Tandems of the forum

Yeah, life is too short to ride shit bikes. Just got to eat rice for a while.

Fat tyres and jones bars are the new slammed aero.

Exactly.

Any thorn related stuff you need help with, the two chaps there are splendid, Ivan.watkins@thorncycles.com / sales@thorncycles.com

That's a lot of tubing, should hopefully be plenty strong. I'm curious how practical the couplers end up being for you.

Is it single speed?

Rohloff hub, 14spd internal gear. It means you can shift gear when static, which on a tandem seems incredibly useful.

Yeah I didn't necessarily want SS couplers but this one just had them. They barley add any weight and thus even if I use them once, they're well used. IT does mean I can easily stick the tandem in the boot and take it to the south of france. Or in bags onto a train.

It’s a bike designed to go round the world...!

Use it for 10 years, bet you sell it for the same if not more.

Couplers On tandems and Rohloff make things so much easier

Yeah think it was a good price.
I'll give it a look over and a shout you if I need parts.

@6pt @skinny +1 for tandem ride!

Any thorn related stuff you need help with, the two chaps there are splendid, Ivan.watkins@thorncycles.com / sales@thorncycles.com

It's skinny, they obviously want to sponsor him. :)

Congrats on the purchase!
It’s a very nice bike, I can’t fault ours.

I also upgraded the tyres and the handlebars, but I recently realized that the flat bars also make it more packable. Wouldn’t mine back on though, because no travels here.

Those chainrings can be flipped over if they’re worn btw. It’s a very nice way of extending the lifetime on them!

Thanks for the tip on the chainring.

Yeah I'm sure there will be some upgrades to happen, however I'll ride up some grades first to see what. Tyres will be the first and likely tubless. I've got other ideas too.

The handlebars and apparently thorn carbon bars, so that will be interesting. They could have some nice flex and vibration dampening.

Good first ride out, quite simple and we rode pretty smooth.

The rohloff was a bit clunky, and somethims when going up hill it didnt want to shift down a gear, just jammed. If I took pressure of the pedals it then shifted. Anyone got a thought before I Google and see about servicing it.

Otherwise bike rides really nice and stable.

Isn’t that user error? I would have expected you need to ease off the pedals as you shift, like any other kind of shifting mechanism?

Or are these supposed to survive mashing on pedals while shifting?

Will only shift when you back off, all internal hubs the same.

Oil change once a year or 5000k whatever comes round sooner.

Servicing is done at Thorn, £140 I think!

It's a dog box like any other, shifting under load is going to take a lot of force because you're trying to slide the drive dogs over one another while they are forced into contact by the drive torque. @skinny you wouldn't try a clutchless shift on your motorbike without backing off the throttle, would you?

Fair enough. I've got a bit lazy with di2 and the new xtr hyperglide which allows a good amount of load. I'll have to plan ahead just a little more shifting. Good analogy @mdcc_tester

Thays a fairly frequent service on the oil @R.hobbs I'll look at doing that.

a fairly frequent service on the oil

It might be weekly for you, but it would be 5 year intervals on my race bike 😀

Especially back off when going from 8th to 7th gear. After a while you learn to time the shift when your feet are at top/bottom centre.

Thankfully my other half is the sane one!

Beautiful russet Roberts tandem with scarlet bar tape outside the Carnegie Library about 5pm today. Who dis?

The service kit is €20 and is the easiest job in the world, literally. I did it to mine when I bought it because I didn’t know how well/often the previous owner had serviced it.

What’s included in that price? Disassembly and new seals?

Thanks. I'll order it from sjs, as I need new pads all around. I also need to fit new cables.

The rear disc is brilliant, very capable at stopping us.

Christ the Brooks fitted is not for me!

Looks like the saddle might need tensioning. Did the bike come with a little tensioning spanner?