MikeAndJean

We have ridden Ritchey’s earlier breakaway tandem frame for 18 months and find it to be an excellent bike. His new frame addresses the one complaint we had by including a mounting points for a rear rack. I also like the new color scheme.

Loosing a front wheel would be a big deal but I don’t believe it is possible as long as you don’t file down the “lawyer lips” on the front drop outs. At least we have not had any problems even with oversized rotors and a lot of fast descents.

reburns

It looks like a cool bike. I like the way it looks and I bet it rides and handles great. The one size only approach would have me concerned, though. The captain’s stand over height is close to 2" taller than my medium sized tandems. For me, holding the bike in a wide stance while the stoker mounts might be kind of sketchy, unless maybe I’d just jumped out of a really cold shower.

samkl 

Thanks for the insights on the disc brakes. Still thinking about this but it's hard because you can't test ride it (especially now).

Anyone have a sense of how this bike handles compared to, say, a late 80s Burley Duet?

Joint Venture

We started riding a tandem on a new Burley Duet in 1990. Now I have fond memories of that bike that we rode for 9 years before upgrading to better tandems ... however, that bike had the original Burley “woven truss” frame design and boy was it laterally flexy!! When pedaling hard, I could see my bottom bracket swaying from side to side and any movement by the stoker would steer the bike from the rear. I didn’t realize how bad those early Burley frames were until we got better tandems that were rock solid and super stable. I’d have to believe any quality current tandem would be a much nicer ride than a late 80’s/early 90’s Duet. Burley did switch to a more conventional frame construction later in the 90’s and those bikes were nice!

DangerousDanR

I have never ridden a Burley so I can't comment on how well they handle. My wife and I have 5 years and maybe 10,000 miles with a Ritchey Breakaway tandem, so I feel that I can speak about that.

We have ridden everything from steep Scottish Highland roads to the flats of Manitoba. Some good roads, some rough roads, and a few times we have ridden single track dirt trails, either because they were the only way to get where we were going, or because Google Maps put us there when a good route existed and I hadn't scouted the area on GM so I didn't know any other way to go..

I have had different gear sets on there, but the top peddling speed has always been around 30 MPH, which is fine for two people in their 60's on a loaded touring tandem. I am running Spinergy Tandem wheels from House of Tandems,

I would not describe it as "nimble", but it can be ridden on single track off road trails with a bit of effort and a stoker who doesn't panic. It is very stable at the highest speeds I have ever seen (45 MPH down a steep hill with a good stiff breeze pushing us towards our destination). I can feel major motion by my stoker, but certainly not anything close to "steering" the bike from back there. I can't say that I have ever felt that the boom tube between the two bottom brackets was flexing under load. All in all, it has been a joy to own.

Tires made a big difference. Originally I had Schwalbe Marathon Supreme on the bike, and they felt very good. Stable at speed with decent traction. I switched to the Schwalbe Almotion and the bike lost the crisp handling. The back end seemed to slip a bit in fast sweeping turns.

I have really liked the performance of the GP5000 on my solo road bike, so I switched to a set of 32 mm GP5000s. My wife really noticed the difference between the Almotion (which are very good tires for their intended purpose) and the GP5000 tires on there now. No more back end slip noticed.

Ashun

i just put together the older model few months ago and at the end, I ended up cold setting the rear from 135mm to 145mm so I could get a wheelset quicker and with more selection at lower price points (end up getting it from velocity). I was surprised the new model did not come with Thru Axle...not sure exactly why they decided to stay with QR...the breakaway has been great since we can easily transport the tandem and on avg just takes us 5-10 mins for each assembly. (we have etap red so it makes it even easier, just tightening a few couplers on the frames, one coupler for the rear brake cable and off we go).

samkl 

How do you like the bike, and how are the Velocity wheels? I've been looking at those as I daydream about a build for this bike...