Yamato72

My wife has been riding with me for the last 3 years and we typically ride 2K to 2500 miles per year, culminating in the end-of summer 4-day DALMAC bike tour in Michigan. We got the bug for a tandem this season and last week purchased a Cannondale T1 in size L/S. I believe I have it mostly adjusted for the two of us, though I am looking for a slightly longer stem for myself. I've (we've) been reading up on tandeming on this forum and elsewhere so as we get out and practice this week we'll see how things go. My wife is a good bike handler (her "half-bike" is a Cannondale Synapse) but between headwinds and hills, this year she said "enough."

I wrench on my own bikes and love to tinker so I'll post to this thread as I get used to the bike and do some upgrades. It's a 2015, last year for the T1 I guess, and came with a T2 fork and custom Velocity wheels. I will probably paint the fork black but I plan on a carbon replacement in the future. The wheels are high quality but I hate the look. When combined with the reflective sidewalls on the Schwalbe tires, it's just too much. I'd like to do black non-machined wheels (Velocity Deep-V) or someday carbon. If you can see where I'm going with this, I'm looking for all black and no bling. Eventually.

The front brake housing is a touch too short and will be replaced, the rear brake housing is also too short and suffers from terrible sponginess. My LBS is sourcing some of the "compressionless" Jagwire housing for me to try to address this. I moved the saddles from our half-bikes when setting this one up so that both my wife (stoker if you hadn't guessed) and I have a good starting point. I've taken it out solo a couple times to get used to the feel and make sure the brakes and derailleurs were dialed in. It is definitely a different experience from a single and I have some learning to do. As expected the frame feels very stiff. With our SPD pedals installed, the LBS weighed the bike at 37.5lbs. Here's a pic. Peace.

pdlpsher

Very good and welcome to tandeming. This is a great bike as your first tandem.

Your plan sounds good. Just make sure if you do switch out the fork, you need to look for a tandem-specific disk fork. Don't buy a fork that's designed for a single bike.

As for rim, I've had excellent results with the Hed Belgium. They are wide (25mm external, 21mm internal) and very light (465 g.). I built up a set of wheels with these and they run true and trouble free. If you do use them make sure you line up the spokes to the spoke holes....the spoke holes have offsets on them. The only downside is cost. They are quite expensive at $150 each. They come in the disk-only option and has the stealthy look you desire.

Yamato72

I've been researching to see what's out - of course the ENVE comes up a lot, seems like a great fork but is of course, not recommended for tandems by the mfg.

Those are definitely worth checking out. I'm up to building a wheel myself this time around if cost savings are good enough. I'd probably want to find plans for a home-built truing rig first.

The wife and I put 20 miles on it last night, first practicing stopping and starting, communicating shifting, etc. All the basics. Then we headed out on one of our normal routes. Yes, tandems sure are fast on the flats and descents!

I have some brake squeal to deal with, and even though I taped it off, the loose housing for the rear brake came free again and started slapping the underside of the bottom tube. I may try to delete that section of housing, but I don't think the chainstays would have the mounts needed to route the naked cable correctly. Any suggestions from people that have addressed this problem would be appreciated.

I also determined on the longer test ride that I don't have the saddle adjusted correctly, it's a tad too low and too far back, even though I attempted to measure everything and duplicate my half-bike. Stoker wants to try drop bars too, so I ordered a set in her size from Nashbar.

My LBS located a long rear skewer that will be compatible with our trainer, should be in today, so we'll get this mounted up and get the captain and stoker saddles dialed in once and for all. I use the plumb bob-knee-pedal method for adjusting the saddle, worked great on my roadie.

Alcanbrad

Nice bike, learning to Tandem and then enjoying tandeming is a great adventure.

Just a few comments to cogitation on.

A new fork and frame painting can cost a lot and won't improve improve ride performance much, if at all. I would suggest directing your investment in wheels where you can definitely get a boost then deciding later on cosmetics or maybe a new steed for the stable.

With respect to your rear brakes, we too had this issue and tried compression less housing which help a little but not much. There is just too much incremental forces creating slack over the long rear cable run that the caliper return spring is not strong enough to overcome. I went through a litany of things and on the suggestion of another forum poster I added a boost return spring which made all the difference. Check out this thread if you haven't already:

https://www.bikeforums.net/tandem-cyc...rformance.html

Good luck! Keep us all posted on what you do.

Yamato72

I've skipped around within this forum and been reading a lot, and I do recall reading this article. Thanks for pointing it back out - I'll be all over that.

Yes I'd really like to do carbon wheels at some point, too, for weight, ride, and aesthetic reasons.

We've got almost 40 miles in now and are doing well with stopping/starting/coasting. My sub-5-ft stoker has no trouble staying clipped in and getting us Proper-Method-underway from a stop. I'm considering trying 90* OOP, though, with the pedals to smooth out our strokes. Stoker is very strong. She's always been a good student, too, and keeps an 85-90 cadence like me.

Turned out my saddle was over an inch too low, guess I measured wrong the first time when i was transferring measurements from my half-bike. Fixing that improved my comfort quite a bit. Stoker wants to try regular drop bars so those should be in next week. Of course I neglected to ask her if she would want a set of fake brifters. We'll see what happens.

I got some bottle cages installed but I think I'll try the side-entry style as clearance within the frame sections is minimal. I'm not doing a seat bag on this bike and I got a bottle-shaped tool holder instead. Problem is, even though there are bolts on the underside of the downtube, there's not quite enough room, so I'm going to use a Two Fish strap from Az and instead mount it behind the captain's seat tube, very bottom. That's actually a great area on the frame for stuff you don't need to access while on the bike.

Yamato72

Pdlpsher these are 32-spoke rims. What rear hub did you use? I need a 145mm and most 145s are 40-spoke (the affordable ones anyway).

pdlpsher

I used a Hadley 160mm hub sold by Santana. It just occurred to me that you have front and rear disk brakes, and with a short axle on the rear. On my previous Santana we had a rim brake front wheel and a disk rear wheel with a 160mm axle. A disk rear wheel with a 160mm axle will be strong enough when laced with 32 spokes. The front wheel has no disk brake so 32 is plenty strong. For your setup you have 'dish' on both the front and rear wheels, whereas I had none. So getting these rims with only 32 spokes might not be a good idea in hindsight even if you can find some 145mm 32-hole disk-capable hubs.

Yamato72

I like the wheels but the only compatible hub that I found is a White Industries for about $400. Yes that's a rock solid choice but once I'm approaching $500 for one wheel I start to consider carbon again. Spinergy actually has a tandem wheelset for $1500 but it still has a shiny rim brake sidewall, even in the disk version. Otherwise, something in that price range would be do-able.

Here's a pic of the new stoker cockpit. Yes, it is dominated by a speaker. I'm trying to duplicate my stoker's half-bike so the speaker came along too. Currently trying to decide on a computer solution, problem is, with my current Cateye sensors, there's no room on the frame for two Cateye speed/cadence sensors. My computer is BT and my wife's is not, so I may stick with the Cateye non-BT speed/cadence sensor for the stoker computer and get a set of Wahoo BT sensors for the captain computer.

Yamato72

Today I set the cranks 90* OOP. We'll give it a try on our next ride and see how we like it. This bike has the two-wedge eccentric, which is supposed to eliminate the issue of the single wedge eccentrics getting stuck. I had no issues loosening it. As I suspected, the belt had been over-tensioned by the factory (or bike shop); adjusting for the correct deflection in the belt made a noticeable difference in how smoothly the cranks turn. Glad I caught that after only 50 miles.

The drop on the captain's handlebars (relative to the saddle height) was .75" too short, so I flipped the stem over but that was too far in the other direction. I found a compatible stem, 10mm longer and +/-5* vs the 12* or so of the factory stem, and ordered it from cannondaleexperts.com. This will get me fitted just about exactly the same as my half-bike.

These 1.5" steerers make the C'dale tandems tough to swap stem and steerer components. The one spacer that the factory includes doesn't even appear to be 1.5", it's probably for a Headshok (1.56"). I've already sourced an FSA 1.5" to 1.125" reducing headset to give me some flexibility when I do eventually look for a new fork. Speaking of forks, when I mentioned painting this RT2 fork, I meant I'd just paint it gloss black myself. I'm actually quite good at it.

I measured the rear brake caliper for a reinforcing spring and will try to source that tomorrow. Also took some pics of the brake and shifter cable routing, to determine if i can safely delete some of the housing. I'll share the info if I find a way to do it.

Stoker fit is all sorted, I had the wife sit and spin both her half-bike and the T1 back-to-back and I believe I've duplicated the fit as good as it can be.

We have not had the opportunity to ride in amost a week so I really hope we can get out on it soon.

OneIsAllYouNeed

For stealthy black rims, consider the Velocity Aileron, Cliffhanger, or Blunt 35 (to match your tire width for best aerodynamics and aesthetics).

Other 145mm, disc-compatible rear hubs to consider: DT Swiss 540, Velocity Tandem Disc, modified Shimano FH-M675 with Wheels MFG axle #29.

Forks: you can buy direct from Santana, Co-Motion, or R+E Cycles. Figure on $300-450. They can all paint your color of choice.

Rear brake housing: I'm a fan of SRAM compressionless road disc housing. Be really careful to avoid unnecessarily tight bends. The seatstay-to-brake-caliper transition is usually the worst. On a few of my bikes, I've run housing from the top tube cable stop all the way to the brake, skipping the seatstay cable stops. It's a longer housing run, but generally makes for larger radii bends, crisper lever feel, and better dirt/grit resistance. Brake lever feel shouldn't be any worse than your single bikes.

Yamato72

For reference:

DT Swiss 540 tandem hub 145mm 36 or 40 spoke $399
White Industries 145mm 32, 36, 40 spoke $398
Velocity tandem hub 145mm is only 40-spoke $159
Shimano FH-M675 is 32 or 36 spoke ($30) & needs Wheels MFG axle #29 & centerlock to 6-bolt disk brake adapter

I like DT Swiss stuff, and there's no question that the DT Swiss and White Industries hubs are top-notch.

I queried Spinergy about their Stealth Tandem carbon wheelset (which at $1500 starts to be affordable), which still has machined sidewalls for rim brakes, even the disk version. They said they'll have a black sidewall version in early 2018.

We got a ride in today and the combination of correct belt tension and 90* OOP really started to wake this bike up. I need to re-check my saddle position to improve my comfort, but finally today it felt like it was getting closer to being able to spin all day long like on my half-bike.

Still waiting on my LBS for the compressionless brake housing, but I did source some suitable springs for the rear caliper. Once I get the brake housing and stem I can get the captain's cockpit dialed in.

Paul J

We have the DT hubs on our Co-Motion and White Ind. On our Bushnell. If I were choosing I'd go White Ind. I think it is beefier without much change in weigh. We have 6,000 miles on the White between service and about 2,500 on the DT. we have two sets of White Ind on the Bushell, one set Deep V 4 hole rear and 36 front and the Dyads are 40 hope both ends. I really like the durability of the Velocity Deep V, I think they are even a little better then the Dyads because of the deep section. They are made in all black but not sure on what drilling are for those.

House of Tandem is the Go to place for Spinergy wheel sets for Tandems. Ric and his wife were displaying at the Tandems East Expo last year and he really knows his stuff. They have a 29r wheel set spaced 145 which looked awesome.

Glad to hear you are getting your bike dialed in. Have fun!

Yamato72

Rode our 30 mile route yesterday and realized that my seatpost was sliding down. That explains what I thought were measuring issues. Also explains why my last couple rides have started out feeling "right," only to have my knees and hamstrings protesting by the end.
Stoker is very comfortable, though she cannot reach either bottle on her mid-tube (she has short arms too), so we've settled on me passing my bottle back to her whenever I take a drink. Still liking the cranks 90* OOP, though I may try shortening that by a couple teeth to see if it smooths the power delivery as the stoker comes over the top. No issues cornering, I just flatten the pedals, inside foot leading, and then stoker's inside foot is up where it should be. Stoker did comment that the 90* out prevents her from flattening her pedals when trying to join me in the tuck position. Not sure how to overcome that.
In general, even though this bike feels like a bus when turning, I find the steering to be very twitchy, I think due to both the construction (Al) and rake (nearly straight in relation to the head tube) of the fork. I think a CF fork with a bit more rake might help.
I did not have much luck putting a spring on the rear brake caliper, but I did determine that, due to a bend in the rotor, the pads were adjusted too far out to stop them scraping. I was able to lessen the bend slightly by hand and then adjust for a bit better clamping force.

Yamato72

I believe I can delete the rear brake housing on the downtube, it is on the right as shown in these pictures:





Getting past the bottom bracket starts to get hairy, but just the downtube should work, I just need a pair of stops like the shifter cables use (first picture). I'm unable to determine what they are called, however, and even bikeparts.com didn't show anything similar. Anyone know what those are?

OneIsAllYouNeed

"Clamp-on cable housing stop"
https://problemsolversbike.com/produ...ackstop_-_1282

There's a small chance that you can add one that looks a little more professional:
Cable housing stop, chain stay, bolt on (-> Caad 4)

I would use one of the welded-on stops for the brake housing, then use the add-on stop for front derailleur. Safety first.

OneIsAllYouNeed

Looking closer at the picture, the most elegant solution would be to insert a flanged bushing into the existing hose guide. The ones that come with cheap brake hangers should do the trick.

Yamato72

This. Or if I can identify what the stops are that the shift cables use. All 3 guides at the top of the downtube appear to be the same dimensions.

OneIsAllYouNeed

There's a good chance they are very similar, but not identical. Specifically, they holes may be the same diameter, the overall length is the same, but the two shift spots are blind holes, while the brake guide is a thru hole. There isn't a pretty way to add back the material that was likely drilled out of that third cable stop, unless you're handy with a TIG torch.

Yamato72

My compressionless brake housing came in so it was finally time to install the new stem and handlebars. I spent a lot of time working on the rear brake and also did some investigation regarding deleting the housing on the downtube and boomtube. Besides replacing the housing I re-routed the rear brake cable to the outside of the chainstay; I decided that it had too tight of a bend the way the factory routed it on the inside, which could only increase friction. Moving it to the outside gave it a much more natural arc up to the caliper (forgot to take a pic).

From the factory, the rear brake housing comes off the brifter and immediately makes a tight bend around the handlebars, then comes down and runs the full length of the downtube, under the front BB, all along the boomtube, then wraps around the chainstay like I said earlier. There are 6 bosses for the plastic inserts that keep the housing in place. Not only did I need to use tape to keep the housing from slapping the underside of the boomtube, but I also discovered that the downtube was getting scratched from the housing rubbing it. This was just a terrible way for Cannondale to design it.

So I pulled the front derailleur cable to inspect the bosses and the cable stops and see if they were compatible - and they are. Here's the top of the downtube with the front derailleur housing removed and the stop in place:



Here's the stop moved to the rear brake position:



And here is the stop moved to the boss at the bottom of the downtube (upside down from how it would need to be to work):




Pics of the housing inserts:





And pics of the stops:





I took the stop to my LBS to see if they could identify the part with Cannondale. If I can get these parts or something compatible, It seems to me I could improve the rear brake feel even further and shed a few grams in the process.

Yamato72

Quick update: We have 250 miles in and we're staying OOP. Just works well for us. Stoker loves the tandem. And after getting my fit mostly dialed in I have realized that the beauty of the tandem is that I can push as hard as I want and not worry about having to slow down for my wife to catch up. Wife/stoker can relax and really digs the "team" aspect of riding together. I'd say we're off to a good start.

One-day tour coming up this weekend, we plan to do at least a metric century. As a lot of people have commented on other threads, your butt stays in the saddle much more on a tandem than on a single. I am used to pedaling forever on my roadie but I never miss a chance to get out of the saddle either, so I am still getting used to the tandem experience. I'm also finding that a 90-95 cadence is preferable, anything much lower and I feel like I'm really mashing the pedals. A couple hundred miles did cause me to investigate and discover something that I'd suspected for a while: my SPD cleats were installed too far back in my shoes. Going through and measuring and re-positioning them immediately made my toes happier. After 17 years riding clipless and 8K miles over the last 4 years I guess it was time to fix that.

And here's a pic of my Craigslist find, Yakima Sidewinder, barely used, and super cheap!




"Installation is the reverse of removal"



The towel wasn't necessary, so long as we're careful with the pedals, the timing belt just barely "kisses" the window.

The bottom triangle (above the boom tube) is crying out for a frame bag so I'm going to check with some custom bike bag manufacturers to see if they can make a bag that will fit that space. Will be handy for the multi-day supported tours that we do.

Yamato72

Finding those cable stops turned out to be not a tough job after all: Amazon Link

These arrived yesterday and I'll see if I can make them work. I also purchased a brake rotor truing fork to see if I can take a couple bends out of the rotors. Currently, they are mostly quiet but will start scraping after any stop. Also going to try cleaning and scoring the rotors and pads to quiet them down.

mtseymour

Are you using the Shimano R515 mechanical disc brakes? These are similar to the Avid BB7 and are noisy and hard to adjust.

Yamato72

Avid BB7. They stop well enough but squeak a lot. This is only my second bike with discs, my other bike is my mtb and they squeak too. I've only recently been reading up on how to quiet them down.

Mr IGH

Nice tandem! Two comments:

1.) With regards to your Sidewinder, I had mine set up the same way but it required that I lift the bike high enough to clear the chain/belt between the cranksets. I flipped the rack around and switched sides so that I didn't have to clean and press my very heavy Arriva steel framed tandem. I'd love to have a lighter tandem just for the ease of lifting!

2.) The key point about BB7 I learned was that if the inner, stationary pad isn't close to the disc, there will be noise. I'm running BB7 on several bikes in the family bike corral and have learned the hard way. Here's a great video on setting up BB7s. They make a point of setting the inner pad properly before aligning the caliper, then backing off the inner pad a few clicks of the adjuster after the caliper is tighten into final position. This sets the inner pad as close to the disc as possible and usually takes care of the noise:

Yamato72

Oh that's handy, thank you.

I just successfully re-tensioned the spokes and re-trued the rear wheel on my half-bike last week and that gave me the confidence to finally try straightening these disc rotors. Each rotor has one "blip" which has made it frustrating to get the pads adjusted right.

We did a metric century last weekend on the tandem and it went quite well. Stoker and captain are really enjoying the experience. We practiced some standing on the climbs but I'm not sure I will ever be satisfied with standing while OOP. We may try some IP riding to see if there are compromises to be made.

FYI team age is 88, we don't have much for hills around here but on our 4-day yearly bike tour there is a short climb of 18% and I would like to be able to tackle it on the tandem. I'm not sure we have the gearing (lowest is 30-30) but assuming we have the gearing and the fitness, I'd hate for technique to prevent us from making the climb.

I weighed the bike yesterday and from a starting weight of approx 37.5lbs, we have changed to CF seatposts and handlebars and a lightweight stoker saddle. We have added 4 bottle cages and the necessary mounts for phone, computer, and stoker's BT speaker, and the bike now weighs just under 38lbs. A lightweight captain's saddle is going on soon and I also expect to drop a few grams by using the cable stops and deleting some of the rear brake housing. The cheap SPD pedals are getting old and I'll replace them with something lighter. I do plan on doing CF wheels and fork still, so I think I can get this L/S frame down into the sub-35lb range.