Tandems of the forum

"Frame Size: 16 cm"

Really small or a long way away?

Have you put in a bid for this? (the roberts one)

The Roberts? No.

PS It has a derailleur hanger too.

Probably built it for these guys

I need that chequered suit

Flying gate tandem

Why is it leaning forwards? Where is it trying to get to? It's making me feel seasick.

It's an uphill tandem.

The Roberts has already found a new home, presumably somebody from the TT Forum

I have good news for you

Walking through E&C looking like we'd stolen it

The who sold it to me was pretty cool - that TT forum isn't bad either there's some nice stuff on there. Including some immaculate Campag Pista and one bike built with full Dura Ace AX aero brakes and all.
Tandem:
Apparently it was built as a custom job for him and a mate both 6ft, he said when it was built the biggest DA chainring you could get was 53 so they opted for a 57 TA chainring instead. He also had a 63T on there at one race. He had a 13-17 rear sprocket and said in one race in France that featured part of a ski run the trailing car was clocking 71mph. He had large flange record hubs laced to some very obscure rims that were tied and soldered but I didn't fancy those because he wanted £50 more.

Anywho it's in my possession now and will most likely be made into a fixed tandem

Other than making it fixed I really have no idea what to do to it, any suggestions would be appreciated

Race it. I might come out of fixed tandem retirement.

Well done!

I didn't want to use up my quota of "stupid" this early in the year, so I'm glad someone took the decision out of my hands.

Other than making it fixed I really have no idea what to do to it, any suggestions would be appreciated

Race it.

large flange record hubs laced to some very obscure rims

Fiamme Ergal is not obscure, it's quite sought after by weight weenies being <300g. You should have bitten his hand off for those wheels at £50

will most likely be made into a fixed tandem

If you want a nice big chainring to make it look cool, I've got a suitable 65T TA track ring which has never been used.

Big ring, race it

Oh, Did I miss a trick with those wheels?
And yeah, I'll get back to you on the big chainring

Bloody brilliant. CP thread asap please.

Also, any fule kno that the real reason that tandem goes 71mph is because it's red.

may be worth going back for the wheels

Need to sell this (shameless advertising I know) first, but I could pay him another visit...

I wouldn't want to ride a steel tandem with Ergal rims though!

I wouldn't want to ride a steel tandem with Ergal rims though!

No, but I would want to part out those wheels and recover some of the cost of the tandem frame.

He said he's been 70mph on those wheels

I'm sure he has, I'm happy with limit my Ergal use to solo uphill races only.

Ergal made in the 70s/80s should be pretty strong by now :-)

They had a reputation for being super "soft" (low yield strength) when new, I'm guessing they used 7075-0 alloy for extrusion and bending into hoops and didn't do any post-forming heat treatment. In the absence of any other degradation processes, many aluminium alloys which were not artificially aged at birth get stronger as they get older. If you don't artificially age, yield strength can double in the first few days after quenching, so with no factory heat treatment the rims would have gone to wheelbuilders in roughly the T4 condition. The ageing process slows down exponentially (and can be slowed even more or even completely halted by storing at low temperature), so life may be too short to get to T6 condition by ageing at room temperature, but in 20-30 years the strength could probably go up meaningfully towards the roughly double strength which artificial ageing can achieve over material which is naturally aged for only a few days.

So how unimpressed was the OH with yet another bike /part of bike in the residence? ;)