Thanks Jim! Yes, I do get/know all that, but reminders are good. FWIW, my second job as a teenager in the early 1970s was in a recycled bike shop tearing down and rebuilding bikes to sell. I built a road frame in the 1970s too. In other words, my experience level with mechanical stuff on (especially vintage) bicycles is probably as solid as an average bike shop mechanic, if not more so. We do ease up on the pedals to shift. Admittedly I haven't needed to use a small triple small chain ring in an eternity (but when triples on road bikes were unheard of the one I had on my Lambert in 1974 that saved me big time on the Davis Double Century when I was 15 years old). I actually have a thread going about this issue in the mechanic's forum now too. The idea behind the reverse pull is to make it easier to get into the small ring since it is cable tension rather than spring tension to pull the chain down. I am reluctant to adjust the stop inwards any further since there is no chain rub in little ring in front to big cog in back and the risk of chain suck on a tandem doesn't sound good to me. The FD cage seems quite wiggly (though not so much in the direction I would think contributes to this). I'm thinking of swapping it as my next step because I really have tried everything else mechanical in my bag of tricks. I encourage any ideas though!

Meanwhile, I now know that I must shift to the small ring extra early, or face wrath of the stoker (and none of us like that!). Let's just say that was the only time I made that mistake last Sunday