After being away for two weeks for work and waiting for parts, the Hubbuhubbuh is finally finished!
https://flic.kr/p/Vpyjod - keep scrolling. I still want to add Fenders, and the front one will be Rinkoed, but I need more time for that. In the meantime, it's ready to roll and start us on the tandem riding learning curve. First maiden ride was with my son, and it quickly highlighted the fact that we do need to learn how to coordinate our action and do the team dance. Very short maiden ride in front of the house, and by the end things were much improved. I still was petrified to take my hands off the grips, no shifts were done, starting and stopping successful but not smooth yet. It has made me realize that he and I need to practice plenty before I'm comfortable enough to try to go for a try with my wife. I don't think it's going to take long, but it's going to take some work for sure. Tandem riding seems to be an exhilarating experience, it just adds another dimension to the experience of riding a bike. I'm very happy I followed my "gut" and ordered the Hubbuhubbuh when announced. If you're thinking about getting one on the next order, do so. It's a whole new experience. A few notes: - The recommendation to use the Spar Urethane for the cork grips was excellent. I really like how they turned out after three coats. Beautiful, very smooth and great feeling when holding them. - On my frame, it seems the disc brake tab is not perfectly parallel to the disc rotor. I swapped the Paul disc brake that like most mechanical disc brakes only has one piston on the outside which would run the rotor a lot, with a TRP Spyke mechanical disc brake which has pistons on both sides, and after adjusting it, almost all of the ribbing was removed, with the wheel spinning freely. I'm sure the little rubbing that remains will disappear once I brake-in the pads and rotor, but I'm going to explore how difficult it would be to straighten that tab, or what can be done about it. I have a lot of experience with disc brakes on my mountain bikes, but have never had to deal with this issue before. - I tried to use a quick link on the timing chain with the idea that it would make it easy to open the chain to try different front/back pedal positions, but found that it didn't allow me to get the proper chain tension, essentially resulting in a extra link. So I removed it and now only need a very minor twist to the eccentric. With the link and the eccentric at its maximum chain length adjustment, it still seemed the chain had too much slop. I saw a chain length recommendation from Mark/Grant but have yet to count the number of links I currently have. I'll still bring the Hubbuhubbuh to my LBS mechanic so he can check it and review the disc brake tab issue. - Love the Compass SwitchBack Hill 48mm tires. They roll super smooth and fast. They come to about 50mm mounted on the Hubbuhubbuh rims. I did have to inflate them beyond their recommended maximum since the tandem plus riders is so much higher. I'll experiment with the pressure over time to find the best one. How do folks with tandem experience deal with the tire pressures? This is all for now. I'll report as I get more riding experience. René -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
