uspspro

So everyone knows the story about the mismatched shift levers...

I just could not get the Veloce front shifter work properly with the new crankset/BBs. Chainline is good, just seems the spacing is off. I chalked it up to the new Veloce "escape mechanism" just being too inflexible for the new setup (it worked fine with the old cranks). So, I yanked the 07 Chorus lever off of my single bike, and put it on the tandem. I guess I will upgrade the levers to Chorus...

Anyway... Mt Hamilton was in this years Tour of CA. We rode up the front side (which is what most people do). The Tour of CA descended the front side. The mountina begins at a mere 200 ft above sea level, and rises to 4200 feet over 19 miles.

Here's someone else's Garimin data from the same ride.



So anyway here are my pics (two posts).

The beast (notice the mismatched Chorus/Veloce levers )


Stop before the last climb... Pics of Ruth and I..









New cranks



Hubs/cranks/bling

uspspro

Continued...

At the TOP!!!









Another Mountain Slain...

andydreisch

Yeah, the mismatched Chorus/Veloce jumped right out to me ... NOT!!!

My wife and I climbed Mt Ham a couple months ago. (Story here.) We'll ride it a few more times this year, no doubt. I love it as an effort, but it's not so good as a destination. For this we tend to go over to Santa Cruz.

Anyway, how was the descent?

Andy

uspspro

Yes. Hamilton is about climbing it, completing it, and gawking at the switchbacks you just climbed from above. Not that great of a destination is true. It especially sucked as a destination this time, since the observatory was already closed (we got a late start).

The descent was fine. I rode the tail of a pair of motorcycles, calling out as many bumps as I could. I took the clean lines on the turns with gravel, and the smooth lines where there was not. We ended up catching a slow poke in a car, but luckily it was right before the first climb after the little bridge.

It was a little chilly on the early part of the descent. However, I climbed and descended Hamilton last December when it was 29 degrees at the summit. The beginning of that descent, was the coldest I had even been on a bike. So every time I feel cold from now on, I say HTFU. Unfortunately that doesn't work for the stoker. So I comforted her by telling her it would be warmer in a few minutes (which it was).

The cantilevers with Kool Stops and DaVinci brake boosters worked pretty well. Again (to the non-locals) this is a 19 mile descent of 4000+ feet. I was pleased with their performance, however I was getting a good amount of noise from the rear one. I may have to re-adjust the toe. The noise was pretty annoying, but functionally they were great.

sweetnsourbkr

Lookin' tite!

uspspro

Thanks David.

I just got some Campy crank bolts to replace those generic black ones I had.

Smooooth

Great job!! Look forward to doing that one... Probably up the back side from Pleasanton.

sweetnsourbkr

We need to get together and do a photoshoot. Co-Motion wants pics of us for their website.

t4mv

Great job, Marco and Ruth! My son and I took on Hamilton w/ the main group and pretty much got spit out the back. John (Bigbossman) was nice enough to keep us company slogging up to the summit. This venue is not a great one on a tandem, but the descent is definitely worth the price of admission. 'Sorry we didn't say a whole lot when we passed, but we were more interested in getting back to someplace with food, such is the peril of riding with a growing teenager...

I'm thinking of organizing a flattish, laid back ride out in Yolo County (Davis) at the end of June, so perhaps a few of us in this forum can get together and trade tandem war stories. Keep an eye out for it in the "other" forum.

Thigh Master

Thank you for this old post taking me down memory lane. Here we were at the top in 2009. My wife grew up just down the block from Alum Rock Avenue. We had several nice loops over the top and around via Livermore…