Tandem Update

I've been tracking my mileage for a work challenge this winter. Since December, I've put on around three hundred miles on my various bikes. That's pretty good mileage, for me. What's interesting is my most ridden bike is the Trek tandem, with almost half those miles. This is because whenever I want to go for a ride, Sam is right there with me, and he always wants to take the tandem:

I've made some key changes that really helped turn this tandem from a painfully slow bike to one that's almost enjoyable to ride (considering it as a bike only, not commenting on my riding company!)



Far and away the biggest improvement was in the tires. The stock Bontrager hardcase commuter tires were awful, nearly as bad as Kenda Kwik Nines. Truly some of the worst tires I've encountered. I ordered some Schwalbe City Jets to replace them. These are not high end tires at around $20 each, but they roll so much better. They transformed the tandem.

At the same time, I put on some plastic fenders. This after I rode through a puddle and soaked Sam's pants leg. He can't see anything that's coming up ahead, so this was an unpleasant surprise for him.

Up front, I replaced the standard mountain riser bars with Surly Open Bars, with bar ends in the middle. The bar ends give me room to stretch out, but more importantly, they give a place to mount my light that can see over the Wald bag. One night ride with the light mostly blocked by the full bag was enough to drive me to fix that issue.

The kids like these ODI rubber grips on the rear:

Otherwise, I disassembled the drivetrain and cleaned all the excessive lube the previous owner had sprayed over everything. That made the bike a lot cleaner to ride. I was happy to find the Bushnell EBB moved freely, but I added some grease as insurance. The 8 speed shifting isn't great, so I'm thinking about upgrading it to an Advent 9 speed, as I recently did on my Ragley Marley. I want to give the Advent group more time on the Marley before I commit to that, though. A 400mm seat post up front gives me enough leg room, and I updated the front pedals as well.

Sam and I kind of encourage each other to ride with this. Who wants to ride to a cub scout meeting when it's dark, drizzly, and 38 degrees? Both of us, apparently (though in this case, we ended up going to the wrong church, and had to hammer three miles north to get to the correct place, only a bit late)

Maybe one reason Sam likes to ride so much is that our rides often feature Jeni's!