We have a Co-Motion steel quad. We like it a lot. Answers below:

1. We get all the stokers clipped and strapped in first. Captain (me) sits down on the top tube with legs spread wide to stabilize the bike. Stokers spin the pedals to “start” position, which has the right-side pedal at about the 2:00 position viewed from the right. Then I clip in my right foot without lifting my tail off the top tube, keeping the bike as upright as possible. I call “Ready?”, and then call “Go”. At “Go”, all the stokers push hard for a few strokes to get us moving, then I call “coast” to stop the pedals so I can clip in my left foot. Once clipped in, I call “go” again and we are underway. The only difference from how we start a 2-seat tandem is that I pay even more attention to keeping the bike upright while clipping in on the quad.

For stopping, I call “stopping” which means for the stokers not to push on the pedals but let me rotate them where I want to so I can unclip easily. I unclip my left foot. Then, as the bike is slowed to a slow walking pace, I unclip my right foot, slide forward off the saddle, and walk a couple steps with the bike still slowly moving before I finally brake to halt the bike. In this way, as soon as the bike is stopped, I am able to sit down on the top tube with my legs spread to stabilize the bike. Then the stokers unclip/unstrap and get off. On a 2-seat tandem I usually unclip one foot, and then halt the bike and unclip at the same time. I can do that on the quad as well, but it’s less stressful to have both feet out and be off the saddle before the bike stops and could begin to tip.

2. This is the only quad I have captained, so this may only apply to ours. But, the farther back a stoker sits, and the heavier they are, the more they affect the bike handling. Not a problem, but enough to be noticable.

3. Not hard, but does take room. You do have to get used to moving more sideways than forward when you turn sharply. No big deal, just something to get used to. Although I normally ride drop bars, the quad has flat bars. I just haven’t gotten around to changing them. But I will say that the extra leverage is nice for slow speed maneuvering. If I ever do the swap I will probably use a wider drop bar like a 46cm, not my usual 40cm.

4. We bought ours used off of ebay. We were blessed that one came up that was the right size for not too much (relatively). The only place I have seen prices is here: https://www.precisiontandems.com/catframetandem.htm. Triplets from Co-Motion and Santana are $6,000-$10,000 there. Used, they go for less: Tandem Bicycles For Sale, Tandem Bike Components For Sale there are a couple triplets there for less than $3,000.

5. Steel is the most inexpensive. Aluminum is probably a little stiffer and also lighter, but more expensive. If cost were no object, I’d probably have aluminum or even titanium/carbon! But steel is fine for us. We’re not racing anyone, and we don’t have the $$ for anything else.

6. We’re happy with ours.

7. Our steel quad weighs about 80 lbs. Maybe someone else can give you a reference for aluminum.

Final thought — Overall, the two big players in the market are Santana and Co-Motion. Santana has probably built more long bikes (longer than 2 seats) than the whole rest of the world combined, and Co-Motion is far and away the second-largest manufacturer. The two of them might have 90% of the long bike market. So I wanted a bike from one of them rather than a manufacturer that builds one triplet per year.


Hope the info helps.