preventec47

I passed up buying a nice tandem because of the weird rear seat configuration. I dont doubt the stoker could get a comfortable ride but I wanted the ability
to attach rear storage bags and racks etc. Without a seatpost that would be hard to do. But for purely ride comfort, what was their reputation since I see they
no longer make them. Was the "softride" diving board more effective than a good pogo stick seat post ?

preventec47

Here is are pics of what I was talking about .....

tandem rider

I think your diving board description is a good one. The Soft Ride was made in the '90s and early 2000s. The pivot had to be rebuilt occasionally and Soft Ride went out of business, therefor the rebuild kit was no longer available. I don't know how they rode as I never rode one.

joeruge

I had spoken to a guy who had a Rodriguez built with one. His wife said it was riding on a pogo-stick. I took that to mean weird maybe even uncomfortable. I'm not a diver but I know diving boards have a moveable pivot which allows divers to 'tune' the resonance of the board to their weight. I don't know if these softride systems had that feature but it makes sense to me that for a given rider's weight, it would have a resonant frequency exemplified by cadence. Pedal at that frequency and you could start bouncing. Just my impression of the mechanical system. I've never ridden on one.

Darth Lefty 

I wonder why Soft Ride didn't make it. It doesn't seem any weirder than a lot of other 90's things, some of which won out. It does seem to be only one product that didn't evolve. If they had added damping or something could it have gone further?

preventec47

I feel like I would be just as happy on a seatpost with a spring in it but I dont think they make them with springs. I think they all use rubber type
plugs of diffrerent hardness. I dont know why not springs like in the front forks of motorcycles or mountain bikes. Years ago I think I bought a suspension
seatpost with a spring and liked it a lot. I dont like the way the real expensive ones work these days. They dont go up and down. They use two parrallel-o-grams etc

Paul J

As you mentioned the Kinekt 2.1 uses two parallel-o-grams with the purpose being to maintain leg extension https://cirruscycles.com/products/kinekt-2-1-aluminum

jim_pridx

It seems that the "spring-type" of post is still quite available. It isn't my wife's favorite post, but she likes it well enough to give me the "ok" to put an old USE post on our first tandem that I'm in the process of building up again. But, here are a couple of examples:

The USE post:


Zoom:


There's always the Specialized (turkey neck) version, too:

preventec47

If you are not moving in the direction of gravity when you hit a bump, you are not feeling comfortable. Trying to move you sideways is crazy in my mind. I cant believe the expensive suspension posts are tricking folks out of their money.

Darth Lefty 

I wonder if a full suspension road tandem would be pretty good because the seat posts seem like a much worse solution. But no one does it.

The parallelograms are oriented much better than the telescopes to the source of the bump.

Paul J

You seemed to be new to tandems so I thought I'd share some of our group's learning but it looks like you have everything figured out.

cyclehealth

We have a Burley Duet and a recently acquired Burley Rock n Roll. Both have the Softbeam rear suspension. My wife loves it. It does require smooth pedaling though. She can get it bouncing, usually when I am trying for too high of a cadence for her. We are an older couple and comfort is more important than max performance. She considers the Softbeam a must have. It is very effective in reducing the shocks being transmitted from the road surface up through the bike frame to the human body.
Both of our bikes have a typical rear rack mounted over the rear tire. It does require extra long rack support arms off the top front of the rack in place of the standard ones that came with the racks.
On the bike in the photo, sliding the seat mount further forward along the Softbeam would reduce the amount of leverage the sitting rider would have on the beam and lessen the change of bounce.

Serenity5

It has worked really well for us we got ours cheap for my wife and one of the kids. I modified the softride so it would sit lower for the shorter kids( the frame is so short for the stoker it worked) Pay no attention to the missing top tube in the captains position she didn't have enough stand over so i cut it (evil i know) they are a light team and she hates to go fast i took a chance. Pannier frame just has an extra link bar on it and has never been a problem. We have traveled hundreds of loaded miles with this rig with never a problem. well evidently they wont let me post picture yet as i am new.