Travel tandem

Ryan approached me asking if I would consider building a lightweight, packable road tandem for him and his wife Amy. Having done recumbent tandems previously, I figured an upright one would be relatively easy! There were a lot of ideas and concepts floated about before we settled on the final design:

• Oversize headtube for tapered steerer fork.
• Sloping toptube to maximise stoker seatpost extension – with a titanium seatpost for additional comfort.
• 1.5″ titanium mid-tubes (if required the frame stiffness can be fine tuned by changing the wall thickness/material of these tubes).
• Rear drum brake with stoker seattube mounted control lever.
• 3×10 gearing with ‘SRAMpagnolo’ shifting.
• Fender mounts on the rear.
• Double binders on all midtube sockets for definite security.
• Packs into two cases for minimal dis-assembly and ease of fit.

The finished bike comes in under 29lbs without the drum brake, and Ryan and Amy were both very pleased with the initial test ride – they have promised a fuller report in due course!

We made it out on a couple of more rides with the tandem while we were in the US.  It is sooooo smooooth!!!!   Amy is loving the ride!  I no longer have to call out every little bump in the road.  In fact, I stopped calling out any bumps just to see what would happen.  Amy never squawked once.  I now only have to call out major bumps.  Amy said a bump that would have felt like “it was cutting me in two” on the C’dale with a suspension seatpost now is “somewhat uncomfortable” on the English.  Mission accomplished!

As we discussed, I was worried that the tandem would be really noodley with the long stoker compartment and titanium mid-tubes.  We did some hard efforts on a couple of hills, and I am happy to report that we didn’t notice any unwanted flex.  I’ll keep paying close attention and will swap out the bottom mid-tube with a heavy walled SS one at some point just to see what difference it makes.  For now, I think that I was worried unnecessarily.

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