Originally Posted by
bgblue1978
my girlfriend and i have been riding the tandem more lately and thinking about a wheel upgrade. the bike is an older kuwahara steel tandem. current wheels are suzue hubs and unknown 27in steel rims with an arai drum in the rear. we don't use the drum so we're looking at wheels without it. bike is 140 spaced but i don't think fitting 145 will be a problem. i threw some road 700c wheels on to test fit size and i think they will work fine so i'm looking at 700c tandem wheels. We mainly ride alone in a mildly hilly area here in the texas hill country (austin). we plan on doing an ms150 this year and maybe a few charity centuries but mostly short solo rides. right now a member on this board has a set of used bontrager race lites for sale. for the same price a local on cl has a set of dt540s laced to dyads that came stock on a comotion. i think they are both lightly used. as far as the wheels alone which do you guys think will suit us better? the other difference is of course local vs forum. local i get to see them but forum member is well respected so i don't have any concerns with either seller. as always thanks for the input.
bgb; You mention changing from 27" to 700C wheels while removing the drag brake and also currently having steel rims... that is a lot of moving parts...
Would recommend examining your overall brake situation before committing funds. You likley have cantilever rim brakes now, then you will need to have a framebuilder-type change the location of the studs if you change the wheel size. Changing the wheel diameter also changes the bottom bracket height and it alters the steering. If you have fenders, they may need to be replaced. Etc.
Not meaning to FUD you out, but just wanting to assist you in seeing that a lot of changes to a tandem have secondary impacts, some of which are not immediately obvious. If you gather all the change data first and cost all that out... you may find that the really great answer is selling the existing bike after finding a used one that is more closely equipped to your desires. Lots of good, already modern, name brand tandems for sale routinely for under $1,000. You will be exceed that figure quickly enough for parts and labor to change the current bike vs what it will be worth as an updated Kuwahara which will have a resale value of $xxx.yy (a figure I don't know but its not very high).
Just trying to help you think it all out. From what I am reading from the current posts here, I would likely suggest starting by just buying a good set of tandem rims (maybe Dyads) to replace the steel ones, add good KoolStop pads and then ride that bike for a year or two to see if it is now good enough. The recent availability of good tandem rims and tires in 27" make it a potentially viable decision and pretty cheap (~$200 w/ the new pads) to execute... /K