Hmmm. I'm not so sure I'd pin that on the length of the stays. Given that y'all just moved over from the Cannondale, I'm hardly surprised by the stoker steer comment. The C'dales have very little deflection and feel rock solid even when stoker's flop around a lot. Moreover, as we observed in our journal... the Calfee is more "lively" than our Erickson and I'd bet a beer the Ruegamer is probably even a bit more lively than our Calfee given the smaller diameter top tube. The upside is what you've already observed about the steering, it doesn't take long to adapt and the performance tandems reward you for being clean riders. Once we had our wheel problem sorted out, riding the Calfee became completely intuitive in short order. I suspect the stoker lag will quickly subside for y'all just as it did for us.

I have almost no regrets about choosing a Santana Arriva as our first tandem. It allowed us to quickly come up to speed as a tandem team by offering very predictable, comfortable and confidence inspiring performance. That's not to say we wouldn't have had similar success on a Co-Motion, but back in '97 I'd never heard of Co-Motion and our test ride on a couple different Co-Motion models just weren't confidence inspiring. In retrospect, I discovered that our dealer was probably using Co-Motions to sell Santana tandems for that very reason but that's water under the bridge.

It took me about 8 months to 'outgrow' the Santana, which is to say... during our first 8 months as a tandem team we came way up the learning curve on riding technique, fitness as a team and most importantly... what else was out there in terms of tandem offerings vis-a-vis talking with other more experienced teams whom we met by joining our local tandem club, attending tandem rallies and learning from bona-fide experts on Tandem@Hobbes at a time when bona-fide experts dominated the discussions with a passion that's no longer in evidence. We compared what we could expect to what we were riding and decided that the grass might be greener now that we had our tandem legs.

After amassing all of that information I'd decided that there were two tandems out there that could meet my expectations: a Co-Motion Double-Espresso or an Erickson. It was a dead-heat until David Morgan published a review of an Erickson in Tandem & Family Cycling and Glenn's philosophy about tandems and stoker accommodations tipped the scales towards his tandems.

However, as always I tend not to be the 'first on the beach' and it was one of our friends who ordered up the first Erickson and signed up for a tour at the same time: a two-fer. The received their Erickson in June, about two months before our one-year anniversary as Santana owners and after seeing the bike and riding with them on the first outing and hearing their first impressions... noting that they like us and all of our other regular riding partners were Santana owner, I was sold on the Erickson philosophy. Mind you, at this time Co-Motion was still using 27.5" stoker compartments whereas all of the Ericksons were built with 31" - 32" rear compartments... and even racier steering than the Co-Motion.

The Erickson was an eye-opening experience. While the handling and long frame initially make me question our decision given the Mr. Toad's wild ride on our first outing, we quickly came to love the way the Erickson did everything on the subsequent rides. Coincidentally, to a person all of our tandem friends eventually moved over to Erickson tandems or reasonable facsimiles, e.g., there was also one team that moved over to a Bushnell built to the same specs as an Erickson belong to one of the early converts.

Anyway, I think a lot of folks who now ride 'performance' tandems still have pretty fond memories from those first Santana, Cannondale and Burley tandems that traditionally owned the largest market share of the tandem market... and then came Co-Motion who continues to grow and expand it's market share. It's hard to know which I'd choose today if I had minimal knowledge regarding tandems. Ultimately, I think Santana's annual Catazine would likely be just as compelling today as it was nearly 12 years ago as nothing else comes close in terms of selling tandeming and making the argument that "our tandems are the best". Unfortunately, even in this day and age of the internet there are still a lot of folks who aren't aware of all the options and that's why I'll always maintain that a first tandem is just that: a first tandem.

Indeed it has. Best wishes for quick recovery.

My left ankle is perhaps at about 40% some 12 weeks after breaking it and we've been out on the tandem a few times since the cast came off two weeks ago. It's amazing how fast and how far your fitness falls when you're laid up for a few months. Thankfully, even though I"m told I'll have a swollen foot and leg for perhaps another 6 months, just being able to shove that fat foot in a cycling shoe and ride has been a tremendous boost to my morale. Now, if it would just stop raining long enough for us to fall into a regular riding routine. It's going to be a slow and ugly cycling season but, even a bad cycling season is better than no cycling.

Oh yeah, and for the Sidi footwear fans out there, here's my newest pair of Sidi's... without which I probably wouldn't be able to ride my 'big bike' for several months.