Originally Posted by merlinextraligh

I'm not sure I could isolate the cause, but coming from a Burley Duet to a Co-Motion Robusta, the handling was like night and day. The first couple of rides on the Robusta the bike felt unnervingly skittish, and the "stoker steer" was pronounced.

Several factors were at work, different fork rake, shorter chain stays, much lighter bike, more rigid frame. Without isolating each factor, I couldn't say which one had the biggest effect, although I think fork rake/trail was a big factor in the overall handling difference.

As we've got used to the bike, the skittish feeling is totally gone. The bike handles very much like a high quality single racing bike, and is a lot of fun to descend on and corner at speed.

The analogy I use is the Burley handled like an SUV,and the Robusta handles like a sports car.

With the Burley, it was sometimes a chore to ride, in comparison to our single bikes. We love to ride the Robusta.

I would also say that given our first few rides on the Robusta, I'm not sure how people with no tandem experience, and people that haven't ridden single bikes aggressively would react to it. Thus I'm not sure it would be a great first tandem for everyone.