So, you hate me, but you love my bike.

I'll respond again to your comments, as you don't seem to recall typing them.

For bigger people, most saddles are too narrow,

You rest your sit bones on the seat. Even a gigantic seat won't help someone new to cycling overcome the fact that all the pressure is concentrated on those bones.

the seat support struts bend quickly,

Are you referring to seat stays or the rails on the bottom of the seat? A good seat with cro-mo rails can hold up to a lot of weight.

the seat posts too soft to support a decent seat height without bending.

Soft seat posts?

Now, as for the following comment, you misunderstood me, because of that big chip on your shoulder.

Do you need to round up fat forum friends ? You disgust me with your derogatory comments. I am overweight. You aren't going to "round" me up. and I am not your friend. You insult me. JERK.

At around 210, I'm not exactly light. I should probably lose the extra 20 pounds. But some of the guys I've met on the forums range from 275 to well over 300, and they all ride MTBs and abuse them a lot too. I was implying that I could have them comment on what holds up in their real world experience. Normally, I'd apologize, but I've done nothing wrong here. Go back and read my post without being so defensive.

Oh, about the tandem. Yes, the spokes are black, but they're still just stainless. The stoker stem attaches to the captain's seatpost, and the 2 bolts visible are for the fore/aft adjustments. The cranks are slightly out of phase as well. She leads on the down stroke. So far, that's worked well for us. My pedals are little Shimano clipless ones, and she uses the big Shimano 636 DH platforms, as she's more comfortable with them.