Bike Forums - Fun times with Tandems, Disc Brakes, Roller Brakes.

Uhh. So I can't remember if I posted this but here it goes... This is an informational to many sorts of people who dabble in any of the topics posted above.

Me and my Girlfriend built a Tandem to celebrate my new job.

Of course, as someone who goes into things all too much, and idles around in Bicycle Mechanics... I went a few steps too far...

I went with a Diamondback Wildwood Tandem as the baseline. It has decent components, and I like Raleigh/DB as a Company. Plus the Steel frame is a plus in terms of durability.

I can't leave well enough alone however. I had to change things.

The first step I did was build some wheels. Rimwise, I chose Salsa Gordo X-Brace rims. The Specs seemed good for the price (Welded, Double wall with a special internal design, Eyelets) and I wanted try them out. Spokes were Plain Old DT Champs for the sake of servicability. Double/Triple wall spokes while nice in some aspects are sometimes hard to find, especially in odd configs (More on that in a bit...) But more important to me was expense... You can buy a few regular champs for the price of an Alpine 3....

Hubs are where things start to get interesting. For the Front I used a Shimano M-475 Disc Hub, 36 hole. The rear is the meat of this project though. I chose a Shimano Nexus 8 Speed Hub, Standard Model, with their Top-line Nexave Roller Brake... Complete with cooling fin. I wanted something that could handle the weight of me and my girlfriend stopping in short distances (We are a bit heavy, and ride primarily urban...) I laced them 4-cross for strength, once again due to the loads the wheel would get. The front Recieved a Shimano M-555 Hydraulic Disc Brake with a 203mm rotor. It was inexpensive as a discontinued model, and the large rotor size once more sounded like a good idea due to the braking loads.

Geared it up with the standard crankset included with the bike and a 20t Cog. Stock Tires. I kept the derailleur on there and ran it as a triple, used a Different shifter than stock for the front because the old unit was a combo, and the front disc was a hydraulic unit. Tried a standard brake lever for the roller brake.

Here's What I found.

-Gearing isn't enough, amazingly. While having about the same range as the stock cassette, I find us maxing it out, and that's something I can't do with any my other bikes... with the possible exception of my road bike (There aren't enough downhills around here to say for certain...) The Stock Crankset is a cheap model, I thought it had replacable chainrings but the bolts I saw in the product picture were for the chainguard. I'm thinking of a Road Crankset (Like a Truvativ Elita Tandem or FSA Gossamer Tandem) To get that little extra bit as well as replacable chainrings. The Raleigh Model had a nicer crankset, but alas, no disc mount on the front fork.

-The Nexus Hub is a dream to use.... Enough I outfitted one of the Schwinn Suburbans with one...

-The Roller brake was garbage till I changed brake levers. Again, I started with a normal brake lever, as the Nexus hub has it's own shifter, and the included brake levers were integrated with normal derailleur shifters. I replaced the normal lever with some Older Cantilever-compatible Avid Speed dials... And lo and behold, everything was great.

-Big rotors are Fun... However the disc brake is unkind towards alignment. This is an older shimano model and has no adjustment options.... however I found shimming the disc brake and the adapter with washers allowed me to align it with the rotor.