Suit yourself, but most stokers who ride singles with open pedals will end up preferring a toe clip on a tandem. Here's why. When the pilot suddenly comes across broken pavement or a surprising pot hole and follows their instinct to suddenly stop pedaling and lift their butt off the seat, without warning, the stoker will loose contact with the pedals and get whacked in the shin before she reconnects. Now if you're perfect, or only ride on good roads then that's not a problem.
Also I would caution people on this list to look carefully at tire clearances on 700C tandems. Cannondale, Co-Motion, and Santana design there 700C bikes around 28mm tires. If that's what you want, fine, but I suspect that most riders on this list will prefer tandems with 38mm or bigger tires on a tandem and that generally means 26" wheels. Also, the 26" wheels are stronger and can be safely built with 36 spokes. We run 26x1.6 Marathon Racers and love them on all surfaces, including VTs dirt roads. Another possible option for tandems is DaVinci; and even if you don't buy a frame from them they design a lot of really good, tandem specific parts. michael On Nov 11, 8:12 am, Seth Vidal <skvi...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 7:30 AM, MichaelH <mhech...@gmail.com> wrote: > > A nice used, medium sized, Ti Tandem popped up on the tan...@hobbes > > list this morning. In addition to the good advice about handling, I > > would add that you will want more stand over for the pilot than you > > probably have on your single, especially if you bought it from Grant. > > On a tandem the pilot must straddle the bike with his/her legs spread > > beyond the pedals and hold the brakes, while the stoker climbs aboard > > and repositions the pedals for the pilot to put one foot on and push > > off. Also, plan on clips or clipless pedals, since loosing contact > > with tandem pedals can be a painful experience! > > I agree with the standover - that's true - but disagree with clipless. > We ride on sneaker pedals and vastly prefer it. > > -sv -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bu...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
