Ragley Marley Intro

I've been meaning to try a modern mountain bike. Modern being long (long front center), low (low bottom bracket), and slack (slack head angle). I ended up with a Ragley Marley frame, courtesy of Chain Reaction Cycles, as a cheap way to try this. It's long (475mm reach/820mm front center), low-ish but not too low (45mm bb drop), and very slack (65.5 degree head angle). It's all modern with boost spacing and clearance for nearly full size B+ tires. Of course, I resolved to build this as cheaply as possible, so it's a parts bin special.

Tandem

I've been exploring new-to-me bike stuff lately, first with a small wheeled folder, and now with this:

It's a Trek T900 tandem, a recreational tandem from maybe a decade ago. I picked it up one Sunday morning from CL, and Henry and I parked and rode to his soccer tourney that day to avoid the horrible parking at the Hilliard Soccer Complex. This was a bit risky, since the brakes were mostly ineffective. Do tandems need good brakes? I did a quick brake job with my multi tool before the games started so we could ride back to the car, at least with a front brake.

Back home in our garage, I was ready to do some more work: