Below is our 2012 Cannondale tandem that we used during the 2022 RAGBRAI. The story of this bike is that we were in a Trek store in a suburb of Chicago and they happened to have this ... Cannondale ... that they had purchased from another bike store that had gone out of business. We were immediately smitten and pretty much knew this was our bike; we have another(!) tandem, a KHS Tandemmania that was bought from a Chicago lakefront bike rental, and it had seen a lot of usage. We realized we liked riding tandems, but we didn't like the KHS.
We came back the next day on the train, bought it, and rode it home 25 miles in a ferocious thunderstorm; we figured if we could have a good time on the bike under those conditions (seriously, I had to stop at one point because the rain was so hard I couldn't see), it was meant to be. We made some upgrades; the bags are custom from Buckhorn Bags and they do great for the empty space in the frame for holding repair stuff, some supplies, etc. We got a SteerStopper and that has made a world of difference in terms of working with the bike when it's stationary as the front wheel really doesn't want to stay straight. The pedals are Crank Brothers; the stoker is a pair of Double Shots and I forget the ones I have on front; we decided she would be able to clip in, while I have bigger platforms without clips for emergency stopping. We also changed the seats, I'm a big Brooks Saddle B-17 fan and she's partial to Terry. We outfitted the bike to be as close to a touring tandem as we could get and have ridden it on some long rides.
Here's to hopefully a lot of adventures with it. Wish Amtrak would take them though, that would greatly expand our options for tandem adventures!
Our 2012 Cannondale tandem