Dean V

Anyone have any thoughts/opinions on why Cannondale uses such short seat tubes on their road tandem frames? It basically ends up like a mountain bike in that you have to use very long seat posts. Do any of the other builders do this?
Also does anyone know how their new 2009 frames compare to the previous ones for weight and performance? I was considering getting one. I have an Rt3000 at the moment and I like it but the frame is really too big for me (monstrous 60cm top tube).

TandemGeek

For certain models a stepped captain's top tube is used to provide the captain with additional standover clearance and it results in the shortened seat tubes. Santana uses a similar design on their smallest size frames, you'll find this design used on most of the "convertible" tandems that can be configured as a tandem/triplet/quad/quint, several of the full-suspension mountain tandem builders use this design and then of course there are some of the value-priced imports that have picked up on it.

It depends on which generation your RT3000 is? In general, they all have similar ride characteristics. In 1999 the CAAD design process was used to update the frame which yielded the aforementioned stepped top tube, very short rear stoker compartments (dumb idea) and a new rear drop-out design to accommodate discs. They've since messed around with the size offerings and did another geometry update last year that yielded longer stoker compartments.