Cannondale Tandem

Yeah I believe it was!

We made it!

After getting up at 5am to get the 6:20 to Birmingham we arrived at the owners house to collect it And were on the road by 9.

However we did feel no small amount of guilt. Turns out the owner was old blind chap who had with the help of a number of different pilots over the years used the tandem to enjoy cycling. Sadly due to ill health he wasn't able to ride any more. He did seem a little sad to say goodbye, but pleased we could offer it a new lease of life.

The rise was very surprisingly much easier than we had thought. A combination of sunshine, tailwind and flat roads made for pretty speedy progress and the first 60 miles flew by.

This was however when the gooch pain set in with a vengeance. Because you're much more restricted in terms of shifting around there seems to be a much greater pressure on one spot that really starts to ache after a while.

Asides from this the ride was great, cruising along on the flat at almost 30mph was a pretty sublime experience.

The last miles coming into the outskirts of London were a little more exciting as we took dual carriage ways to speed things up, garnering some strange looks along the way.

Made back into central with the sun still out at 6 having set off at 9, and with 7 1/2 hours riding time which felt pretty respectable.

All in though so much fun!

Nice work. Increasingly I feel that the key to having a good day on a tandem is to plot a route with no hills. At all.

Respect!

Thanks @Diamond_Supercool @ough - we found we could blast over short hills once we worked out how to coordinate standing up, but it's when your can't keep up your momentum that the tandem gets pretty tiring. Stop starting in London got pretty tedious.

This ended up being our route: https://www.strava.com/activities/575948850

And a picture of the co-pilot and tandem

1 Attachment

However we did feel no small amount of guilt. Turns out the owner was old blind chap who had with the help of a number of different pilots over the years used the tandem to enjoy cycling. Sadly due to ill health he wasn't able to ride any more. He did seem a little sad to say goodbye, but pleased we could offer it a new lease of life.

Would he be happy to get updated on its exploits? Beyond the obvious practical difficulties of this it might make him regret the sale a little less?

Lovely tandem! :)

There are local groups in some areas where people volunteer to tandem cycle with a person who can't cycle on their own due to sight/balance issues so perhaps it can be used in that spirit too.

Excellent!! Glad you made it.
Sounds like that tandem has brought some real joy to the previous owner. That's a nice bit of history and I don't think you should feel bad about it.

Yep, we already promised to give them a call in a few weeks and let them know about any tandem adventures.

And @JWestland that's a really lovely idea. Will def. investigate, if anyone has ideas/ leads please let me know.

It turns out the fork is threaded 1 1/8 which seems relatively unusual but makes sense for a tandem.

Question is.. is it possible to get a 1 1/8 quill to a-head adaptor as they all seem to be 1 inch -> 1 1/8..

Like this, but not quite like this..

We're also in need of some parts to get this a little racier

We're after:

• 8 speed shimano indexed bar end shifters
  
• V brake drop levers
  
• Super wide drop bars, pref. something flared like salsa cowbell
  
• any old pair of broken drop levers to use for the stoker
  

I have some Tektro RL520 levers you can have for a tenner posted

That would be ace - PM coming.

Ordered drop bars and Yellow bar tape, taking this as the inspiration!

Usually the adapter comes with a shim for 1 1/8" steerer. Tandem looks really nice!

Looks great. They are 26 inch wheels though right? Did you find out which model it is in the end?

Yep 26 inch. Can't work out which model it is though, doesn't say on the bike...

It's a made in the USA frame, with gold writing, rear rack mount, 27.2 seatposts, 26 inch wheels, 1 1/8 threaded fork and apparently bought new about 15 years ago - anyone have any ideas which it could be?

So looks like he bought it a few years earlier than that :) it seems to be a 1995 MT2000

1000 / 2000s usually indicate top end components.

But you probably know that already :)

So I cocked up an order for my tandem quill - ahead convertor.

Turns out the tandem is 1 1/4". Does anyone know where I can get a 1 1/4" threaded to threadless ahead convertor?

This could be an option.
Otherwise a shim with a quill stem, but I don't know if it will work well, or it is a recipe for disaster with a heavier steering than a solo bike.
I'll be using a shim on mine but it is and old frame that has got a headclip headset, so double safety with the expanding quill.

http://www.amazon.com/Nitto-Stem-Column-Adapter-threadless/dp/B001LXM5W6

Yep, saw that but £50...... which I can't really face....

Tandem is almost done, drops on the front now, new cables etc

To complete I just need some old/broken drop bar levers to go at the back for the stoker - anyone help?

1 Attachment

Mentioning the diameter needed will get you lucky.

In Belfast they can be found on Facebook, CTC (now cycling UK) also has info.

Good point its the standard drop bar brake diameter - 23.8mm I think any drop bar levers would work like these:

or to get fancy these nice cane creek stoker levers