# Screw 29"! Damn the Speedhub. So long, disc brakes...



## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

Thanks Francis! Perfect!

I came home from my 3rd Thanksgiving Los Gatos/Kennedy turkey ride and shared everyone's MTBR pictures with my wife.

Not one to want to ride up Kennedy on her own, she asked, "So what ever happened to that tandem?"

A couple of years back, I got a wild hair up my butt: a custom "convertable" 29"er tandem, one that could be switched back to a single bike through the use of S&S couplers. It took a little doing to see how expensive and/or impractical it would be, and I shelved the idea.

I didn't know that Anne really wanted a tandem. We rented in San Francisco a couple of times, and definitely had some fun bombing fire roads in the Marin headlands. And here she was asking about it again.

An internet search revealed the truth: they're still pricey. Starting small, I settled on a cheapie mail order department store model I could "upgrade." Uh, yeah... just about everything!

So I manned up and asked her! "How much would you consider spending on a used tandem?" _About a grand_ was the reply -- much more generous that I would have expected.

This past Wednesday, I drove up to Auburn, and brought home this little Craig's List gem:










Saturday was our first outting. Initially we were going to start with a flat paved ride by the bay, but at the last minute we made a detour and ended up at our nearby Lake Chabot, with enough climbing and descending to keep us occupied.

It wasn't easy. Getting going was simple enough. Finding a compatible rhythm was more difficult -- we spin differently, and have different ways of approaching a climb. Our regular 2-mile ascent took us three stops and left us winded. It sucks that both of our seatposts are just a bit too short for proper leg extension. Oh, and the rear shifter paddle only catches every third or fourth press, so downshifts are sketchy.

Worse yet were the descents. The hydraulic rim brakes leave much to be desired, and I hate to say it, but we're pretty much maxing out our 100mm fork the moment we both put our weight on the bike. The 2.0" tires don't inspire confidence, and the front 9mm QR dropouts deflect a little too easily...

...and the hikers laughed as we nervously rolled past them, me commenting, "we pretty much can't stop right here."

A couple of sections where I cared to let 'er roll (with good run-outs) weren't so bad. Anne didn't scream -- er, too loudly -- and the bike just plows over stuff. There's really no deflecting nearly 400 pounds of aluminum and flesh, and guess what? The back tire neither looses traction nor lifts under hard braking! Whoopie!

We finished up, and despite my sore braking fingers, we had a blast. I'm pretty sure we're both going to enjoy this, even more so as we grow into it together.

Today was difficult: the money discussion. We NEED shifters and seatposts. Disc brakes would be nice. But with disc brakes come disc hubs, and tandem-specific hubs are expensive. _And since we're looking at hubs, we probably ought to consider a 20mm thru-axle..._ You can see where this is leading!!!

We ought to be rocketing up our usual 2-mile climb in no time. The descents... eh, we'll work on it! But I expect that on chilly Thanksgiving morning of 2008, Anne will be enjoying her first turkey breakfast among the hundreds at the top of Kennedy trail, thanks in part to our 8-foot-long equalizer.


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## dankilling (Feb 24, 2004)

My wife and I have a tandem as well- its a roadie, but what a great time- it is true, though, a Tandem will either make or break a marriage  Enjoy!


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## sparrow (Dec 30, 2003)

Good work! And great story! Keep in mind, this is *her* bike, any upgrades or parts purchases can't be counted against any budget there may be for your bike stuff. This is the marital bike, so to speak, do no cost should be spared!

Just pony up for a well equipped FS tandem! Looky around at www.mtbtandems.com for example.


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## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

sparrow said:


> Good work! And great story! Keep in mind, this is *her* bike, any upgrades or parts purchases can't be counted against any budget there may be for your bike stuff. This is the marital bike, so to speak, do no cost should be spared!
> 
> Just pony up for a well equipped FS tandem! Looky around at www.mtbtandems.com for example.


Ah, if only! Perhaps a FS Jeepster in our distant future, if all goes smoothly. It is far too early for us to make that big of a committment.

Alex of MTBTandems.com has already been of help to me via email and especially through his posts archived on the Double Forte forum on Yahoo! Groups. Hopefully he'll drop in here from time to time.


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## sparrow (Dec 30, 2003)

Get the Double Forte folks over here to mtbr! now that this tandem section popped up (when did that happen?)


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## cmckim (Jul 18, 2007)

*Sweet ride*

Howdy,

Great ride - my wife and I started on a 1999 Cdale (just like yours but yellow). A couple of tips
1) do get seatposts that fit and consider a thudbuster for her
2) slap some bigger tires on there 2.4 front and about 2.3 back (my 2.4 moto raptor rubbed)
3) The hydro rim breaks are hand busters but new pads can help - also you could get a solid 36 hole front disc hub laced to a rhyno lite and you could get a disc on the front. Tandems are not that hard on front hubs.
4) cadence will work out eventually. I now power less and spin more, but stop less overall than on my single.
5) enjoy the ride. I love riding with my wife (and now towing our son...)


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## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

cmckim said:


> Howdy,
> 
> Great ride - my wife and I started on a 1999 Cdale (just like yours but yellow). A couple of tips
> 1) do get seatposts that fit and consider a thudbuster for her
> ...


Thanks for the tips! This frame is a 2000, but probably the same frame geometry.

1) Thudbuster LT is the first item up at bat. The Thud plus a decent saddle were responsible for transforming my wife's enjoyment of riding a number of years ago.

2) The tires on my list are a 2.5" Weirwolf front / 2.4" Mutano rear. I'm gambling that the tread block is low enough that it will clear, but I haven't purchased them yet. Perhaps a 2.24" Mutano instead?

3) I would try new pads, except that the brakes are either HS-24s or HS-11s, not the more powerful HS-33s. I'd rather not dump any money into them when it seems like discs are inevitable for a team our weight.

4) What surprised me most on our first ride was Anne's tendency to spin up early -- and fast -- for a short, steep section of a climb. I'll be happy to *try* to match her enthusiastic cadence, but I've got to get her to back off just a touch, now that we have some extra power. This is definitely going to be a little bit of give and take as we sync our styles.


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## cmckim (Jul 18, 2007)

*Learning curve*

I will always remember our second tandem ride in Winter Park, CO. My lovely bride was determined to "carry her weight" and ended up powering us off the trail on several uphill turns. She is now extremely sensitive to how much power I am using, in fact she seems nearly telepathic. We are not a "verbal instructions" team. I warn her of notable obstacles or changes, but otherwise we just continue discussing whatever we are talking about. She is a great stoker.

Our Moto 2.5 rubbed, but the wheel might have been slightly off center. I have been using a IRC trailbear 2.25 It has lots of tread and is really cheap. Tandems go through rear tires fast.

I remembered a trick for the fork. I don't know what spring you have in there, and it can be tough to tell since they changed colors a few times. You can open it up and stuff elastomers inside the spring to create a firmer ride. You would need a cannondale "castle tool" to get to the spring. Have you adjusted the preload? (It takes a really long 5mm hex)


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## patineto (Oct 28, 2005)

For brakes maybe you can try something like this.









Upss,,, difficult to see.









oh much better.









Yes.. they can be implemented on flat bars too.









The work amazing the disc don't get over heat, the rims and tubes don't suffer as much in short you get ultimate power with very little disc drag (I explain later about that)
I live in Berkeley, maybe I can even teach you how to do it.


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## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

cmckim said:


> I will always remember our second tandem ride in Winter Park, CO. My lovely bride was determined to "carry her weight" and ended up powering us off the trail on several uphill turns. She is now extremely sensitive to how much power I am using, in fact she seems nearly telepathic. We are not a "verbal instructions" team. I warn her of notable obstacles or changes, but otherwise we just continue discussing whatever we are talking about. She is a great stoker.
> 
> Our Moto 2.5 rubbed, but the wheel might have been slightly off center. I have been using a IRC trailbear 2.25 It has lots of tread and is really cheap. Tandems go through rear tires fast.
> 
> I remembered a trick for the fork. I don't know what spring you have in there, and it can be tough to tell since they changed colors a few times. You can open it up and stuff elastomers inside the spring to create a firmer ride. You would need a cannondale "castle tool" to get to the spring. Have you adjusted the preload? (It takes a really long 5mm hex)


I can tell it's going to take time to work out the whole "non verbal command" thing. For starters, how do you communicate "coast here" or "spin it up?" Should the stoker just sense the captain's lead, or vice versa? Lots of back 'n forth jibber-jabbering currently.

The fork is a Moto FR Tandem, so I'm guessing it has the heaviest "tandem" weighted spring (I looked at Cannondale's spring chart, and "tandem" came after "X-Firm", I think). No matter, we're going for the ATC T-5 fork. I really want to get rid of those 9mm dropouts and the resulting flexy front end.


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## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

patineto said:


> For brakes maybe you can try something like this.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I considered leaving one of the Magura rim brakes installed on the rear wheel as a backup, and installing the lever on the stoker's handlebar. But I'll install the discs soon, and first we'll evaluate how they perform alone. Judging from the accounts of off-road tandem teams, the discs alone ought to be sufficient.

I recently ran across Hope's new vented rotors, which are claimed to run "an average of 15% cooler" than stock rotors. If we run into overheating problems, 15% seems like a pittance compared to the $100 price tag attached.


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## cmckim (Jul 18, 2007)

Different teams develop different communication straegies. Ours is mostly Heather sensing and predicting what I am going to do. She could explain better. We have a pretty big mass and leg strength difference as well, I'm 180 she is 112. She found it easier to sense what I was doing, then react rather than try to "out force" me.

Suprisingly, not all tandem forks cam with the tandem spring. There are reports of some rather different stock set-ups. Ours came with the "firm" which (when stuffed a bit) worked pretty well for us at 300lbs team weight. We now have the ATC on our Ventana. I would give it a mixed reveiw so far. Older technology and some other minor issues, but easy to work on and pretty good service from ATC. MtbTandems has some clearance forks you could look at. (listed under "garage sale")

Is the front end flex all fork or possibly some wheel flex? We are a not heavy team but I never found the moto to be flexy


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## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

cmckim said:


> Suprisingly, not all tandem forks cam with the tandem spring. There are reports of some rather different stock set-ups. Ours came with the "firm" which (when stuffed a bit) worked pretty well for us at 300lbs team weight. We now have the ATC on our Ventana. I would give it a mixed reveiw so far. Older technology and some other minor issues, but easy to work on and pretty good service from ATC. MtbTandems has some clearance forks you could look at. (listed under "garage sale")
> 
> Is the front end flex all fork or possibly some wheel flex? We are a not heavy team but I never found the moto to be flexy


The best I can describe it is a "twisting" flex, where the wheel feels a little squirmy across light ruts or off camber turns, especially under braking.

I've converted to 20mm thru-axles on my two singles, eliminating that sensation. But with the singles, I felt it more at high speeds (and when landing a jump or hop), whereas on the tandem, it manifested on a steep, crawling descent -- spooky. I suppose there could be some wheel flex in there, as well.

In any case, if we were 75-100 pounds lighter, I think the Moto would be a fine fork.

Do you happen to know the listed spring weights of the various Moto coil selections? It would be easiest for me to just weight the front end and see how many pounds of force it takes to compress the fork an inch.

I'd much rather put the White 100T on this bike (or even their inverted Groove 200 -- Alex just put this monster up on the MTBTandems fork page). I know I'm making a preformance sacrafice with the T-5, but I like its user-servicability, and potential to convert it to a 29"er, if that ever happens.

I checked out Alex's garage sale page. The Risse Trixxy + hub + Rhino wheel on there is a nice deal, but too tall for this bike. As is, the Moto FR has a 450mm axle-to-crown height, and I'm trying to stay as close to that as possible.

So we've got the T-5 along with a burly disc wheelset heading our way. I think that will give us the confidence in our equipment we need to get rolling.


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## cmckim (Jul 18, 2007)

*New toys*

Cool! Which wheelset did you get?

Don't get me wrong, the ATC is a good fork. Very robust and easy to service (no oil). There were a couple of issues because they changed the bushings to a tighter tolerance - probably good in the long run, but kind of sticky out of the box. I have lots of parctice playing with them now, so if you have any issues Pm me or check Double forte archives. The only flex I notice now is the tire compressing. We just converted our ATC to 6" but haven't really tested it enought to say if it is better/worse.


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## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

cmckim said:


> Cool! Which wheelset did you get?
> 
> Don't get me wrong, the ATC is a good fork. Very robust and easy to service (no oil). There were a couple of issues because they changed the bushings to a tighter tolerance - probably good in the long run, but kind of sticky out of the box. I have lots of parctice playing with them now, so if you have any issues Pm me or check Double forte archives. The only flex I notice now is the tire compressing. We just converted our ATC to 6" but haven't really tested it enought to say if it is better/worse.


I had myself convinced that the King / MTX wheelset was the way to go, given King's reliability and my fondness of their unique way of preloading the front hub bearing... and partly because Alex's price seemed really good, considering the price of just the hubs alone at any other retailer.

But the Kings come in a max 36 hole configuration, and a couple of email exchanges later, he had me convinced to stick with a 40 hole setup which, pleasantly, was quite a bit cheaper.

So I'm going with the White Industries CHUB front + M16 rear, laced to Mammoth 40 hole rims.

I've got a CHUB that's been bouncing around my fleet for the past two or three years, and the only problem I've had with it was the aluminum dust cap that continually popped loose, making a jingle-jangle on the through axle, and exposing the bearing to dirt. But finally, a little Loctite and a good whack with a mallet solved that problem. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the rear hub's freehub mechanism remains reliable, but other riders report no recent problems.

The Mammoth rims are a porky 700g+, which turns me off, but I've dug through a bunch of old Double Forte posts and MTBR archives, and they appear to be bulletproof. Besides, the Halo Freedom rims I've built up for both of my single bikes (both 29"ers) weigh in around 620g, and I love 'em, so what's another 90g for peace of mindx2? I can fiddle with shaving grams at some point down the road, once we figure out what works for us and the trails we end up riding.

I'll do a follow-up post with an updated photo once we get the bike reconfigured. All told, this is more money than either of us wanted to spend, but I think we're still ahead compared to buying new, or even used (slim pickins, and I know some screaming deals pop up from time to time).

I think the key is that we both had such a great time on the first outting, that we're much more enthusiastic about this whole venture. I'm pretty certain we can just concentrate on riding it once we get past this hurdle.


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## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

I figure one more update to this thread is in order.

All the "new toys" have arrived. A fork fit issue with the Cannondale's tall head tube popped up, and ATC is working to rectify that. Until that happens, we're riding pretty much the original bike.

I'm getting used to the stock Magua rim brakes, but looking forward to the discs. Tuesday we did our first longer ride, and instead of the usual steep, lightly rutted descent we've been creeping down since day one, we finished with two miles of well-groomed, flowy fire road. Recent rain made the soil conditions ideal.

Wheeeeeeeeee!!!

On terrain like this, the Maguras perform very well, and my fingers don't scream in cramped agony at the bottom.

Lots of _Oohs!_ and _Aahs!_ from the back of the bike as we nailed a couple of very familiar trails at a pace Anne doesn't typically hit on her own. One off-camber, pebbley descent that can be tricky on a solo bike went perfectly, and despite a vigorous protest from the back, she came out of it with a new-found confidence.

We botched one short, steep climb. That was our first tandem bail-out, and without any planning, we both chose the correct side to step clear (the other side being a painfully obvious tumble down a hill). We also voluntarily dismounted and walked our first section, a short, very rutty, pretty steep descent.

The mystery of the day was a loss of traction on a wet but well-packed climb. The trail was steep, but very short. With the rear tire at 40 PSI, we felt the rear wheel spin as we pumped hard. "It's slipping!" I shouted. "_GO! GO! GO!_" was Anne's reply as she poured it on. It slipped more. "*GO!!*" _Damn! She's possessed._ We crested the incline, where the trail flattened out completely. I was surprised to find the tread _wasn't_ loaded with mud, and I found it weird to have just kept pushing, with absolutely zero ability to shift our weight around, and scratch our way out using horsepower alone.

We both came back pretty sore from Tuesday's outting... that usual, "satisfying" soreness from any good day on the trails. I'm sitting here at 2:30 writing this, reliving yesterday's effort, anxiously anticipating the next.

It's funny... when the brake, wheel and fork upgrades finally come on-line, I think the "fun quotent" will get kicked up a notch, but I seriously doubt it's going to make these rides any easier.


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## TandemNut (Mar 12, 2004)

Nate,
Have Ann lean back as far as possible when climbing something steep and slick. It makes a surprisingly big difference in rear wheel traction. 
Once you install the discs, give them a chance to break in some.The first few stops are not inspiring; it takes some good hard stops and heating up to get them bedded in and de-glazed of whatever is on them at the factory. Clean the rotors with alcohol before you ride them and they'll break in even sooner. 
I think you'll find them to be plenty powerful. Unlike the "early" years of off-road tandeming, braking isn't an issue for most teams any more.Technology has caught up well!
Thanks for your posts; it's a lot of fun for us to read about you guys and your experiences with your new tandem. It brings back some fun memories!


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## Nzahn (Dec 29, 2010)

Hi SpeedUb.Nat You still have your cannondale tandem? How is it going with it?


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