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umop3pisdn
skinny
@TvH
Forgot to froth about this at the time. Have wanted to try a tandem with Kate for ages, partly because she's less road confident than me and it would be nice if she could enjoy the scenery more and worry less about the riding, partly because she needs to eat all the time and is very slow up hills, and I'm tired of riding behind her all the time to match pace.
Some folks we know up the road have a beautiful Longstaff tandem that they don't ride much any more, and we basically have free rein to use it whenever we want, which is amazing. Took it out for the first time a couple of weekends ago, out into the countryside for fancy pub lunch, and it was amazing. Made a couple of kmph extra on our normal touring bike pace, I got a decent workout, and Kate enjoyed not having to think about piloting a lot more than she expected. Being able to hold conversations easily is great.
It's fillet brazed with bilaminate details, and definitely not noodly. Three rear brakes! The fit is perfect, might as well have been custom made for us. Slightly in love.
Kate was worried at first about turning and the possibility of falling off and such, but about 2 miles in while cycling out of Norwich some asshole in a Land Rover decided we needed a punishment pass and then stopped dead in front of us - unpleasant, but on the plus side as I managed to pilot the emergency maneuver around them without much trouble, she figured we could probably handle anything else.
Some changes I'd like to make with their permission regarding handlebars, and the front shifting is currently non-functional so I stayed in the big ring all the time (bless u Norfolk). What's the go-to large-ish tandem tyre? I can't imagine the Marathon pluses are any less of a hindrance on this than any other bike I've tried.