Our team rider weight is 295 pounds. The 26 reading on the Park tensiometer is with the tire off. It's lower with the tire on and at pressure (120 psi front; 130 psi rear).

I don't know how well I can assess how powerful our climbing is or how fast I'm willing to turn compared to others but I think we're pretty strong riders. We often try to work / train to make ourselves faster and stronger. We do like to go fast. We seldom get a chance to ride with other tandems but at the recent Tennessee Tandem Rally we were able to stay with the fast group a good bit of the time which included climbing and descending. We were stronger than we were last year at the same rally. We do stand frequently for climbing. I think the biggest side loads we put on the wheels are when we are standing and rocking.

Nearly all of our rides include some fast downhills. Two downhills we frequently do have a fairly sharp fast turn at the bottom and we have a set of down hill S-curves with mild rollers between that we get to do at 30 to 35 - We love those! I've always felt secure with the wheels (except when I see cracks in the rim). We have a straight downhill that we always get to 55+. Our current personal record is 58. I don't know if we are going to ever see 60 on it or not. We are going to have to spin a little faster or go find a bigger downhill ...Anyway we're not afraid of going fast.

I trust the wheels but of course I am regularly looking at the rims now.

Bloomington, IN