Massive D - Arvon started riding his tandems solo when his wife, (a lovely woman), was unable to ride and this inspired him to start building his first long tail touring bicycles.

He started building tandems because no-one built a tandem that he was satisfied with... he is a huge bear of a man and a powerful rider who once raced at an international level and also founded our provincial randonneuring club, and to date has ridden over 500,000 miles.

He saw the benefits of extending the stays were many in that many customers came to him looking for someone who could build a bicycle for bigger riders who tend to have much bigger feet and issues with kicking their panniers.

The long wheelbase distributes the load better and makes for a more stable bicycle and improves the performance and many of his long tails use the same oval tubing he developed for tandems to make them laterally stiff. S&S coupled models get conventional tubing.

He started building bicycles and hubs over 30 years ago and had he been in a place like California his name would be more well known and his design for custom hubs is contemporary with Phil Wood hubs. He told me the first time he saw a Phil wood hub he thought someone had copied his design and said the machining was very well done... he turns his hubs by hand and it is marvelous to watch him work.

Have seen few people run a lathe with such smoothness and precision but then, he has been doing this for nearly 60 years as his trade was that of a machinist.

Will be expanding my information on Arvon Cycles on my website as he is quite close to me... he has been my mentor and teacher for many years, partner, and most importantly... my friend.