Originally Posted by
TandemGeek
And, yes, as WheresWaldo notes, you can get really creative by mixing and matching single bike cranks. Just be mindful to check and see what they're max weight rated for if you get into any exotic stuff. I contemplated making up a set of Campy Chorus carbon cranks for our tandem until it dawned on me that we'd seriously be exceeding their max weight limit as a double crankset, never mind being modified to accept a 32t granny which would have put some serious hurt on the carbon spiders.
I've been trying to figure out why a Campagnolo drivetrain cannot be done. It must not be, because I can't find any examples save for the early 90's Campy tandem group.
Campy still offers a
triple crankset, using its venerable square taper BB from the 2006 era. It is listed as being 788 grams, and being of Centaur level. 'New' 2006
Record triples and 200 gm
bottom brackets are still available, and these for cheap.
Opposite the triple on the left side, the square taper could have a 2006 Carbon spider, with a timing chainring instead of a double.
The captain's crank could use a Carbon record spider on the left, with the the 'left' crankarm on the right. The Campy UT has the same Q factor as the square taper, and possibly it could be used. This would save some weight (which the Campy triple/BB probably would not).
Perhaps
Gates could be persuaded to make a carbon belt 'chainring' for the Campy 135 mm BCD (I emailed Gates, and their rep replied that they had no current plans for Campy 135 mm BCD, nor were they concentrating much on tandems at present. Dang.)
There must be some insurmountable problem here, and I'll soon find out what it is. I note, for example, that
Rodriquez uses an FSA Gossamer on his otherwise Campy Record equipped tandems.