osurxbiker

I just unpacked our calfee tetra frame today when I got home from work. I was hoping to have it most of the way built up, but the headset that was supposed to be installed before shipping was nowhere to be found. After a quick phone call, it was located, on the desk upstairs from where assembly occurs. Hopefully it can arrive in VT by Saturday so that we can ride Sunday.

There is a bit of mess in the background, as well as a couple singles, but here is a picture of the new ride (sans fork, headset, handlebars, cables). If the stoker compartment looks long...it is 32" The captain's area is quite short 50cm TT. Standover 73cm. We discovered that the ideal place for the stoker's handlebars was right in the middle of my seat/hips, hence the need for longer stoker compartment.

Stoker 5'5.5" Captain 5'4"

There will be more pics to follow once I can finish the build.

zonatandem

Betcha the name of the tandem could be 'Envy' . . . as green with envy!
Nothing like a custom fit for both riders.
With us pilot is 5'7", stoker 4' 10 3/4" . . .
Hope headset shows up for this weekends' test spin!
Enjoy the ride TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

Geocyclist

It took a toss of a coin to decide between the blue or green custom paint on my Calfee. I ended up with blue, but it looks like the green would have been just as pleasing! Enjoy your new toy!!!

TeamTi700

That is a sweet color! Can't wait to see the complete bike.

osurxbiker

My wife's favorite colors are green and purple so we went with green. Mike at Calfee says that they don't make too many green tandems.

Zonatandem, I think that you may have named our bike...ENVY

pathdoc

Man that is super sweet. Nice looking ride.

TandemGeek

Ya know, I just don't think there are any bad color choices when it comes to a Calfee so long as it's either translucent or non-existent.

Congrats on the new ride and as others have noted, looking forward to hearing more about your initial impressions and what not over your first few hundred miles of ownership.

Stray8

Nice! Very beautiful emerald color! The longer stoker compartment visually makes it look sleeker and "faster" for some reason...

.

specbill

Absolutely beautiful!! Congrats.

Bill J.

rishardh

Looks very nice. Congrats! Build it up and post more pics for our viewing pleasure.

uspspro

As much as I think those are cool.. and I really do.

We both wanted white, and white only works as opaque.

Something like this rendering (something the sales guy had on his computer). Except we had the fork painted white also.

Our frame is supposed to be done soon. We will go pick it up sometime in early July (after our wedding and honeymoon).

osurxbiker

Congradulations on the Wedding and Honeymoon. The bike is essentially a 3 year aniversary present from us, to us. I'm sure that the white will look really sharp.
~Joe

TandemGeek

It will be eye-catching to be sure.

You might want to consider putting some 3M clear mask or Avery Stoneguard (both are non-yellowing) to protect the rear stays from getting nicked-up by chain slap and the rear disc rotor (assuming you'll be getting the rear disc). You may even want to think about putting some along the bottom of the downtube and back of the seat tube to guard against kick-up from the road.

I make mention of this only because compared to the alloy framesets carbon is a relatively soft material and nicks in the finish seem to grow. At some point the clear and color coat begin to lift around the nick and then flake off, leaving the underlying carbon exposed. It looks like acne on the translucent finishes and you can keep it at bay by using clear nail polish as a touch up. My '98 Tetra Pro was in pretty rough shape and I finally sent it off to the James Gang at Calfee to be stripped and, well, evaluated as a potential finish for our Calfee tandem. White nail polish will likely work on your finish, but that'll be something the folks at Calfee can advise on.

Ritterview

We understand that you hurriedly took pics just as you got the tandem yesterday, and that you will eventually have pics when you finish the build, but this does not relieve you of your obligation to post more detailed, better quality photographs today.

osurxbiker

How does one post high quality pictures? It looks like the attachment size is limited to 100kb. Also it started raining here yesterday and until I get more light the pictures will not be great, being that the bike is in the basement. When it is done there will be an abundance of pictures posted.

uspspro

you need to host them on a photo hosting service, like flickr, photobucket, or your own server

Then put the url location of the image in these tags

[img]insert_url_here_[/img]

osurxbiker

I am on vacation this week and it looks like the HS will not be here until Tuesday or Wednesday (so I probably would not be able to ride until Wed/Thurs). My wife and I are very antsy to get out riding on the new bike. Does anybody have a good reason (other than $$) not to purchase a cheap HS and have it installed at the LBS, only to have it removed a week/month...later when the Chris King arives? What are the chances of frame/fork damage by changing the headset. I have already called around and there are no black CK headsets at any of the bike shops around here.

jnbrown

White does look nice, My Trek 5500 is white, but what a pain to keep clean.
For that reason I would not get white again.

TandemGeek

Popping headsets in and out isn't a big deal and neither is installing and removing base plates, especially when you have your own tools. Taking it into the LBS invites opportunities for frame nicks due to the extra handling and what not at the bike shop.

However, you'd need to be mindful of any differences in stack height between your temporary and the CK headsets so that you have the necessary spacers on hand to make the final installation. This is because you'll have to cut your fork steerer to give you the correct stem / bar height to use the temporary headset and unless the two different headsets have the same stack height (+/- a few mm) you might need to juggle headset spacers when you install the fork in the CK headset.

FWIW, I think I had the headset in and out of our Calfee about 4 times during the first few weeks. The initial installation, then twice as part of chasing a creaking noise that turned out to be the stoker's stem, and then one more time to switch out the polished CK headset for a black one.

osurxbiker

Thanks TG. Now to figure out the difference in stack height from cheap HS vs the CK and then cutting the steerer tube. I have many tools, just no HS installation/removal tools. $10 wasn't too bad to have the HS pressed in.

Ritterview

Ahem.

Tinypics

osurxbiker

The bike is built, we will probably go out for a 20-30 mile ride in a little bit. I took more pictures and rode up and down the street a bit. First impressions (based on sandals street cloths). It feels light. WOW, this is the right amout of reach and drop (I think that the specialized 110mm stem (left over from my road bike when I was racing in college) is the right length). Yikes, that is a lot of toe overlap. When in the bike stand I thought that maybe I would be able to see the inline gear indicators (c-dale had flightdeck computer), but once I got on I realized that the inline indicators were competely hidden by the handlebar. I may have to stick them right into the cable stops in the headtube and use Nokon cables or something that will make a very tight bend (there is not a lot of space from the bottom of the handlebar to the cable stops in the headtube.

osurxbiker

I don't know why the images are not loading. Here are the direct links. If anybody can get them to post, feel free.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3625492957
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3625491259
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3626306234
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3626305076
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3626303506
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3626301766
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3625483289
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3626298392
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3626285722
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3625462959
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3625462113
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3626269270
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39386031@N02/3626268284

TandemGeek

First off, here's a link to osurxbiker's Flickr photostream slideshow in case y'all are also seeing little question marks:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/3938603...th/3626268284/

As for the gear position indicator, here are some photos of the one that I installed for my front derailleur.





Installation notes:

1. Don't forget to put a ferrule on the end of the cable housing that goes down into the head tube cable stop.
2. It took a little playing around with the cable length to control the bend so that everything would line up and to keep the XTR indicator caps from popping off or breaking. As you can tell, there's only enough housing between the bars and stops to allow the bars to turn through a nominal 160° arc in front of the tandem, noting that there's no practical reason to have any more than that.
3. I didn't bother with the rear indicator because if I know which chain ring I'm on it's pretty easy to guess if I'm in the bottom, middle or upper cassette sprockets and having the in-line adjusting barrel in that spot was more important.

TandemGeek

Flickr is kinda weird in that you need to post a link to the photostream, slideshow or right click and get the actual photo URL by right clicking (PC) on the photo in the photostream to open the photo in a new window and/or using the properties option to grab the direct URL, which is what I just did to lift these two photos:





Any particular reason that you use your right brake lever to control the front brake vs. the left lever????