Planning the new Ritchey breakaway tandem build
 

After many weeks of planning, agonizing, daydreaming, and preparing, the SO and I have finally ordered the first set of parts for the new tandem. It our first new tandem and (we hope) a big upgrade from the old Burley Duet. Here's a thread to memorialize the build process, which will keep me preoccupied over pandemic winter.

I'd be happy to hear if anyone has thoughts/suggestions on the build, since I'm slowly compiling parts when I see a good deal. We're pretty budget conscious, if that's even a rational thing to say when buying an extravagant new tandem. But we've been saving up and are planning the whole build to be under $5k, which I think isn't bad for a new coupled tandem.

The people:
Captain, me, 170-175lbs. Stoker ~115. We like road rides, touring, and would like to do more off-the-beaten path gravel type roads if the opportunity arises.

The frame:
Ritchey Outback TandM Breakaway

The build:

Drivetrain:

• 3x10. FSA Gossamer cranks, SRAM Rival rear shifter, bar-end front shifter. SRAM GX derailleur, 11-32 cassette. (Just bought the crankset, the Rival shifter, and a Rival left brake lever..)

Brakes:

• TRP Spyre, 203mm Hope floating rotors F&R, compressionless housing

Seatpost/Stem/etc:

• Mix of Ritchey Comp and Dimension, with Thudbuster ST stoker seat post
• Shimano SPD pedals, F&R

Wheels:

• Undecided.
  • Options: 40 spoke Velocity Dyads laced to White Industries hubs. 36 spoke Dyads laced to WI hubs. Velocity pre-built 40-spoke wheelset? I don't know what would suffice under our weight re: # of spokes and type of spoke, particularly when touring loaded. I was also thinking about some Light Bicycle carbon wheels but concluded that's probably overkill. I posted a thread here about this a couple weeks ago, and there doesn't seem to be much consensus on how overbuilt a tandem wheel should be.
• DT Swiss ratcheting skewers
• GP5000 32mm tires, or something a bit wider

According to my elaborate Excel spreadsheet, depending on wheels and accuracy of published component weights, the bike will weigh somewhere between 36.5 and 38lbs. Not that it matters!

Happy to hear it if anyone has thoughts, advice, or noteworthy experience with these parts. I've built up several "singles" but never a tandem, though I did spend time refurbishing our old Burley.

Otherwise I'll just go ahead and post pictures of the build as it proceeds over the next few weeks.

Next up, ordering the frameset--currently clearing out the apartment storage unit to make room.

That sounds like fun. I don't know anything about anything, but we customized our tandem years ago. A couple of ideas to consider or ignore:
- Maybe use a standard seatpost for the stoker. Your stoker might find a consistent seat position to be fantastic. You're spec'ing big tires anyway and tandem captains usually avoid hitting holes.
- Don't get too worked up over ordering a specific wheelset if you can find a nice used wheelset, or a deal on a new one. Weren't there a couple of nice used wheelsets mentioned here recently? Save some money, new costs a ton.
- Before ordering the frameset, look around for a sweet existing tandem. You can buy a really high end used tandem for $4k ( with S&S couplers) and have a little left over to fit it to yourselves.

All of these have S&S Couplers and some have travel cases, $1900 to $4900! Some have disc brakes but don't think they're a must, there are nice rim brakes and you can add an arai drum brake which works great.

https://www.tandemclassifieds.com/ta...Havnoonian.inc

https://www.tandemclassifieds.com/ta...ana_Arriva.inc

https://www.tandemclassifieds.com/ta...antana_Rio.inc

https://www.tandemclassifieds.com/ta...o_Co-Pilot.inc

https://www.tandemclassifieds.com/ta...ana_Fusion.inc

https://www.tandemclassifieds.com/ta...r_Co-Pilot.inc

https://www.tandemclassifieds.com/ta...on_Carrera.inc

https://www.tandemclassifieds.com/ta...ntana_Visa.inc

https://www.tandemclassifieds.com/ta...Cappuccino.inc

Several thoughts. One, do you really need a triple. 2x setups can cover quite a range in 11 and 12 speed groups, are lighter and shift much better.

Two, I think your wheels are way overbuilt. We’re heavier than you guys, and run 28 spoke wheels on both our tandems. You can get a nice set of Lightning wheels with DT Swiss hubs and CF rims for under $800.

Three, I’m assuming you’re using cable actuated brakes due to breaking down the bike for travel. In our experience, the braking power of the Spyres is fairly marginal, particularly compared to hydraulic.If there’s a way to pack the bike loosening the hydraulic hoses from the frame, I’d go hydraulic. If that isn’t practical, TRP Spyre hybrids ( cable actuated, but with a hydraulic mechanism to clamp the caliper) in our experience offers much better braking than the pure,cable dis c brakes.

Four, I don’t quite understand the tire choice. iMHO 32mm is too wide for a go fast road tire like the GP5000, and the GP 5000’s would make a poor gravel tire.( I’d be worried about sidewall failures). A different approach would be a racing gravel tire. We’re running Panaacer Gravel Kings. They work well off road in all but very muddy conditions, and because they have little tread, they have low rolling resistance on road.

All depends on how you want to use the bike, but I your use includes much gravel off road, I think you’ll be disappointed with the GP5000’s ( and fwiw, we use GP5000’s on our road wheels.)

Thanks. The reason for going new (I don't buy new bikes, generally), is because this is something of a proto-engagement purchase. We have an old Burley which we like, but decided it'd be fun to get something tailor made for us for the long term.

Good advice. We'll go with the Gravel Kings over the GP5000s. I have those on another bike and they're great on the road.

We want to be able to do loaded touring on this bike, so I've aired on the side of overbuilding. But I'm really tempted on the Light Bicycle wheels - been looking at the 32 spoke AR36 or 46 with a tandem layup.

Re: triple crankset, I have a hookup for cheap FSA Gossamers, and I can't seem to find any tandem double cranksets except the FSA carbon ones--which are 3 times the price and apparently not any lighter(?). I see the upsides of a double, but I also see the upsides of a triple, especially when touring.

I'll look into the Spyre hybrids too - thanks.

pictures of couplers
 

I am interested in the couplers and how Ritchey made them. I can't find any detailed photos, are they splined to resist torsion? it seem that this is a much simpler design than S@S and way simpler than Santana's Z. If anyone has one could you post a picture. Thanks

What you describe is roughly what we used for components on our Ritchey two years ago. However, I agree with the comment that double chain rings might be preferable to triple chain rings. The only flaw in our new bike was intermittent shifts between the middle and largest chain rings.
By the way, our teams are roughly the same weight and we rode a lot in the hills of the Bay Area. We never had any problems with the mechanical TRPs.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ffb0b4c6b6.jpg

l love the red white and blue, nice looking bike

Quick Question
 

As far as bare frames are concerned, what's consensus on paint* protection prior to building?

I ask as someone who always took advantage of a bare frame by waxing the paint before ANYTHING went on it. This seems to have paid off in spades for me. My 27 year old custom painted road tandem still looks amazing and I like to think the initial waxing did a lot to preserve the paint.

But today, ceramic coatings are popular among auto enthusiasts. It's considered THE way to protect paint and make it a breeze to wash in the future. However, super car owners take it a step further: apply PPF, or paint protection film first to the paint and THEN apply ceramic coating to the PPF. This two-step process protects the paint against UV rays, oxidation and rock chips, in addition to making the finish easier to clean. And on a $200k new car, I'd want to do EVERYTHING to protect a beautiful paint job. I should probably run this by some custom painters to get a straight answer, but thought I'd ask here.

Short of that, I'd be SURE to apply several coats of wax to that beautiful new Ritchey, as well as treat the insides of the tubes with "Fluid Film." (Which was a clear winner compared to JP Wiegel, WD-40, and a bunch of other competitors in reviews I've seen.)

Funny too, because I just replaced the BB on a Ritchey Breakaway half-bike and the rust was atrocious! Years of touring in Europe took its toll. But the cool thing about the Breakaways is that the insides of the tubes are readily accessible - to the mechanic AND water apparently!!!

Any thoughts on experience with ceramic coatings and/or PPF would be appreciated as I'm about to start a road bike build after a custom paint job. Thanks.

* Edit: And when I say "paint," I really mean any finish, powder or paint or whatever else!

[QUOTE I'll look into the Spyre hybrids too - thanks.[/QUOTE]
The brake I think being mentioned is the TRP HY/RD hybrid disc brake. https://trpcycling.com/product/hyrd/

First parts arrived: the FSA Gossamer cranksets, the SRAM Rival shifters, and the chains!

Maybe of interest to the tandem crowd - weight of the cranksets. I couldn't find a consistent number online.

1976g total with the bottom brackets, though subtract a couple grams for the plastic packaging around the BBs and washers.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...df724319d5.jpg
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...00aad41622.jpg

Also, I just found that Ritchey has on their website - totally hidden - a tandem wheelset designed for this frame. 36 spoke, brass nipples, and claimed weight of under 2100 grams for $400. Seems like a pretty good deal and I think we'll go for it. And who knows, we can always upgrade later if we feel the need.

I get a 404 so something might be wrong with the URL.

I had written a longer comment but it disappeared when I tried to submit it so an abbreviated version

• Don't go cheap on wheels. This is the mostly likely thing to break and leave you stranded especially on tour.
• For hardpack riding, we use 2" slick tires which seems to work well for us. Anything narrower than that will have some tradeoffs.
• Those FSA canks with the fixed axle looks like a pain to pack without scratching any paint job you might have.
• If you are planning to do even credit-card touring, forget the weight. Go with reliability.

Good luck. Looks like a fun project.

Thanks for the advice. And hmm, strange, link works for me. Here's the spec list:

• Tubeless-ready 6061 Alloy rim
• Rim depth: 23.4mm
• Outer rim width: 24.4 mm
• Inner rim width: 19.5mm
• OCR 3mm offset rims for reduced dish and increased strength
• Hubs: forged disc hubs and sealed bearings
• Freehub: steel - Shimano 10/11-sp
• Axles: quick release front and rear (100mm front / 145mm rear)
• Disc mount: 6-bolt
• DT Swiss Champion 2.0 - DT Swiss brass nipples (36 front & rear)
• Lacing: 3x
• Finish: black
• Weight: 2077g/set (959g - front / 1118g - rear)

Swaged/butted spoke would make a more durable wheel. We use 2.0-1.7 (I think - a long way from the tandem right now) spokes on our 26" wheel. Butted spokes are less likely to break.

About 10-15 years ago, we were credit card touring along the Canal du Midi in southern France. We were using 700x37 Continental Top Touring pumped up to 10 lb over max recommended pressure which had worked fine on other tours. This time on the rougher stretches of the tow path when there were quite a few rocks we had to ride over, we had enough snakebites that I used up all the patches and the spare tubes. We had to abandon riding along the Canal and go back to the roads.

After that trip, because of this and a few other reasons, our builder built us another frame using 26" wheels which will clear 2"+ tires. The snakebites problems went away. There is no such thing as too wide of a tire on a touring tandem.

Something to think about. Your tandem has to be able to handle the worst road condition you may encounter when you least expect it in a far away land. For us this was on tour in a civilized place and I didn't expect it. It was after all, Provence, a land made for credit card touring if there ever was such a place. I had never expected to go through 2 patch kits and 2 spare tubes over 2 days.

While I get the recommendation to use 2 inch tires, I think the Ritchey is limited to 43mm.

Another way to manage the pinch flat issue is going tubeless. Our gravel tandem came with tubed 42mm tires. With the 42mm we had pinch flat problems, particularly on rocky fast descents.

We converted to tubeless, and so far no pinch flats or other problems.

Everything you would want to know about the Ritchey coupling system is in their patent filinig:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6886844B2/en

That is certainly one way to avoid the pinch flat problem.:)

Something to be considered though. If one is getting snakebite punctures with properly inflated relatively wide tires like the 37mm Top Touring, then the total weight of the tandem+stuff+riders is approaching the limit what the tire+rim can handle when the surface is rough. The sidewall of the tires are hitting the rim edge hard enough to cause a pinch flat.

Using tubeless may avoid a pinch flat but your rim edge is getting whacked by some big rocks or whatever though cushioned by 2 layer of the tire sidewalls.

I suspect risk of rim damage may be getting high.

I understand that while tubeless may prevent pinch flats, you ‘re still at risk of impacting the rim.

However, tubeless mountain bike tires have pretty much established you can safely run tire pressures tubeless that would definitely pinch flat a tubed tire, without damaging the rim.

in our case, I suspect that the tubeless ready rims may be more susceptible to pinch flatting when running them with tubes, than a standard rim would be.

Well, after a yearlong delay, now I'm getting the build together.

Covid supply chain problems meant I had to change a bunch of things.The frameset is currently sold out but Ritchey says it'll be restocked in late January.

We did end up getting the Ritchey Tandm Zeta wheelset, which was only $400. They do seem maybe a little cheap... but TBD, since I haven't ridden them yet. We'll see.

For the drivetrain we're going to go with Ultegra 11sp with the FSA cranks converted to a double (inner chainring removed). Maybe a GRX rear derailleur if I can find one, which would allow for extra low gearing.

For brakes I've heard good things about the Juin Tech R1, which are apparently the same as the Yokozuna Motoko except half the cost. We'll try those mated to Hope floating rotors, 203mm.

We'll do a Ritchey cockpit, maybe in silver. And I got a good deal on an eeSilk suspension seatpost so we'll try that for the stoker.

I am missing the gene that makes Captains averse to using triple cranksets. Maybe because they take more care since the majority of bar end shifters are friction shifted? I have to think most of us are running brifters now and they are indexed so, what gives? You have to move heaven and earth to get a reasonable gear range out of a 2x11. Your Stokers hate the pain of grinding up the hills in the 39 x 32 'granny'. One Captain I know is divorced because of it. He swears he never saw it coming, but I did. Pinch flats means the tire is improperly inflated, NOT that the tire section is not big enough. 2" tires add an extra day of effort to every week in motion. Insanity. If you want to play off-road, play off road. If you want to cover miles of pavement, cover miles of pavement. We had a ride leader mess up and eight teams had to cross 5 miles of gravel on 28mm clinchers. Not a single team didn't make it through. It wasn't fun but it wasn't impossible. 32mm to 35mm should be the biggest considered reasonable for 'touring'.
Edit: I hate the way this sounds but IMO the advice is sound. I wish I could blame it on being drunk but I don't drink that much. Blame it on being 62 and therefore on the wrong side of just about everything.

I would be very happy with a triple, but the bike industry has left triples behind. Figuring out the parts isn't so straightforward anymore, and it's hard to find a decent triple front derailleur these days, even used.

Plus, do modern 11-speed barends even have enough level throw to operate a triple? I googled but couldn't get an answer. It's certainly easier to go with STI shifters and a compact crank.

Weeelll ... I don't know about 11sp but a good 3x9? I doubt you would have to be scrounging the classifieds either. But if a shifter says triple or 2/3 then it can shift a triple. Especially bar-ends. Bar-ends are ideal for triples, now and forever. Have a chat with someone at a big inventory bike shop like Universal Cycles or Modern Bike. They should know how to get things done with the new stuff. A bike co-op can help you with the legacy stuff. I expect to see triples around for at least the next two decades. It only looks bad with respect to the bike industry. I mean, if you really want to go there ... it looks like they are trying to leave doubles behind too! Do you think that can happen? Not for tandems. I am not going to panic until 3100mm brake and shifter cables go away IOW not anytime soon.

First off, I hope you enjoy your Ritchey as much as we have ours. It has done a lot of miles, and hopefully it will do a lot more.

Our Breakaway Tandem is setup as a 1X9 using a Box 9 11-50 with a single chainring. Plenty of range and only a single cable to re-connect when we assemble the bike. Our maximum pedalling speed is 28 MPH (pedalling much faster than we can sustain), and we rarely reach that on flat ground. Most of our miles are done at speeds between 12 and 20 MPH. The gearing we have works just fine for those speeds.

Also, ours is setup as a flat bar touring bike. That allows me to use a lot more brakes than you will get with those TRP Spyre brakes. We are a heavier team so our all up range has been as much as 500 pounds and is never less than 425. Long steep downhill runs have seen speeds as high as 45 MPH. We use Hope V4 brakes with 203mm vented rotors. We had some issues with the Hope E4 brakes and the floating rotors with heating on a steep downhill strong tailwind 45 MPH panic stop. With the flat bar setup it is no problem to remove the brakes when we pack the bike and the assembly is not an issue.

We started out with a set of 32 spoke "Downhill" mountain bike wheels. They did not last a full season. We had a lot of cracking around the spoke holes. And they were not a cheap set of wheels. We just over stressed them. We do often ride gravel roads and an occasional barely there farm road. And we are a very heavy team. And we often stop and buy some heavy stuff. Who can resist Harris Tweed at the weavers shed for 18 GBP a meter?

Our current wheels are the House of Tandems Spinergy wheels running 700X32C GP5000 TL tubeless. You are a lot lighter, and you may not have problems with the Ritchey wheels. They look like a very good deal, but my experience with wheels says keep up on the spoke tension and check the rims for cracks. If they do fail, look at the HoT Spinergy wheels.