ehcoplex 

Being both pretty new to tandeming, I/we did not know that technique for mounting/dismounting- though it’s exactly how we did it back in our motorcycling days.

New stem & bar tape arrived today, so that’s on the agenda for tomorrow.

ehcoplex 

Maiden voyage today. Somehow in about 6 miles we managed to ride in a busy 'city', narrow country roads with people driving waaaaaay too fast, some gravel, some grass, a few small hills.....



Still some sorting out to do with the FD (doesn't want to consistently drop down to the granny), stoker's seat position..... Original fenders are too narrow to clear the 38c tires, but I've got a set of hammered 'Mud Butlers' that will, so that's next on the list...

L134 

Looks great! Sometimes a reverse pull FD can help getting to the granny.

ehcoplex 

Hm, that's an idea. I did have the Simplex SLJ FD that's on the tandem working with a triple on another bike, and the 'geometry' etc looks pretty much the same. I'm wondering if maybe the short bit of housing that runs from the stop and under the bottom bracket then up to the FD is creating enough drag that the FD won't 'release' all the way to get the chain onto the granny. It almost shifts/drops the chain down onto the ring, just not quite. If I just push it a little bit with my thumb it makes the shift- and then I have to trim it back a bit so the outer cage doesn't rub. More tinkering in order....

jimmuller 

ehcoplex , nice tandem. Sorry. I've been remiss about responding.

That bike is much like the one my sweetie and I have been riding for quite a few years now, '82 TH8. I equipped it with as many original or original-like components as I could manage, and then added some.

Here are a few pics.



I rigged the brake cables as per original, dual cables on the right hand, drum on the left. The rear hub is original, but I have restrung the wheel. The original Simpex RD would have worn out long ago but the metal versions actually work quite well.

There is, or at least was not too many years ago, a new (not NOS) Simplex all-metal replacement version of the original. It works very well.

As you can see, I did some mods on this one. The stoker's crank is a mtb crank, Andel I think, cut down to 140mm by Mark Stonich at Bike Design and Fabrications (IIRC). I had to adapt a Shimano canti-brake spring for one of the cantis, and it has Koolstop pads, but the rest of the brake system is original. A few other items are original too. The gearing is 3x5. It has been a reliable and comfortable bike over thousands of miles.

BTW, the advice bulgie gave you about the stoker not needing to straddle the bike is accurate. My sweetie can't straddle her TT. I hold the bike steady while she mounts, then we ride away. Stopping is the reverse procedure.

ehcoplex 

Nice! On this one the delrin FD was toast, and the rear had already been changed to an indexed Shimano Deore. I generally prefer friction, but the indexing works well, and being new to tandem 'captaining' I decided to keep the indexing for now (one less thing to 'think' about while getting used to a tandem!). I scored a Sansin tandem hub and will build up a wheel over the winter (and hopefully find an Arai drum, too). Fenders and some kind of rear rack to come..

We did use the technique bulgie posted about for mounting and dismounting, & it worked well! The hardest part of the 'maiden voyage' was that we were riding with some friends (including a couple kids), so the pace was varied and inconsistent- a lot of "and....coast.....", "...and.......pedal.......", "and....coast....."

jimmuller 

Yeah. As you become more comfortable you will discover that a tandem can go very fast downhill, reasonably fast on the flat, and slow grinding up hills. You have not much more wind resistance than a single rider but the gravity pull of two. On the uphill, with most couples the stoker has a lower power to weight ratio than the captain, which means the captain is literally pulling the stoker up the hill, hence you go slower. But it's worth the tradeoff. We've never ridden any other tandem but IMHO the TH8 is a very nice frame, stable at speed, easy to handle.

The original rear hub should be an Atom, I believe. I wouldn't think there is much difference between the various options. I tried to keep our bike as original as possible just "because", which is to for aesthetics that have nothing to do with riding other than that we and other cyclists think it is cool.

merziac

Fantastic, I have delusions of getting there with ms. merziac but its not very likely for various, numerous reasons.

Glad you are forging ahead, ms. ehco still/all in at this point?

ehcoplex 

Yup- I have the original wheels with the Atom rear drum hub. The rims are Chrolux, and in terrible shape. Maybe I'll rebuild the hub and use it with a new rim... but more likely I'll use the Sansin hub. What are the rims you've got on yours?

ehcoplex 

1. She did declare the ride a 'success'.... though it wasn't a very hilly ride- it remains to be seen how the significant hills around us shape attitude going forward...!

jimmuller 

I agree about the Chrolux rims. They are nice on a knockabout utility bike like the UO8 (I still have my UO8 and the rims but the rims are just hanging on a wall) but not good when wet or for serious cycling. When I built up our TH8 I found at a bike shop a 32 spoke Mavic (I think) built on a Shimano 105 hub. Some might say a 32 spoke wheel is foolish on a tandem but it has been rock solid. When I tracked down the original hub for our tandem it was 36 spokes strung to a Matrix rim. (I think they went to more spokes in 1983.) When that rim developed a crack I restrung it to a Mavic rim, and it has been solid ever since. The trick is getting the rim and spoke tension right in the first place. I should go check the rims, but I'm pretty sure they are both Mavic. I strung up a number of sew-up Mavic rims and have found them very nice. But then, as I write this I've been drinking beer and may have misunderremembered...

Our first rides were fairly short, maybe 5 miles, with the goal of being able to handle the stress and eventually increase the mileage. It was stressful. As my sweetie became more comfortable we started increasing our mileage. Our longest ride was 72 miles, but I don't think I want to do that again. Around here the hard part is finding the route!

merziac

Again, fantastic, every journey starts with a single step, mile, etc......

Anytime something new gets off on the right foot, wheel, roll, it can make all the difference especially this endeavor, I truly believe this is not for the faint of heart and a true test of each others resolve at some or many points.

I saw a couple on a beautiful CoMotion tandem Sat. at Crater Lake they were all in and having a blast. No pics but I was inspired to slog on in my struggle and it didn't help much but that was me.

ehcoplex 

A short ride yesterday to our local farm-brewery- only about 5 miles, but with a couple steep little stretches and it was all good. Going to ride some more this afternoon.
Having some issues getting the FD to shift down from the middle to the small ring (and sometimes from the large to the middle.....). I did have this FD working on a triple on my PX-10, so I'm not really sure why it's not doing so well on the tandem. More tinkering necessary..... And considering bar-ends and a reverse-pull FD (and may go full Suntour in that case).
Also trying to sort of an elegant/effective way to add some bottle cages... I thought the King Cage universal clamps were the ticket, but unfortunately the orientation of the cage-bolt-tab is such that the clamp screw interferes with the DR cables on the down-tube... It may be sacrilege, but I am considering Riv-nuts...... maybe.... I mean, it's not like it's a high-end frame, etc....

ehcoplex 

Added some fenders I pulled from another bike I don't really ride much now....

bulgie 

Dunno if this idea will appeal, it's a little dorky-looking but effective:
Two small bungies, from the back of each cap'n pedal to the front of each stoker pedal (toe clip, if installed)

It means never again having to flip your pedal up to get the toeclip pointing the right way. Never again dragging a clip on the pavement before you get that foot into the clip. It alsdo allows you to ride the tandem solo even if the stoker has toke lips.

Get the smallest-diameter bungies with the smallest hooks you can find, to minimize weight (ha!) and dorky look. They're under practically zero strain, as long as you don't have to stretch them too tight. Two pieces of string tied to the pedals would also work, though not as quick to install or remove. You don't actually need the springiness of bungies, the pedals always stay the same distance from each other.

Assuming your pedals are in sync that is. I don't see tandem out of phase (OOP) much anymore but it was a popular tactic BITD, with pros and cons. The wife and I tried it, went back to in-phase, but others stuck with OOP for mega-miles. It does make some drivetrain parts last longer since peak loads are lower, and some folks say it makes starting on a steep uphill easier. But no bungie-pedals trick possible with OOP.

Mark B

ehcoplex 

Hmm, that's interesting!
I seem to recall reading somewhere recently that OOP was less efficient on hills, but I could totally have that wrong. Trick at the moment for us is finding the right cadence- I'm used to spinning, she prefers grinding (to an extent).. But I think that may be more a lack of a lot of cycling experience. Well, and also significantly shorter legs. Ideally I'd probably have 172.5 or even 175 cranks and she'd have 165.... But we're making it work and having fun (a coffee shop or brewery as a destination definitely helps)!

bulgie 

I'd be surprised if anyone knows or can show definitively that one or the other is more efficient. There's no budget to pay for the equipment it would take, to make the precise measurements needed for such a subtle difference. We struggle to even agree on a definition of efficiency. How/what would you measure?

Anyway I'm pretty sure you'd show very little difference in efficiency, if any beyond the margin of error of your measuring method. If someone came up with a large difference, I'd suspect something wrong with their experimental design, because that wouldn't jibe with some other known facts. Namely that riders using OOP often have no trouble keeping up on hills! People who've tried both seldom report any personal records falling by a lot after they made the switch.

For me, the decision to switch back to in-phase was made based on intangibles like "teamness", being metaphorically in sync with your partner as well as literally. Also OOP tandems just look funny, especially when the team is pedaling, there's something "wrong" about it. Based purely on what I'm used to, but still, it is a factor for me. I just love the look of an in-sync tandem team.

Early Santanas were delivered OOP, until at some point even Santana decided not to swim against the tide, and they switched to in in-phase. I don't remember how they described the difference or their reasoning in switching, but I'm suspicious that some of it was just that in-phase tandems were easier to sell.

Mark B

ehcoplex 

Further thoughts after a few short rides... So far, going up modest hills isn't as tough as I thought it might be, and going down a hill......wow a tandem picks up speed fast!
I had thought having an indexed rear might be a good thing while getting used to a tandem, but I've discovered that I guess I really am a retro-grouch and much prefer friction shifting (easily accomplished by turning the shifter from 'sis' to 'friction'...). Reaching for the down-tube to shift on a tandem isn't all that fun, so I'm going to put bar-ends on (in the case of DT shifters, I move both rear and front with my right hand, and the extra double-stays that run from the head-tube to the rear drop-outs kind of get in the way of using my right hand to shift the FD).
Realizing that I don't like randonneur-bend bars that much (or wide bars.... I thought wider might be better, leverage-wise on a tandem..), so at some point I'll find some narrower, parallel bend bars like I have on my PX-10. So much for assuming I'd get along with these bars (they'd been on another bike and I'd forgotten that I never really liked them that much). Ah well, so much for assuming, and doing all the work of shellacking the tape.
Thinking about a rack for some panniers. On a single I prefer the weight up front, but I wonder if the same will be the case with this tandem. Logically, at least to me, it makes sense to distribute any load more toward the front to even things out. I suppose the only thing to do it try different setups out..

bikemig 

Nice write up. There is a gitane tandem local to me that is tempting but I'm trying to resist . . .

ehcoplex 

Is it one of the models with lugs and the curved stoker seat-tube? I would not be able to resist (depending on the $$, of course)!

bikemig 

Yes and 700c aluminum alloy wheels so I did write to the seller this morning . . . . after I decided to fall off the wagon.

ehcoplex 

I absolutely DO NOT need another bike project, and really, one tandem is probably enough, but if one of those showed up near me I'd be on it!

Pompiere

I can echo your thoughts on the awkwardness of downtube shifters on the tandem. I was thinking of going upright with North Road style bars and thumb shifters.

As far as the weight goes, unless you are carrying touring loads, you aren't going to notice a few pounds on either the front or rear because of the overall length of the frame and it is such a small fraction of the riders' weights. I did a few solo test rides and was surprised how much more sluggish the bike felt with my wife on board.

ehcoplex 

Ha- the other day after an 8 or so mi ride on the tandem I got on my PX-10 for a longer solo ride and almost fell off! I'd gotten used to the awkwardness/sluggishness of the tandem and the solo bike squirreled all over for the first minute or two!

bulgie 

Ugh, I sorta hate those. The curved seat tube is a dumb idea even when done right and Gitane didn't do it right. The tubes are small diameter — structurally inefficient, either heavy or flexy or both.

Your Peugeot is a much better bike.

Mark B