motochick 

When some friends gave us this Bike Friday I tried doing some research on them both here and the Tandem forum and there just wasn't a whole lot of info about them. So here is some info for those looking to get one of these. They do fold AND come apart and fit into two standard suitcases. There is an option for a set of wheels as a trailer for pulling the suitcases along behind you as you travel. We made some modifications to our to suits our needs such as stoker shifting, shorter cranks and smaller wheels which allow for larger tires. With the 406x20 we can run 2" tires with the fenders as shown. We were able to set up both cockpits to the same dimensions as our CoMotion tandem and the ride is very much the same. I can't tell any difference. I would be happy to answer any questions about our funny little clown bike!



1997 Bike Friday Two'sDay

Stoker has 3 shifters, captain has 3 brakes

160mm triple with the inner as a timing chain

Great looking head badge!

Pinigis 

I have only seen one of these in person, and they are an impressive bike. I would love to have one of these myself.

willydstyle

The shifting setup on this thing is wild. Am I seeing correctly that it has a triple chainring, a derailleur cogset, *and* a 3-speed IGH? What's the gear range like? Which shifting mechanism is the shifter on the pilot bars hooked up to?

2_i 

How does a single person operate 3 brakes? Incidentally, I have 3 shifters on my Brompton and apparently it is not uncommon to have this many on recumbents.

motochick 

Originally these came with Sachs ergo shifter/brifters that controlled the rear cassette (7sp) and the rear internal hub (3sp). My husband likes me to control the shifting so he can concentrate on steering and braking so we modified it to stoker shifting. This is VERY unusual and not at all normal, FYI. The left shifter does the front der, the right does the rear cassette and the thumb shifter does the rear internal hub for a total of 42 gears! It is SOOOOO much fun to be in control of all that shifting, like driving a manual sportscar on steroids. The right side bar end on the captains bars are for controlling the front drum/drag brake. It also works quite well as a parking brake. The gear range goes from 17.73" on the bottom to 108.8" on the top! The triple is really only a double because the inner ring is the timing chain between the two cranksets. Crazy right? These originally came with 172.5 DaVinci cranks but we needed much shorter and didn't have the funds to buy the $600 DaVinci's in the smaller size. These were done to save money and they work great.

motochick 

The third is a drag brake operated by the bar end shifter, kind of a set it and forget thing. Just don't forget about it too long! LOL

dmwill

What a beautiful bike! The mental gymnastics of juggling all those gear combinations must be quite a thing until you get the hang of it. Do you get much flex out of the captain's handlebars with that super long stem? How stiff or flexy is the bike overall?

motochick 

Thank you! The mental gymnastics is what makes it so much fun. There are so many ways to get to the right gear that it's never the same thing over and over. I never knew how handy an internal geared hub could be. It really keeps me engaged, before I did the shifting I would just kind of zone out in la la land not really paying attention to anything. Now my job is so important that focusing and paying attention is a must, the time on the bike flies by. (we ride for hours!)

The captain stem is made from steel so it doesn't flex all that much. I feel more flex in my bars from the movement on the seat post than he does. The frame is more flexy than our CoMotion but not to a detriment, I wouldn't want to use it for racing sprints but it works great as a casual rider/tourer. It is very comfortable, absorbs bumps well and isn't at all sketchy when going fast. The previous owner had it up to 63 MPH!!

willydstyle

Ok but how brutal is it for the stoker when the pilot farts?

motochick 

No farting while riding, he can, and does, do that when we stop. LOL