Kiramarch

Hi, everyone,

We're in our second season on our Burley Samba mountain-style tandem, which we have set up for touring. (See photo.) We started off with this style of a bike because the trails we ride are fine for hybrid/commuter style bikes, but not skinny-tire road bikes. And we didn't want a super-aggressive road-style posture.

We love riding it, but are thinking that a lighter bike might suit us better -- we are both small and we only do credit-card touring, so the mountain frame is probably overkill. It has 26" wheels, which limits our choice of tires. And we go slower than we hoped we might, which limits the length of our rides.

So we're thinking about making the switch to a road-style frame. There's a Burley Rhumba for sale near us that's the road equivalent of our current bike: https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/...667139983.html

We'd want to use our current saddles and handlebars (bullhorn for me, albatross for captain) and rack (it does take a rack) to make it work better for touring.

I'm curious, from the experience of folks here -- does this sound like a good move for us?

Leisesturm

Buy the other bike and learn to use it as it is. Keep your present bike as well, and enjoy having the best of both worlds. Chances are good the new bike is only fractionally lighter than your present one, if lighter at all. 700C wheels roll a little faster, but the real speed increase comes from the lower aerodynamic drag of the super aggressive road bike seating position. If you move your upright bars to the Rhumba you will kill any of the advantages it might have had for you. Road bike seating position need not be painful. There are degrees of aggressiveness. With the right stem length the Captain can have a relatively relaxed cruising position with a couple of more aggressive speed positions thrown in. As stoker you have the choice of matching the Captains setup or keeping bullhorns. FWIW.

2gether84

We switched from a flat bar tandem to a road tandem a couple of years ago. Getting the right length and angle on the stem was critical for me. I felt like I was leaning too far forward with the original stem. Another thing to remember...you don't have to ride in the drops just because you have them.

Kiramarch

Thanks for the perspective!

Captain does have a road bike he loves for riding around the city, so he knows how road bikes feel and doesn't want that for all-day rides. It's possible that he is underestimating the potential for a comfortable ride, but he says he wants to be more relaxed about the rides we do together. We can explore that a little more.

And you're right, looking at the spec sheet, with factory setup the bike was only a smidge lighter than ours. That's discouraging!

We'll at least check it out, though, and if it fits us well without the need for a lot of fussing and adjusting, I think I can convince him to take it home and see how it works out. I did tell him last year that if I took to tandem riding I would probably start agitating for a second bike.

Kiramarch

An update -- we tested out the bike and feel like we learned a lot.

One unexpected development is that it fits me a lot better than our current bike. On the Samba, I ended up needing a crazy setback seatpost in order not to slide off the back of the saddle. (Looking at the photo above, it is pretty goofy!) On the Rumba, the saddle seems correctly positioned for me from the get-go. Whether that translates into more efficiency for me, I'm not sure, but we could drop the extra weight of the special seatpost. I'll have to spend some time with pictures of the frames to try to figure out why this is so...

That doesn't imply, however, that this frame is the only or best way for me to get a better fit. So we're thinking through whether we want to pick up another older frame to start from, or hold out for a few years and get something new, possibly custom, that suits us better.

And we isolated that what the captain really wants more than the upright (inefficient) position is more variety in hand positions than what the drop bars provide...mustache-style could be a good alternative.

zonatandem

Why limit yourself to another Burley??
Look for a lighter used road tandem in your size . . . Co-Motion, C'dale, etc.
Pedal on!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

Kiramarch

Yup, Zonatandem, that's where we ended up! We are going to keep exploring, and use the Burley Rumba as another reference point to help us figure out what we really want.

qspencer

I found that a variety of hand positions does make a big difference. My first tandem was a flat bar Bike Friday, and I quickly found that having one hand position limited how far I could ride on it. I converted it to drop bars, but I had difficulty getting the left triple shifter to work properly with the internal hub gearing (It was an old 3x7 DualDrive system which combines a 7 speed cassette with a 3 speed internally geared hub). I eventually gave up, switched it back to flat bar, and sold the tandem. I have successfully converted another flat bar tandem to drop bars. That tandem had a 3x8 Shimano MTB drivetrain, which work well with the equivalent road shifters. Unfortunately the 10 and 11 speed drivetrains are no longer compatible between road and MTB shifters, so it's harder to do that on newer drivetrains.