bobthib

Two Year Update:
It was August '09, right about now that the Lambo tandem arrived UPS. I estimate that I have about 2,000 happy miles on it. About 1/2 are with my bride of 37 yrs, the other are with my now 8 y/o grandson, mostly picking him up after school.

5 months ago my daughter had another little boy, so last week I purchased a used Schwinn bike trailer for $40. It has a quick disconnect device that is held in place by the rear nut/skewer. I just picked up two additionals ones for $9 each and fitted them on my commuter and my MTB. Now when school starts I'll be towing the new little guy in the trailer (in a car seat for now) and my older grandson in the stoker position. He's sprouting up, so it won't be long now before he'll be helping me pedal.

Back to the Lambo itself. While on vacation in upstate NY I overhauled the bike: cleaned and re-greased the stem and bottom brackets, chains, trued up the wheels, adjusted the brakes, lubed the cables, etc. While doing the BBs I noticed that even cleaned and re-greased the cheap cup and cones were not very smooth. I decided then and there to replace them with sealed BBs.

They arrived yesterday and I installed them. They are very smooth now. The only problem I had was removing the drive side left hand thread on the rear BB. I noticed during he overhaul it was tight, but since I didn't have to remove it at that time I left it alone. With the new sealed BBs it had to come out. After much knuckle busting and gnashing of teeth and muttering nasties under my breath, I turned to Sheldon Brown for help, via a BF search.

I found the following: A quick trip to the local Home Depot and $1.37 later I had all the necessary parts. I assembled the tool and started to crank. It didn't work. The tool was slipping - I hadn't cleaned all the grease out of the cup.

I disassembled the tool and tried again. No luck. Even with a 24" pipe wrench it was still not moving. I began to doubt that the BB was LH thread! But it just didn't make sense. The front BB came apart with just normal coaxing. I ate dinner, had a beer, and watched "Grand Torino" with the family. Renewed, I tried again. On the third effort it finally released. I think they may have assembled it when the paint was still a little wet. Anyway, I installed the new BB, put on the cranks and took it our for a short spin. Very smooth and nice. It was a worth while $40 upgrade.

All in all, I'm very happy with the Lambo. Yes, it's a cheap "department store" bike, but for my use it works great. The bike was discontinued by Lamborghini but it recently resurfaced as the Giordano Viaggio for $449 shipped to your door. Yes, it takes work to get it road worthy, and unless you are a wrench it could be expensive, but for the right person on a tight budget, it's lots of family fun.

bobthib

5 1/2 year update:
I'm guessing I have 5,000 to 6,000 miles on this bike since I got it in Aug '09. I have recorded about 4,000 miles on Ride with GPS.com but I seldom bother to record my daily rides of 11 - 15 mi picking up the grandkids from school. My now 12 y/o grandson has been tall enough to pedal since Nov '12, and prior to that I cludged up a foot rest on the top tube so he could ride in the stoker position since I got the bike. For the past 4 years I've had a Schwinn Kiddie bike trailer to accomodate my now 4 y/o grandson. We turn a few heads as we tool about town.

As seen above, I did some upgrades to A) Improve braking, B) Replace stock wheels, C) Improve BB performance, and D) Make the bike very adaptable to different size riders, mostly stokers. While I would have liked to buy a used brand name tandem, finding a SM - XL frame is a bit difficult. In addition while my wife did join me in putting about 1,500 of those miles, she no longer rides. I could have saved a lot of $ by buying a PC Dualie or similar hybrid longbike, I really wanted a road bike so I could keep my road bike form.

This is one of my favorite bikes to ride, and fortunately my grandsons still enjoy riding. The bike has been very stable, and knock wood, has not required anything beyond normal cleaning and maintenance.

So, is this for everybody? No. In fact the straight from the factory poor braking performance make this a dangerous choice for anyone who cannot do their own wrenching, or had the bike set up by an LBS. In addition, most people who just want a tootle bike for the occasional spin about town and on a limited budget might consider a cheap hybrid or comfort bike. This is NOT a bike for people looking to get into "serious" tandem cycling. You are much better off renting bikes from tandem knowledgable LBS, or at least knowing your bike sizes (you and your stoker) and looking for a nice used bike in good shape. If you find you don't like it, or don't use it, your resale value will be much better.

However, for some one who must have a tandem Road bike, likes to do their own wrenching, or is will to spend a few hundred buck to be sure the bike is set up and road worthy, and needs a SM-XL frame, maybe this is an option.

Here is Ironman Tyler and I on a Cancer Charitiy Ride:


Here is Joy and I screaming down the 17th st causeway bridge:

Darth Lefty 

You intrigued me so I went looking. It's now a "Giordano Viaggio." I guess it's the same model but the brand changed! How strange. Current model comes with Shimano 2300.

Amazon.com : Giordano Viaggio Tandem Road Bike (White Pearl) : Tandem Bicycles : Sports & Outdoors

ironhanglider

Great to see the updates. You seem to have unique "phasing" for your cranks. Was that a considered decision, or did it just happen?

From my observations In-phase cranks are the vast majority, 90 degrees out-of-phase are common enough. Other variations are very rare.

The tandems I race on have the stoker cranks 1 tooth behind because my race stoker has a different pedalling action to me and that was what we needed to be in synch.

Keep up the good work!

Cheers,

Cameron

bobthib

Iron, I found that because I'm a much stronger cyclist that my stokers, they "lost" their power stroke in my pedal stroke when "in phase." In addition, I couldn't tell if they were helping, or just "going along for the ride." By going 90 deg out of phase, they feel their power stroke, and I can tell if they are working.

bobthib

Darth, Indeed the Viaggio is now marketed under the Giordano brand. The great grand nephew of the original car designer has licenced the Lamborghini name to market various items. He came out with a line of bikes, entry level "bog box store" quality stuff, sold at a premium. The Viaggio is manufactured by Kent, a chinese bike company. The Lambo had Micro Shift gearing, a chinese knockoff of Shimano. I've had no problem with the "brifters" but never had much luck with the derailers.

Be sure to read my entire review as the bike has a very narrow niche.

smoothie_biker

bobthib, isn't it hard to start when not in-phase? I fumbled a few starts when we accidentally got out-of-phase (timing chain slipped when stoker bb got loose). I'd like to try different degrees of out-of-phase again when I get better at starting.

Chris_W

We find that everything feels smoother when not in phase, including starts. The only odd thing for my stoker is that she has to put her pedals almost horizontal before we start, so that I do the first power stroke as we push off, but then instead of having a big dead spot, the power continues to be fed in by her. You should certainly give it another try.

bobthib

+1
It can be tricky, esp if your stiker unclips and puts their foot down. Keeping the bike balanced with only the captain's foot down requires a bit of practice, esp if the stoker is not light or has good balance.

If they stay clipped in with their feet about horizontal, (actually your clipped foot at about 1:30 on the clock face,) as you start you stand and start off, they then take over to keep the momentum as you sit and start your next power stroke. Don't clip that 2nd foot in until you are moving at a speed to keep the bike balanced easily.

IF you have problems with balancing the bike at rest with the stoker clipped in, then IP or just a few teeth OOP will probably work best for you. There is no hard and fast rules. Do what works best for you as a team. Remember, keep the stoker happy!

smoothie_biker

Thanks, Chris_W and bobthib. We are still going through a learning curve right now. Just yesterday, I dumped my stoker at restroom break in front of a whole bunch of people. I was stopping and she was trying to unclip at the same time. It was quite embarrassing to say the least. She hurt right back side of her right knee while I hurt my pride.

ironhanglider

Hi bobthib, my comment came from the photo of you and Joy in particular appears to show your cranks at being more than 90 degrees ahead of hers, which intrigued me.

We tried 90 degrees OOP with my vision impaired stoker to try and smooth us out the bike. He is one of those gorillas who put a lot of torque into the frame when he pedals and it upsets the handling of the bike. (I have been urging him to do a proper bike fit for years now to no avail.) The 90degrees OOP did work well for us once we changed to him being 90 degrees ahead, rather than behind, however it really didn't work for his other pilots. It did have the drawback for us finding it impossible to coordinate out of the saddle efforts which was limiting in a race context. The compromise of being slightly OOP seems to work for everyone.

Hi smoothie_biker.
Many people (including me) advocate that the stoker remains clipped in until the bike is stationary, the pilot has both feet on the ground and is sitting on the top tube. The last bit is important because it allows you to control the bike with your legs and body rather than your arms. This position is stable enough that I have been known to release the bars in order to clean my glasses, adjust my helmet straps etc. while sitting on the start line with John clipped in. It also means that when we are ready to move off, there is only one foot that has to get clipped in, and if I fail to do that we have enough power to get up to manouvering speed before the second attempt. Recently we have been learning to achieve a relatively graceful stop and dismount from a track bike (fixed wheel and no brakes), however we did manage to amuse the onlookers with a couple of less graceful attempts at first. I hope your stoker forgives you and you come to a workable arrangement.

Cheers,

Cameron

smoothie_biker

It's the first time/ride that I was able to convince her to use clip-in sides of the dual platform pedals. She'd gotten a few hits to her calves using flat side of pedals when I shifted down. I suppose she's still nervous about unclipping and I'm still not on top of my game in term of starting/stopping.

Anyhow, she's one tough stoker. She hasn't totally given up on me and my pilot-ability yet! Beside, we've already signed up to do this year's STP (Seattle to Portland 203 miles ride) in one day in July. So, I'm switching both of stoker and captain's pedals to dual-side SPD and have hers at the lower setting for easy clip-in/out. I'll keep the cranks in-phase for now. I'd like to try OOP some day to smooth out pedal stroke since she's still not spinning well and we don't even bother to think about standing up yet.

DubT

i doubt if anyone else will say it but I am 72 years young and my stoker is 71 years young, so we have been around the block and we do marriage mentoring.

That said, IN MY OPINION, you noticed I put that in caps. You are out of your mind signing a new stoker up for a 203 mile ride in 1 day. You still have not mastered starting and stopping. We ride nearly every day and a 40 mile ride is plenty long for my stoker. Please for the sake of your tandem riding experience and your relationship do not push her too hard. Be happy with 10/15/20 mile tandem rides. Let her determine how far and how fast you go. The voice of experience speaking. My stoker loves to ride but at her pace and her distance. We do at times go very fast and hard and have several KOM's to prove it but there are times when we smell the roses. She does not like long rides, short intense is our normal but they vary according to how she feels. If I don't get a long enough ride in I will take another ride on my solo bike.

smoothie_biker

Thanks, DubT. I really appreciate the insight from your experience. Sometimes, I do wonder if we set our goal/expectaton a bit too high and miss out on the "big picture" of tandem riding. We've been doing between 50 miles (easy ride or hilly) and 70 miles (flat) on most weekends. I have plan B (riding STP in 2 days) or plan C (cancellation: June 11th, 2015 is last day for 80% refund).

Anyway, my tandem bike handling should get better by that time. If not, I can always put the blame on the cheap Vaggio tandem and convince my stoker to upgrade to midlevel Cannondale RT2 that I've been eyeing lately

geronimo2000

The evergreen tandem club https://www.meetup.com/EvergreenTandemClub/ in Seattle would be a good resource for you