Originally Posted by TandemGeek

Again, is just our purely empirical feedback.

We've ridden with the same tandem teams for nearly 15 years at many rallies and smaller gatherings and we were always the lead bike on fast descents when we had our Santana and both Erickson tandems running either Phil Wood / MAVIC CXP30's or White Industries / Velocity Deep-V wheelsets.

However, once we had the Calfee friends who would routinely sit on our rear wheel found they either needed to stay on their brakes or simply come around and ride ahead of us. It didn't matter which wheels we used -- '08 Rolfs, '07 Rolfs, White Ind w/Fusion or Deep-V -- we just couldn't own the lead bike position the way we could on our slightly heavier (+2 to +3 lbs) Erickson frames.

A return visit to the Erickson on one of these group get-togethers had us back out in front. It was at that point that I asked Mark Johnson at Precision Tandems what he experienced switching between tandems and he too related back to the "Cannondale Effect", as the oversized, slightly lighter tubeset was the only thing that really differentiated the C'dales from other tandems back in the day.

I woudl also note, the Calfee was designed off of the Erickson's dimensions and geometry so the riding positions, etc. are nearly identical. The only dimensional difference is the signifcantly larger diameter tubeset.

On the bright side, the only time you can really tell there's any difference is when you're moving along above 30mph which ain't all that often.