble. When I built up our Calfee I made the mistake of using the aforementioned stuff that came with the fork and made the same discovery that you did: the darn insert didn't bond and started backing out. I discovered mine when I was chasing a creaking noise that I thought was coming from the headset. So, about 5 miles from home I loosened up the stem clamp so that I could increase the pre-load on the headset. Imagine my surprise when the preload-bolt didn't seem to offer any resistance.... Son of a gun, the insert was coming right out!

Fortunately, somewhere along the way I was sent an extra 1.125" insert for an Alpha Q fork so I chucked the one that was covered with whatever it was that came with the fork, re-prepped the inside of the steerer and installed the 2nd insert with JB Weld. As always, the JB Weld has held up just fine.