Tandem Bike

I picked up a tandem bicycle today, a Trek T900. This is the second tandem I've owned. The first was an el cheapo "North Woods" tandem that we ordered out of The Sharper Image Catalog back in the late 90s for my wife and I to ride. I learned that with bicycles, you get what you pay for. It was a piece of junk and I swore off tandems forever, or so I thought.

With my daughter now completely outgrown her 20" bike, but still not able to ride independently (she doesn't conceptualize brakes and spends too much time fixated on watching the spinning cranks), I didn't have too many options. I had been using a Gator Bar to hook her 20" bike up to one of my retired mountain bikes, but that was dicey and unstable. Trying to do it with a larger bike would be a lot tougher. So, I went back to looking at tandems. I was pricing used ones, and I found for a few hundred more, I could get a brand new one. Everything about the T900 is far superior to the first tandem. It's lighter, better components and a more solid bike.

The one thing I can't get over is the size. The wheelbase of the bike is nearly 70 inches -- just 10 inches shorter than the wheelbase of the Sprite. I had to juggle the bikes around to make a parking spot for it. Right now, I've got 9 bikes in the garage, but my daughter's old bike is going to a new home, and I'm trying to convince the people who are taking that bike to take the bike I built for my father, who decided against riding a year later, with them.

Maiden voyage of the tandem is set for Friday for just a romp through the neighborhood. If that works, we'll try some of hiker/biker trails nearby or the C&O Canal.

I have five Trek bikes (for a family of three - go figure) in my garage. For the price they are hard to beat.

Sounds like fun! And I've never heard a bad word about Trek.

My wife and I started talking about a tandem when we first got married, I wanted to hold out for a Pogliaghi ($$$) or equivalent. Oddly, all these years later, we insisted on a tandem for our kayak, but still prefer singles for our bikes. Go figure.[h=3][/h]

Lovely and I are looking at buying an adult tandem tricycle. She has MS so her balance is not very good so bike riding is difficult, walking any distance is a problem for her also.

The dorm I lived in at OK state had an old Schwinn tandem in one of the downstairs lounges. I had a little fun taking girls for rides in it.

Where I live there is not huge support for biking, Lawton only has one fairly small bike shop. It has gotten difficult to find good 27" tires for my old Schwinn Varsity and so last year I bought new (to me) aluminum wheels in 700 for it and a seven speed derailer, by the time I had a set of tires and tubes I had spent $100 to upgrade my 45 year old bike, that I had bought for $5 at a garage sale in the early 90s. I don't care though, because the bike rides great, and with the puncture proof tubes and tires I don't spend all my time fixing flats (we have a bunch of goat heads where I live now).

Man I hated those goat heads as a kid. Spent more time fixing flats than riding my bike it seemed.

Once upon a time we'd hoped to get a tandem.

The problem was that she wanted to be captain with me as stoker. I'm fine with that but she's a lot shorter than me and tandems are always built for the taller rider to be up front.

We talked to custom tandem builder Keith Lippy about making one for us. He said he could do it but we wouldn't like it. There'd be too much compromise in handling and weight.

So we continue to roll on individual bikes.

I just looked up the bike T900, nice looking bike. I'm down to a single speed Dahon folder. Someone swiped my 60's Raleigh 3 speed which was set up nice. Sold a Raleigh Pro that I couldn't comfortably ride anymore to finance a Brompton but my wife's sticker shock was catching so looking for another older 3 speed.

While I only have one LBC, I do have a garage full of bikes. It was my tinkering with the bikes that gave me the confidence to make the leap to a car (by way of airplanes). Besides the T900 Here's my current collection:

1998 Klein Pulse Comp - this was the first serious mountain bike I owned. It's since been put out to pasture and currently sports slick tires as my commuter/trailer tug/bad weather/night riding bike

2001 Trek 8500 - I built this one from the frame up as a rigid singlespeed. It's the lightest of my mountain bikes, virtually bulletproof drivetrain, but it will knock your fillings loose.

2004 Fuji Professional - this is my road bike. I bought it used in 2008 and it's been my "go to" bike more often than any other bike

2009 Trek 6500 - When I first started volunteering with the Park Police, I was using the Klein as my patrol bike. Once I learned its shortcomings, I purchased a new bike that would address them all. Essentially, this is a civilianized Trek Police Bike

2012 Felt Nine Sport - This is my current mountain bike that I beat the living tar out of on the various trail systems near my house. It sports the 29 inch wheels, which makes it feel like the monster truck of bikes.

1998 Mongoose Maneuver - This bike was a spare bike that I bought for $75. It was my first attempt at a singlespeed, but the frame was too small for me. I later rebuilt it as a 1 x 8 for my wife to ride

I also owned a 2005 Trek Fuel 70 that I recently gave away. I just wasn't riding it and the front fork (which I upgraded) was toast. I really don't need full suspension where I ride, although I imagine when age starts catching up with me, I'm going to have to give up the hardtails for the squishy bikes.

I've restored a handful of older Schwinns of late 70s and 80s vintages. Very heavy, but very well built and engineered for the time. You practically have to roll over them with a steamroller to kill these bikes.

Maybe this is the direction I should go with my wife. We have individual bikes, but she's not all that interested in riding (though she is active in many other ways....he helps run a ladies exercise class).

By the way, I am very good friends with Bob Girvin, who invented the Girvin Bicycle Fork (Bob sold the company some time ago and spends his time vintage racing.....he always rides a bike around the paddock).

My wife and I have mountain bikes (if you saw the terrain around here you would know why). A tandem would not work for us in this area, but would be fun if we lived in a flatter area. The mountain bikes are fun - lots of trails around here.

Ya' never know until you try.

Here in suburbia all the flatland is asphalted, strip-malled and condo'ed. The wild lands and trails are almost all up and down.

We used to have a couple around here with a mountain tandem that we would always see out on the trail in the darndest places.

We were always amazed. (And just a little bit jealous.)

I've seen a mountain tandem out on the trails maybe once -- most of the trails are too twisty for a tandem. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a guy who rides his unicycle on the trails, and he has some very, very, very impressive skills.

The toughest part of riding tandem with the Mrs. was that her pedal cadence was not very fluid, so a lot of times, I was fighting her to keep a smooth cadence. She also had a really bad habit of going completely rigid, including locking her legs on the pedals, anytime she perceived that we were in a dangerous situation. Of course, what she perceived as dangerous and what I perceived as dangerous were two different things, and when we were in a situation that needed me to be able to pedal out, I'd have to mash the pedal to get her to loosen up.

What I've only seen in pictures is track tandem tricycle racing. I cannot even begin to imagine competing...:single_eye:

SaxMan said:

While I only have one LBC, I do have a garage full of bikes.

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Quite a collection. I think my newest might be older than your oldest:
1958 Drysdale (STEEL cotterless cranks? How odd)
1961 Gitane Grand Sport (misc French bits)
1974 Proteus (frame built to my specs, strange-looking)
1974 Zeus track (one inch pitch, clank-clank-clank)
1980 Palo Alto (eBay bargain, mostly Campagnolo)
1976 Windsor Pro (spouse-bike)

I think the oldest bike I've worked on was a mid-70s Italian bike (the manufacturer name escapes me, but it was a low-end model). I'd would love to restore a Penny Farthing and give one of those a whirl just to see if I could ride it without killing myself.

My biggest project was restoring a 1998 Giant Lafree Electric Bike. It is quite possibly the oldest one extant in North America and may be the third oldest anywhere in the world. Most of the onboard circuitry was shot, so I had to invent a far simpler wiring harness for it.

I took my daughter out Saturday morning. For the first ten minutes she said absolutely nothing, although I could see her cranking her head around and trying to lean to the left to see what was going on in front of me. When I finally got her to speak, all she said was "ohhhhhhhhhhh". Eventually, she started figuring it out, and would start voicing her displeasure if I went in a direction that she didn't want to go (much like she does in the Sprite).

The bike itself rode well. I found it infinitely better than the tandem I owned years ago. It was very stable at any speed over a near trackstand and the drivetrain shifted smoothly. I'm not crazy about the modulation of the brakes -- they are trying to make rim brakes feel like disc brakes, and it just doesn't to it for me. I want my rim brakes to feel like rim brakes. I set very close tolerances for the brakes, I like being able to engage them with only a fingertip, and this bike doesn't seem to be able to do that. I also need to lower the handlebars and move them a bit further forward.

Overall, though, a good first ride and hopefully the first of many rides this summer.

I haven't added a tandem to fleet yet, mainly due to no room. I grew up at my fathers Schwinn store, so I've always had a desire to get an old Schwinn tandem. But with a one car garage, with a Bugeye, 3 road bikes, 2 mountain bikes, 2 commuter "townie" bikes, and 4 more in my back shed, I'm all out of room. My oldest which is on display at my work is an 1896 Cresent ladies bike in original condition. My newer bikes are my mountain bike, the Specialized Camber Expert Evo and my roadie the Specialized Allez Comp Race.