swiss_toni

***
There has been a recall on the fork for this bike and other 2014 cannondale tandems - make sure to check your bike has the new fork fitted. See recall info here
***

The new 2014 Cannondale Road Tandem 2 is now in the shops. We bought one a couple of weeks ago and have been out for a couple of rides on it.

I have posted some pictures and info here

The pre-speculation about the new Cannondale tandems can be found in the "New Cannondales Coming" thread.

There were a couple of questions about the bike on that thread.

1. Weight: I haven't been able to weigh it yet
2. Largest tyre: It came with 25mm 700c tyres. There is a good amount of clearance on the fork so you could fit bigger if needed. Have a look at the pictures (I took some with a tape measure to help)
3. Rack fitting: Not sure - have a look at the pictures as I am not sure if the fittings are for a rack or a mudguard.

svwtandem

Beautiful Bike.

jnbrown

Thanks for the nice pics.
Interesting how low the top tube is relative to head tube.
Looks like you could easily mount a rack on that with existing mount points.
Cannondales are known for being super stiff resulting in a harsh ride and I don't see a shock post on yours.
Would be nice to know how you find it rides.
Beautiful scenery, your are lucky to live in Switzerland.

ironhanglider

Are the rims really only rated to 80psi? (5 bar) Or did I misread the label?

Cheers,

Cameron

swiss_toni

You read it right - I hadn't really payed any attention as I only think in psi. We are running our tyres at 100 psi and that is the pressure they were at when we picked them up. The 5 bar (72psi according to google) limit seems very low for a race bike though!

update: I have had a look on the DT Swiss website and if you look at the DT Swiss 535 700c ebike rim (closest I could find to the tandem rim on their site) and look at the "Techn. specification Rims Road Trekking EBike (PDF, 118 KB)" document in the support tab there is a ** by the Max pressure stating "or like posted on the tire".

so according to them the max pressure is the one from the tyre not the rim. If this counts for pressures above the rim rating as well as below I am not sure

cderalow

curious that it's got canti stud mounts and a cable stop for running the derailleur in top pull mode.

do they use the same frame for the 29er version as well?

swiss_toni

Sorry. I haven't seen the 29er frames so I don't know.

swiss_toni

The low top tube makes it super easy to get on and off. It is the smallest frame so I don't know if it is different for the other sizes.

We are both happy with the ride so far. We did a 100km ride at the weekend with 1300m of climbing and descending and I finished the ride without any aches or pains. My stoker didn't have any problems either comfort wise (I think good cycling shorts are key here). Climbing it felt super stiff with no flex and descending it seemed nicely planted on the road with no handling surprises. I have told the stoker that we can get a thud buster if she wants one but for know she has said she is OK as it is.

She did mention that she felt the bumps more than on our Ventana EcdM though :-)

mstyer

I'm pretty sure that the cable stop on the back of the stoker seattube is for rear linear pull brakes. Cannondale routes all of their cables along the downtube.

Ritterview

The first thing to do is get 28 mm tires, such as the Schwalbe One. Then check to see how it rides.

Edit:

Not only 25 mm, Gatorskins at that. You've got a lot of riding comfort to gain by switching to the lower pressure, more voluminous and supple 28 mm Schwalbe One's.

myqlj

It's very similar to our 2010 RT2, although the fork appears different. The 2010 came with their "Fatty" fork, which appears more tubular, although with similar clearances. I've even considered mounting 2" knobbies and taking it off-road.

It appears to be the same frame configuration as our Med/Sm frame, with the top tube attached to the diagonal, allowing for a smaller head height, which may compensate for the large fork and clearance.

The cantilever bosses, as shown, should allow us to add aux brakes if we need them for descending. And yes, it has mounting points at the top of the seat stays and on the dropouts for a rack. The Axiom Transit rack fit perfectly with no mods necessary, except a little flexing of the legs.

We're currently running Gatorskin 28s at 90-95 lbs, and have little to complain about ride harshness, although we haven't ridden enough other bikes to compare. Just calling out the bumps as I see them. And so far, their bulletproof.

Mike

Dean V

Are these new C'dale frames very different from the previous USA ones? Apart from the head tube and fork they look the same, but I haven't seen one in reality to compare properly.

Chris_W

Nice looking bike.

BTW, I wouldn't say that these bikes are "in the shops" - the one that our shop has ordered (also located in Switzerland) is not expected to arrive for several more months. When I mentioned your posts to our Cannondale rep' last week and asked him if he knew of tandems already being delivered in Switzerland, he seemed quite surprised and almost didn't believe it.

Also, thanks for letting me play the game of "guess where the photo of Swiss scenery was taken". I had it narrowed down to 3 lakes, but thought that Sihl See was the most likely given that there is still snow down to the shore and there are no other large enough lakes at that altitude. Clicking on the picture took me to the full images, which included the location in the caption, so I was very pleased with myself.

Chris_W

One more thing, if you want to improve your front shifting then either switch the 105 front derailleur for an Ultegra 6703 or 6603, or switch the big ring for a 50 tooth. This is a problem with every Shimano 105 triple equipped bike that Cannondale have sold for the past several years. They insist on using FSA cranks on them all, which all have 52-39-30 rings. The 105 triple FD is designed for 50-39-30 rings, so the larger outer ring (52 tooth instead of 50 tooth) means that you have to mount the FD higher than it is intended to be for the other rings (by about 4-5mm). This then makes the downshifting from the 39 tooth middle to the inner ring a bit sluggish because the wrong part of the outer cage is pushing the chain. If you get it dialed in JUST RIGHT (i.e., the FD height, angle, cable, and inner stop positions) then it works OK, but never as well as Shimano intended.

I've told the Cannondale guys about this many times and they still don't listen to me. Cannondale are obsessed with "System Integration" when it comes to their frames and their own bizarre standards, but they ignore such important aspects of Shimano's integrated groupset design.

If I were you, I'd ask the shop to change the FD to an Ultegra for no more than the difference in retail price between the two units. This should be Cannondale's problem, not yours.

Ritterview

The difference between the Cannondale, and say, a Co-Motion, is that the latter looks like it was equipped by people that know what works best on tandems.

• 25 mm instead of 28 mm tires.
• Aluminum, not carbon fork.
• Dual disc, without front caliper option.
• 105 FD meant for 50t chainring.
• Avid BB7's, instead of dual piston TRP Spyres.
• No option for suspension stoker seatpost.

I imagine the frame is pretty good, and in the end it would be cheaper to just to build it up from a frame with the right parts, rather than having to change out half the components.

swiss_toni

I don't have a USA one handy to do the direct comparison but the main difference from what I remember of the US version is that the new one is more "square". Basically the tubing is much more rectangular/cubic in shape (especially the bottom tube which is almost completely rectangular in profile). The fork is also more rectangular as well. When we go out riding with friends who have the US version I'll try and get some pictures of both together

swiss_toni

We got the bike in Germany - a shop just outside of Basel. When I was initially looking at getting one in September 2013 a local Zurich dealer said they could order me one for delivery in October. When I went back to them in February 2014 to try and order one they said that as I had missed the first delivery I would have to wait till July for the next delivery. I checked the other Zurich dealers and they all said the same thing (they rang round for me but no one else had stock either). I then started looking further afield in France and Germany. The German store I found said if I ordered it I could have it within the week - which is what happened. Would have preferred to have got it from a local dealer but wasn't prepared to wait 5 months

No problems. Sattelegg is the first pass I ever rode in Switzerland and was ideal for our first pass attempt on the tandem. You get a nice flat warm up ride along the lake from Zurich and there is also a good restaurant at the top for some pasta and an Apelsaft!

Thanks for the tip. The shifting on our second ride was a bit poor but I put it down to stretching gear cables. I will look at getting the Ultegra front derailleur.

swiss_toni

We got the bike for racing in triathlons and climbing passes so are happy with the tyres it came with. I really like the fact that the bike handles similarly to my single racer - although compared to that the Cannondale tyres feel much more supple. As I said we did 100km and didn't have any riding comfort issues.

If we were to do a multi day tour I would definitely look at getting bigger tyres though. Thanks for the tip on the Schwalbe Ones.

Chris_W

That's odd because distribution for this part of Europe is all centralized, coming out of Cannondale's depot in Rotterdam, where the bikes get unloaded from the boats coming in from Asia. The UK has different availability, as does some of southern Europe (e.g., Spain and Italy), but the three countries that you mentioned, France, Germany, and Switzerland, should all be ordering through the same channel and have the same delays. Anyway, I'm happy that the German store was able to sort something out for you, and that explains why our Cannondale rep' wasn't aware of any tandem being delivered in Switzerland yet.

I definitely agree that Sattelegg is a fun climb. It was also our first climb in that part of the country because the friends that we have in that region also like it a lot and took us there (but this was several years ago, before we had our tandem, so we've never done it with that). It seems that not many cyclists in the area bother to keep going up that valley past the Sattelegg turn-off to ride up to and around Wagitalersee - definitely give that a try if you haven't already because it's absolutely beautiful and a really quiet road because it's a dead-end valley (or at least it was when we did it in mid-June a couple of years ago).

vrooom3440

Hmm. Methinks it depends on price point more than brand since I have a Co-Motion that came with Avid BB7's and a 52t chainring with 105 FD. But thanks for the pointer... I was unhappy trying to get the front shifting re-adjusted after the crank swap and now I understand better why. Now I need to upgrade the FD too.

WPH

Toni I would give my brother's right leg (TRH won't mind) to have a new tandem, Swiss roads and scenery and the time and ability to ride 100km! So much engineering in the C'dale frame compared to my old bike. I hope it serves you well.

Ralf Gathmann

@Swiss Toni.
DId you get the Cannondale at Bike Supply in Weil am Rhein ? Ist this a good shop ? We would like to get one quickly also.
Regards
Ralf (France)

swiss_toni

Yes that is the shop we got it from (BIKE-SUPPLY.DE Onlineshop für Fahrrad Mountainbikes Trekkingrad Rennrad.

We ordered the bike via email. We dealt with a guy called Patric who seemed very knowledgeable about Cannondale. He has only sold a couple of Tandems before so is not a Tandem expert.

We picked our bike up on a Saturday. The shop was very busy so we had to wait a while to be served. Once we were served they were very helpful with fitting pedals, bottle cages and other parts we wanted adding. I would definitely recommend them as a shop.

Say hello to Patric for us if you do get one from there.

Neru

I realize that this discussion has gone to sleep a while ago, but I came across it as I was looking for info on the DT 535 tire pressure (I just had a Cannondale road tandem delivered, and was pretty surprised by the low maximum pressure).

A few years ago, I shifted from ordinary wide mtb tires to narrower Continental SportContact 26x1.6. These basically resemble wide racing bike tires for mtb's. My Mavic X317 rims stated a maximum pressure of 7.7 bars for 1" tires and 3.3 bars for 2.3" tires. Inflating the 26x1.6 tires to 5-6 bars was apparently well beyond this limit, as it eventually led the rim walls to bend outwards (yes, it was a bad idea to check only the recommended tire pressure and ignore the rims).

It may therefore generally be a bad idea to exceed recommended rim pressure, but the limit should be seen in relation to the tire attached. A 35 mm tire will generate more rim wall stress at 5 bar than a 25 mm tire, but it will also give better suspension at a given pressure. I find it hard to believe that the apparently solid DT 535 rims will have trouble handling 25 mm tires inflated closer to 7 bars, and as the technical document you supplied indicate that they are intended for 1"-2.35" tires, I assume it will be safe to inflate mine at least to 7 bars. Thanks for sharing!

swiss_toni

We have been riding ours with tyres at 100psi (7 bar) and so far no problem. I will check the rim walls every now and again as I didn't even think about the rim walls bending outwards at high pressure.

We just had our fork replaced under warranty due to the recall (see forum post here) so make sure to check that your bike has the new fork!

Enjoy your new bike - we are loving ours - just climbed our first proper mountain pass on it last weekend