to Rick,
Wow, if Jobst Brandt told you you are mistaken and you are not sure whether to believe him...

I also think that we, as paired riders, tend to over engineer. Look at the trend in single bikes, with regard to wheels. It seems that lighter, less and thinner spokes is the norm even for big sprinters on the pro circuit. Now I surely do not believe my daughter and I put out that kind of power.

Bling for blings sake is a fools errand. I am not looking for a better looking bike, I am looking for practical ways to improve the performance. We are already working on the engines, and very hard mind you. My daughter has me doing core exercises, and she still laughs at me since I can only do about half the reps she can. I am planning on riding fixed all winter, can you say "big quads." As well as the fact that we do a lot of single bike riding. I am still not convinced 14g spokes is a necessary component in lateral stiffness (< that last remark sounds like every bike review for the past few years, "laterally stiff, yet vertically compliant").

to TG,
I emailed Chucks about the specs on the CX/Tandem fork, I will post his reply. I can't believe CDale uses such an odd sized fork. I did a rough measurement and came out with 410mm crown to center of dropout and I could not really get a good offset measurement, but by eye it did not look like it was over 50mm. I may just take the damn thing apart so I can get better specs. Maybe I should just be smart about it and email CDale first?

to BRD,
I had the measurement somewhere in some spreadsheet, but I can't find it at the moment. I guess I'll have to recharge some NiMH and put them in the Alpine scale and measure it again, I will let you know. BTW, I pulled that figure completely out of the air, not really

Not sure I want to outlay that kind of cash all in one lump sum, especially on a bike that is only ridden one day a week! Typically it goes like this, Monday-Friday approximately 1 hour each day on the single bike with my neighbor. Usually hills, one recovery ride, one tempo ride. Saturday is a day off. Sunday morning I ride 50-60 miles with the B group, usually about 2000' vertical climbing, between 18-19 mph overall average. Then I take a nap (the most important part of the day). Two hours latter, we go out on the tandem anything from 15-35 miles depending on the route everyone else wants to go and whether or not we try to hammer the group (they are all single riders). Spreading out the cost is a big deal to the significant other that is not a cyclist!