Kent Eriken Tandem
 

Good morning
Has anyone ridden Kent Eriken's titanium tandem. It features 2" tubing with no lateral support (like the calfees & paketas)
He wins best handmake tandem consistently, comes on the phone to talk to you for as long as you'd like & seems like he wants to build you a great bike.
It is however quite expensive (even by expensive tandem standards) & titanium often gets a bad rap for tandem use.
I wish I could find out more about it from people who own one. He offered me to come & see it, but going to Colorado for the day is not something I can do right now.
Any experience with Kent or titanium tandems in general.
Thanks

Both the builders you mention make great bikes. It may be helpful if you gave some indication of what sort of use it will get and what your expectations are? Bit of a difference if you are touring the world, a strong team into serious racing, or an elderly couple of moderate fitness who would just like a nice bike etc etc. What tandem do you ride at the moment?

About a decade ago a tandem cycling friend who's probably even a bigger bike-geek than I am (ie., he was a licensed racer who made a living as a pro mechanic while going through college and grad school) were talking about high-end tandems and what we thought we be about the ideal tandem. We both agreed that the perfect tandem would be a Titanium tandem co-designed by Kent Eriksen and Glenn Erickson and fabricated by Moots. About 8 years later imagine our surprise when after leaving Moots, Kent Eriksen and Glenn Erickson collaborated on some Erickson-branded Ti singles and one or two tandems fabricated by Kent. I spoke with Kent & Katie about doing one of those frames and ALMOST pulled the trigger. However, with three tandems at the house -- one of which was the Calfee -- the cost was a bit more than I could justify.

However, to this day, a Titanium Eriksen tandem remains very high on my post-Lottery winning bucket list.

What's I'd recommended is asking Kent & Katie if they could put you in contact with some of their clients who have had Ti tandems made. There are only a handful, but they include both road and off-road models. I'm pretty sure their clients would be candid about their buying experience and their impression of the tandem.

I saw one of these at the NAHBS in Indy a few years back. It was beautiful.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7182/6...923138eb_z.jpg

So I decided to contact him about building a non-tandem road bike for me. My brother had just gone through a similar process getting a custom Kish Fabrications bike, so I kinda knew what to expect.

What I didn't know is that he basically wanted me to tell him the exact geometry that I wanted. As an avid mountain biker, I didn't know much about road geometry. I provided him with all the details I had been given from getting a custom bike fit a month prior. He eventually asked me if there was a road bike that I liked the ride of so he could just copy that geometry. I found this odd and off-putting.

I guess what I expected for the price was to utilize some of his expertise to build a perfect bike for me based on MY geometry. Lots of people can weld together a nice frame from nice tubes, give it a pretty finish, and bolt on great parts. But I wanted someone to help me get the perfect ride/fit for me.

In the end, I decided against going custom and tested as many road bikes as I could. I finally ended up with the Roubaix and have been very happy with my decision.

I'm not saying that Kent Eriksen doesn't build an excellent bike, but from my experience I would have liked something more 'custom' for the money.

From my perspective I think he takes the correct approach. To me Geometry should be dictated by handling desires, intended use and bike fit. Is spite of a lot of hype most if not all builders are builders and not expert bike fitters. They also might have differing ideas about how a bike should handle.

Should you have the desire to buy a custom bike in the future, there are many custom builders with strong opinions on bike design and they will customize the geometry for you and recommend a perfect frame without seeing you ride, asking about your wattage output or seeing you in person. They inspire confidence in the buyer so that is part of the package.

I agree, and those would have been great questions for a builder to ask. But when asked to provide the angles and lengths of the tubes for the frame, I guess I was just in over my head.