Niobium Rocket

Our Team Niobium seem very light for a tandem. The first that I have owned. But is not as light as my Cervelo R3! But then again, not many solo riders can keep up with us on the flats of down hill sections. The added power without much wind resistance is wonderful. And with the removal of the front wheel, it slides in nicely to the back of our Ford Expedition. (Normally used to haul the horse trailer!) I have no complaints and the little wifey never gets dropped off the back of the riding group!

Ride on.

stapfam

But think of the speed you get on the flat when momentum gets up- and the speed downhills---Phew.

55 lbs all up weight- Cannondale MT 2000 in full offroad spec and the rear pannier for the sarnies- And the tools- And the spares.

barry.cohen

We're in the market for a light, fast bike and are seriously considering a Macchiato. I have some concerns re frame flex and stoker heel clearance. What's your experience.
We are serious, but strictly recreational (we do not race) riders.

jgg3

My recommendation is to try to ride one. I don't know the Macchiato, we have a Premia or something like that, but CoMotions are certainly nice to have. I have never heard of any issue with stoker heel clearance, don't know why you might be thinking of that.

brewer45

Yep. 1994 Burley Duet with cages, frame pump, trunk bag/rack = 50 pounds.

TG made this point in another thread, but the real issue for us is team weight and fitness. When we started riding frequently/seriously about a year ago, the team weight was about 355 (215/140) and 20 miles on the bike almost killed us both. Today we weigh in at about 310 (185/125), routinely ride 40+ miles, and are planning our first century.

TandemGeek

Have you been speaking with a Co-Motion dealer and/or someone at Co-Motion about the Macchiato who understands the design limits relative to your team's size and expectations for how the bike will perform given your intended use?

There are A LOT of tandems out there that can be configured as "lightweight & fast" for $8k in the Co-Motion line, and elsewhere. The Macchiato is a slick sled tailored for a very small niche of the tandem market.

TandemGeek

Macchiato's are custom-built-to-order as appropriate for each team's size and weight. Not sure there are too many out there that have been ordered on speculation... but I could be wrong.

As for heel clearance, the Macchiato uses VERY short chain stays and rear wheel spacing is per customer spec. For example, a 145mm rear-spaced Macchiato with a 203mm rotor would put the rear stays fairly close to the stoker's heels, depending on which cranks they are using. If the stoker has a tendency to ride with their toes out / heels in, it would only exacerbate the proximity issue. Frankly, I'm not sure why I'd spec a disc on a Macchiato given it's design objective, but you get the idea. As with any custom, all of the various factors need to be looked at before they start cutting tubes.

jjwintski

This year we have not been out on our road tandem yet.
I was wondering what our bike would weighed in at.

Road ready except water in bottles: 2003 Tsunami aluminum frame from internet store Chuck's Bikes, Shimano STI 27 spd, V-brakes with travel agents, cyclocross brake levers, Hugi hubs & Velocity Fusion wheels, 700 x 28 panaracer tires, Rear aluminum rack, (empty) Panniers, Trunk bag with a small assortment of stuff in it, rear fender, GPS holder, cyclocomputer, thats about it = 46.1 lbs.

We just love it!

TandemGeek

Our S&S equipped Tetra travel tandem is now sitting right at 30.45 lbs.

This is with an uber-lightweight wheelset, pedals, saddles, computers and water bottle cages. It's still sporting my portly saddle, the slightly heavier carbon wing bars and stoker pegs vs. cowhorns and/or non-wing bars. The 1,950 gram day-to-day wheelset puts it at 31.65 lbs. The under saddle seat pack and pump add about 1.5lbs.

Not too many other things that can be gram shaved without getting into the really obsessive compulsive $tuff at this point.

oldacura

TG: "I never actually took weight into consideration when making too many decisions because, in the back of my mind, I knew that shaving grams does not deliver a lot of bang for the buck, except for the aforementioned euphoria and placebo effect that can be derived from hopping on a lightweight steed... "

TG - how refreshing to hear someone confess that their obsession is "just because I want to" rather than for some rational, measurable effect. The good thing about bicycles is that compared to most other wheeled sports (especially those with motors), one can get the best of the best without completely breaking the bank. The other positive result of this obsession is that in the end, it should benefit both your health and your relationship.

Since you're willing to own up to your obsession, I'll confess that I'm too cheap to upgrade to a bike worth 2 - 3 times what ours is because I know that once the novelty wears off, we won't be significantly faster.

Speaking of placebos, I wonder if there is a parallel between bikes and drugs. A recent study found that expensive placebos work better than cheap ones.

oldacura

It just occurred to me that a more expensive (likely lighter) will make a team faster in two other ways:

1) You have a new shiny toy that you want to play with so you play with it more often and as a result, are stronger.

2) The Pygmalion effect: You think you are faster so you are.

dvs cycles

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.
I think the Arundel's I have on all my bikes are very pleasing to look at and hold the bottles much better than any of the metal cages I used for years while still being easy to get the bottle out.
Dave O's on the singles and Sideloaders on the tandem.
Haven't tried PLUCKING them yet.

TandemGeek

Absolutely... I just wanted a minimalist look that doesn't draw the eye away from the frame. The Profile Karbon Lite (19 grams on my postal scale without mounting hardware) was an unexpected find and at least on our first ride with them and using large 25 oz bottles, they actually worked quite well. In fact, Debbie was thrilled with her "cup holder" (yeah, we both laughed at that comment for a while) and found that it was actually much easier to use than the stainless cages we'd been using.

jgg3

I can't be sure, but it sounds like the cage resonates at the natural frequency of the frame. That would feel almost like amplification. Since the road probably doesn't do the same (a carefully constructed road could -- like washboards), the effect is like dampening. Very interesting story.

I never could stomach buying carbon cages to save maybe 10 grams over alloy ones (I am a weight weenie, but a poor weight weenie). But I want them. Just like I want lighter pedals, wheels, frame, ... What I absolutely won't do is buy a black plastic cage that merely looks like carbon.

dvs cycles

That does have good lines to it. Most important is do they retain the bottle?
I originally put Dave-O's on our Santana and because of the diagonal tube the bosses are mounted on it was tight and awkward getting bottle in and out.
Arundel had sideloaders at the time but they were mad for righthanded seat-tube mounts.
The position I needed was opposite. I contacted them and they advised me they were already
working on the "Other Side-loader" and would contact me when they were out and they did.
Good dealings with them though they are a little pricey.

Artmo 

Our Co-motion Primera weighs in at ~37lb with pedals, but what concerns me more than that is that I weigh 217lb (my stoker weighs 128lb). If I could lose 10-20lb from myself it would be much cheaper and more effective than shaving grams off the tandem.

mburchard

TandemGeek, I see you have quietly put a pair of Topolinos on your tandem, after concluding that standard high-spoke-count wheels were the way to go? How do you find them compared to the various other things you have tried?

TandemGeek

Hmmm. I think I foreshadowed my interest in exploring some of the other uber-wheels and, well, they do in fact have more spokes than the paired low-spoke count wheels on the market: I think the folks at Topolino refer to them as a "more reasonable number of spokes". Seriously, did anyone NOT see these coming after my write up on the Tandems East Expo and our time with Rafe Schlanger?

Anyway, it's still very early in the evaluation process, as they only arrived Monday and we've only ridden them once for about 30 miles on our normal loop + some testing with the front wheel on my single bike.

That said, the first impressions are actually quite promising: while they still aren't as robust as the 1,950 gram 36h conventional wheelset (I think we could ride those down a flight of stairs and suffer no ill effects) they are significantly more stable than the 1,830 gram 20/24 paired spoke count wheels we experimented with first. In fact, the first ride was more or less one of those "pinch me" things where I had to remind myself these wheels at 1,540 grams were 410 grams (nearly a pound) lighter than the conventional wheels without any significant degradation in stability or cornering performance.

I say significant only because I'm still trying to reconcile the different "feel" that the Topolino's deliver, both because of the significantly lighter weight... particularly in the front wheel (1280 grams vs. 1000 grams with tires/tubes/skewers)... and to a lesser extent the vibration dampening afforded by the carbon spokes.

Where I think Topolino gets it right for tandems is using 30 spokes on the rear wheels and spacing the spokes out using a more conventional spoking pattern. You'll recall I did one test with the paired-spoke / low spoke count wheels where I changed out the front wheel for a conventional wheel and (falsely) concluded the low spoke count wheels weren't the source of my early handling issues with our tandem. In other words, the front wheel wasn't the source of the instability, it was the rear wheel that was giving me trouble. Now, if you consider we could easily run a 32h conventional wheelset on our tandem at our combined team weight of 285lbs, and perhaps even 28's with deep section rims and the right spokes, making the stretch to 30h isn't a big jump SO LONG as you maintain a more uniform spoke pattern around the perimeter of the wheel. However, I do believe the paired-spoke/low spoke count wheels are more aero as nothing has replicated the effortless feeling the tandem had when cranking along on straight sections of road: they definitely get the nod for time trial applications, even with the less than stellar technical handling characteristics.

So, at least for now, I'm very encouraged by these wheels and look forward to putting a few hundred miles on and them jumping back to the conventional wheels to see how they compare. We're also still waiting for a set of White Industry / Deep-V wheels that will also use 36h spoking but with 2.0 / 1.8 DB spokes to throw into the mix.

In closing, so long as you leave cost out of the equation, the Topolino's seem like they've really come up with something special. However, are they 2.5x better than a conventional wheelset? Are they really something that you'd take on tour?

More to follow....

P.S. With the Topolino wheels, Speedplay pedals, Profile cages on the bike: 30.2 lbs for a travel tandem.

TandemGeek

But no where near as entertaining.

oldacura

TG - that is one gorgeous bike.

Our only tandem is a travel tandem. When we 1st got it our local tandem shop commented that it was difficult to keep a travel tandem nice (unscratched). We have only travelled with it about 4 or 5 times and though it isn't perfect, it looks pretty good from 5 feet away. Are you worried about packing that bike & turning it over to an airline? We have only a soft-side S&S case with internal padding for the tubes. If I am careful, it survives pretty well without having one component scratch another. As I understand it, airline regulations (which seem to change frequently) have a max size of 26" x 26" x 10". Will the front section of your Calfee fit in a case that small?

Also, with regard to the cable spitters: I assume yours are the DaVinci design. Though we haven't had any problems with them, I don't really like how they use a pair of set screws in a thin walled aluminum tube to clamp the cable. It seems like they could fail by either stripping out the aluminum threads if overtightened or slipping off the cable if undertightened. If the rear brake cable fails at a critical time, things could go bad quickly. I was taught that set screws were a solution of last choice but I cannot think of a small, affordable alternative.

carpediemracing 

Our Cannondale is 38 pounds I think. Or 36. But in that range.

Missus and I were riding our tandem last night. I mentioned to her something about how the bike is basically stock, a complete oddity for me the tinkerer. Mentioned that some tandems are under 30 lbs, carbon this and that. I said that you'd probably have to get $10-15k into the bike to get it down that low - I heard of a $20k+ tandem sold around where I used to live.

At that point, I said, might as well get a car.

"How much does your tandem weigh?"
"2800 pounds."
"What?"
"It has a steel frame, seats four, and the missus doesn't complain when I go 65 mph."

I know, I know, I'm missing the point. But as a Honda Civic type of couple, $2.5k was about as much as we'd put into the bike. Still, though, I think about lacing up narrower rims with lighter spokes, putting one of my Thomson posts on for me (I'm too far back), and putting a LOT of Nokons on the bike.

cdr

Possum Roadkill

Our Santana Team Scandium weighs in at about 32 pounds. We were ready to go for the Santana Beyond but we'd still be waiting for our bike now if we did. Apparently "Beyond" has something to do with how quickly you can get one. We've already completed our first double century and the lighter bike option would have left us doing this on a really heavy tandem with upright bars. The weight wouldn't have been as much of an issue as the upright bars and the fact that the older tandem didn't fit all that well.

I've done some tinkering but I'm afraid it may have only offset the weight gain from the stoker saddle swap. I swear! The new saddle looks like a mini toilet seat! (SMP TRK) Happy stoker vs. lighter bike. That's a no-brainer. I have to admit, I'm actually considering going to a slightly heavier saddle too since I don't stand as much on the tandem.

TandemGeek

Actually, we went with unpainted because it's nearly impervious to dings and scratches which makes it ideal for travel. My only fear with airlines is that they lose it when we're traveling to an event which would be a double-whammy: losing the bike and trashing a vacation. Beyond that, it's just one of those things where you do your best to properly pack the thing and then hope they don't run it over with a tug or lose it. If they do, you sick your insurance company on them and order up a new one. (Thankfully, I don't get overly attached to my things).

As for packing, it's an easy fit into a hard case or soft case: about 24" is the longest single dimension even with the fork left installed and flipped around 180° (front brake caliper removed). In fact, the front of this tandem is just about the same dimensions as the Erickson travel tandem that it replaced.

Yes, they're the daVinci 'Easy-Split' models that use the grub screws. The only problem I've ever had with one was where a grub screw wouldn't come out and the head stripped. I salvaged the thing by drilling the grub screw out, re-chased the threads with a tap, and it was good to go once I found another grub screw. Other than that, the only complaint now is that installing one is a one-time good deal on the tandem. If you have to remove the front 1/2 of a cable with a splitter for any reason, you have to cut off the damaged section otherwise it won't make it through the molded-in cable guides. With most other tandems you could simply remove the cable stop / barrel adjusters to get the cables and handlebars off of the bike.

TandemGeek

About $8,500 would do it for a new Calfee if you'd be willing to forego the boutique wheels. $9,500 for one with Topolino's via Mel at Tandemseast.com.

Actually, truth be told, any reasonably light / newer aluminum or lightweight steel tandem frame without couplers can probably be brought down close to 30 lbs if you're willing to spend about $3-4k on lightweight components, where the fork and wheels constitute about $1,200 of that. FSA's Gossamer cranks are nearly 1/2 the cost of their carbon cranks and actually weigh less and if you're careful shopping, you can find all kinds of lightweight stuff that has been used and cast off by folks who've continued to chase even lower grams.

You're not comparing apples to apples. After all, if you need transportation you don't go out and buy a Corvette, never mind a Z06. However, if you're a sports car enthusiast who wants a US-branded sports car for whatever reason, then you step up your game. Even then, unless your pockets are deep or you just have a thing cars, you'd likely get something like a Mustang GT convertable and not the higher-end / exotics. However, if you're a super enthusiast you'll discover there are all kinds of far more exotic and expensive high performance US-made sports cars available... for a price.

The same thing is true of bicycles and tandems. It's not like I started out with anything exotic... a '96 Santana Arriva, thank you very much. Of course, that was three custom road tandems ago and we traded-up to our new tandem by selling off one of our custom Ericksons for $5k. If we didn't have the Erickson to sell-off AND if I didn't commit to keeping my 10-year old daily-driver / Honda motorcycle for at least another few years, you can bet your boots there wouldn't be a new tandem sitting in our stable as our pockets just aren't that deep. Frankly, if we had to "qualify" for the level of tandem we could own based on our performance, etc... we'd likely find ourselves on a custom-sized Speedster with upgraded components and an extra long stoker compartment... but certainly not anything exotic. Of course, you see the same things with cars and motorcycles, where it's not driver skill or aptitude that determine who ends up with the coolest hardware, it's desire coupled with means. Heck, if it was skill, www.wreckedexotics.com would have nothing to post instead of hosting thousands of photos of destoyed exotic sports and luxury cars.

Less I digress, there are other tandem enthusiasts out there who don't think twice about dropping $10k on a tandem and who spend at least that much each year for an annual tandem tour. Again, that's just too rich for our blood so don't expect to see us on a high-end tour unless we win the lottery. But, in the mean time, we have worked our way up to a very nice tandem, noting that tandeming together is what we do every weekend, on our vacations and it goes without saying that I'm pretty much at the high-rung of the tandem enthusiast ladder. So, context matters.

brewer45

We don't own expensive cars, a boat, timeshare condos, off-road vehicles, or snow mobiles. We don't do cruises, all-inclusives, ski trips to the Alps, or eco-trips to Africa.

We ride our tandem. We enjoy the time together, the obvious health benefits, occasional comraderie with other teams, and the envy of the half-bike husband/wife who wishes that the other would ride with them. We consider every penny we spent on our new Speedster (should be ready to ride early next week... fingers crossed) to be a terrific value and money well invested in our lifestyle.

Cheers!