Tandem Questions-Mimi, Veronica??

[mimitabby]

Emily,
I hear you on the expense!
My husband has grown by leaps and bounds bike wise and he says a lot of it is because captaining the tandem has made him a much stronger rider.

So not everyone has problems because they're captaining.

[singletrackmind]

We've only had tandems for a couple of years now. The first is a trek doubletrack we got on ebay that is too small for me in the back. I don't care what they say, fit matters back there too! It's steel and I can feel it flex as we ride. The hubby says the flex doesn't bother him at all. He's currently using it to tandem with his daughter who loves it....and does not like biking on a single at all. It's not a bad bike, especially for the price.

My tandem is a 2006 aluminum cannondale mtb found on sale, bought for my son and myself, or sometimes the hubby and I with the kiddo in the trailer. I fit both front and back (yay!) and we do singletrack and road riding with it. I like its stiffness and feel, the hubby says "too stiff!". My son LOVES it. The handlebars are hugely wide, but that can be fixed if I ever get around to it.

Being a typical first born I was surprised to find I don't mind my husband as captain at all. Our cadence is a compromise between his fast and my slow one, as long as we communicate it works well. Ha ha, talk about communication....he's STUCK there, listening to me blah blah blah (drink) blah blah blah. No matter how fast he goes he can't get away...

My son as stoker is great too. I love to be able to hear his stories, songs, questions, comments.

Neither of our bikes are as fast as some of the nicer road tandems, but they work pretty good for us (and I can mountain bike again!).

Da Vinci is the tandem maker with independent drive (one can coast while the other pedals). You still have the same cadence when pedaling, though. They also, like others, offer coupled bikes.

There's used tandems all over. It's finding the one you want with the features you need that's the tricky part. A lot of research helps.

[Veronica]

We have a Santana Arriva with S&S couplers. It's aluminium. We loved it when we first got it. We took it to Hawaii and did a circumnavigation. But it really doesn't fit either of us very well. We'll be selling it. The new tandem is coming, hopefully the end of August.

V.

[emily_in_nc]

Just to add a bit about frame materials to my postings....

Our steel tandems were great, no issues at all.

When we were looking for a go-fast, light tandem, we test rode a Calfee carbon that we thought we would love (scared we would love was more like it, because of the high dollars!), but we hated it. It was very squirrely and noodly, just not stiff enough at all, and we were a light team (DH around 160 and I around 115 at that time, we're both lighter now!) We test rode some steel Santanas, and they were fine, but when we test rode the Team AL (aluminum Santana, and the lightest bike they made at the time), we LOVED the stiffness. I don't like aluminum on a single bike, but on a tandem, it felt very reassuring not to feel any flex at all -- all the power we delivered to the pedals was transferred to the bike. I had a suspension seatpost, so any discomfort was eliminated that way.

So, materials you love in a single (like, say, carbon), may not be as desirable on a tandem, and vice versa. The longer the bike, the stiffer it needs to be, in my opinion.

Emily

[Triskeliongirl]

We have a Santana Arriva with S&S couplers. It's aluminium. We loved it when we first got it. We took it to Hawaii and did a circumnavigation. But it really doesn't fit either of us very well. We'll be selling it. The new tandem is coming, hopefully the end of August.

V.

I didn't know you could build an aluminum bike with s/s couplers. If you are going to be selling it, please PM me the size specs.