Wow, we had a great week where we were able to get out on the tandem bike four times! In previous years that wouldn’t have seemed like a big deal, but with the weather we’ve had this year it’s been a real challenge to get in any riding. It always seemed like it wanted to rain on the weekends and once we moved the clocks ahead the rain came on weekday afternoons as well!
However, with very few miles under our belt I took advantage of a slight lull in the action at work to leave “on time” several nights last week so that I could arrive at home about the same time as Debbie and then join her for an early evening tandem ride from the house. We succeeded in pulling this off on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights and were able to ride our 25-mile loop before sunset.
It wasn’t a blistering pace by a long shot, but we were happy with how we felt and the ride tempo we were able to maintain. We had a little excitement on Wednesday night when a spoke on our composite wheelset broke: all of the gory details are contained in an earlier blog entry that you can find HERE. Subsequent investigation and inspection of the wheelset disclosed that our rear wheel is also under duress. Oh well, that’s why we have backup wheels, eh?
Friday was an “off-day” from work and cycling as there was a Georgia Tandem Club (aka, PEACHES) ride scheduled for Saturday and I thought my legs had earned a recovery day. However, I’m not sure they really got it as I ended up spending most of the day on my feet doing yard work, i.e., trimming hedges, working the lawn, and the like. I was able to carve out some time to hop on the Harley for a short ride to and meet Debbie for lunch at the Red Eyed Mule. After that it was back to the house with just a short detour to pick up some replacement cleats for my cycling shoes at the local REI. I finished up my yard work and being the eternal optimist, loaded the tandem in the truck for Saturday morning’s ride. Friday evening included our usual visit to On the Border which was a great time as always. All the while we kept our eyes on the weather as the forecasters had been warning of an all-day wash-out on Saturday. However, by the time we arrived at home the forecasts had been updated and it was starting to look like a pretty good day!
I was up somewhat early on Saturday so I could verify the weather was still clear; it was. We were up and out of the house by 8:00am and arrived on the other side of the Atlanta perimeter near Stone Mountain for our group’s ride start. There were only five teams, but that’s almost par for the course these days… quite sadly. But, it was a beautiful day, the temps were pleasant and our riding partners were a joy so we had a great time. I believe all told we rode about 38.5 miles and climbed about 1,800-2,000′: no real steep stuff on that side of town. Both Debbie and I shared that we felt pretty good during and after the ride, which is to say nothing ached, got chaffed or made us feel like taking up a different hobby! We had lunch with our friends before heading back to our side of town where we’d take care of a few errands, take the hardtop off of her little red sports car for the spring & summer and then get ready to have a little bit of a Mark-Fest ahead on my birthday on Tuesday the 14th.
Mark-fest wasn’t all that extravagant; just dinner at our usual Saturday haunt — Olde Towne Tavern & Grille — followed up by a visit to our friend’s David & Deb’s Saturday haunt — Loco Willy’s — which was a good time. We capped off the night by going to a recently re-opened club where our favorite local cover band Pretty Twisted would be playing so we could kick up our heels. The place is something of a dive and struggling to get on its feet after being mis-managed and suddenly put out of business back in December. But, despite some of the rough edges and challenges, the band put on a great show and Debbie and I were able to enjoy our time together watching the action as well as being part of the action on the dance floor. I’m always amazed at how many folks who go to hear these bands have no interest in dancing anymore; seems like a shame to waste a good beat, a good band and a wooden or tiled dance floor when you find one!! The highlight of the night– aside from my date — was a special, personal performance of the “dirty birthday song” by our friend and lead singer for the band, Jody. We capped off the night by doing a repeat of our last night in Panama City Beach by stopping for breakfast at a Waffle House around 2:00am. We were both out like a couple of lights once we returned home.
Sunday started off surprisingly early for me as I was out getting Debbie’s little car washed and the soft top coated with UV protectant for the season, followed up by some work on my motorcycle and our tandem bike. The highlight of our day was a nice motorcycle ride to a long and leisurely lunch via the long-way around, and then it was out to the garage to get our triplet down from the ceiling and prepped for next weekend’s Georgia Tandem Rally. I must say, the garage gets crowded fast once that 10′ long bicycle built for three is on the floor!
Anyway, that was our weekend. We were able to get in over 100 hard miles of riding on our tandems



































New Wheels for the Triplet! But Are My Rims & Tires Too Narrow?
It’s been both interesting & occasionally even informative to watch several different “threads” running on “wider is better” themes across cycling. Frankly, I believe that so long as the average recreational/sport cyclists use wheels and tires at pressures that fall within a fairly wide band of “acceptable” for their weight, road / trail conditions and expectations for cost, durability and performance then all is good.
In many respects I merely see the push for “wider is better” in the same light as the 29er wheelsize and now the push for 650b wheelsize for off-road: it’s all about finding a way to sell more bikes to people who already own bikes. That’s what product “improvement & innovation” is really all about in the cycling industry… generating new business from your current consumer base and finding ways to reach out to new consumers.
And, what I’m guessing may be due in part to a bit of cabin fever with the way winter continues to linger and keep folks off of their bikes and tandems, a recent thread at one of the tandem forums started off this way:
Having ridden the aforementioned narrow rims since 1998 I felt I needed to weigh in on this subject, I shared the following perspective….
Perhaps it’s because they’ve worked rather well for many teams?
We started out on Santana’s OEM spec Araya VX300 rims on our ’96 Arriva @ 23mm. At the time, the “hot rim” for tandems was the Mavic T217 @ 22mm with a deeper section, better profile, etc. and we switched to those within a month after buying our Santana. This worked quite well since I’d also ditched the rather dead-feeling and wallowing Specialized tires that came on the Santana for what I had in the garage: a set of 23mm Vredestein Fortezza Tri-Comps. It was a huge improvement and our Santana’s cornering and road feel was much more to MY liking.
When we commissioned our ’98 Erickson Glenn Erickson was spec’ing the deep section Mavic CXP-30 rims @ 19mm but with a 34mm deep section for lightweight teams running narrow 23mm – 25mm tires. To say we were pleased with how the Erickson handled compared to our Santana would be a huge understatement: it was an amazing transformation. At the time we were 260lbs wet and still running the 23mm tires on our very smooth roads here in Georgia.
I didn’t move to a 25mm wide tire until we did our first tour in 2002, but by that time we’d moved to the Velocity Deep-V rims as Mavic had discontinued the CXP-30 in favor of the CXP-33. The handling through the corners was almost as good as our 23′s and they were definitely a welcome addition on less than smooth roads. However, we quickly found out why many teams prefer or even need 28mm – 35mm tires when we flew to San Antonio for a Southwest Tandem Rally in New Braunfels, TX. OMG, we’d ridden on chip seal before but not Texas-size chip seal. It was an eye-opening experience. A trip to Dayton, Ohio for a Midwest Tandem Rally also made us appreciate how folks who have to deal with concrete roads & expansion joints also need a wider tire with a proportionally wider rim to support that tire.
However, at least back here on our home turf and most areas in the Southeast where we do 99% of our riding the 19mm spec rims with nothing larger than a 25mm tire continue to deliver outstanding performance, comfort and reliability and since we don’t race or do time trials optimizing for aerodynamics is not high on my list of imperatives. If it was, we certainly wouldn’t be riding on our very comfortable Topolino’s. But, then again… we only weigh a combined 275lbs which puts us into an entirely different world than teams who weigh 340lbs, 375lbs, 400lbs, etc. And where/how you ride also factors into the equation along with preferences, regardless if those preferences are founded on fact or emotion.
So, I guess my point is, most folks tend to use what works or to mimic what they see other folks using and stick with it until something “better” comes along and trends follow-suit. The trends established in the late 90′s that carried us through the first decade of this century have gone pretty much unchallenged up and until more recently. The wider is better movement is just that: a new trend that may certainly have merits. However, I don’t believe it is either a revolutionary change or one that will have a positive or negative effect on most teams that have used the more narrow rims without any real issues.
Shall we discuss the move away from internal tubes to open frames as well? Or is that also one of those areas where the pros and cons will both be objective and subjective and at the end of the day have more to do with trends and preferences? How about carbon forks vs steel? The evolution of bottom brackets? Compact doubles vs. standard triple drive chains?
It all makes for interesting discussion, but there’s no right or wrong. If something looks silly to you then find something that looks less silly. Let’s face it, we all look like silly idiots to 95% of the non-cycling public out there in our little plastic hats and form-fitting lycra shorts.
Just some food for thought. And, yes… we’ll likely experiment with some wider rims and tires on our Erickson at some point. But, in the interim I still find the 24mm wide Dyad rims with 28mm tires to be an excellent combination for our Triplet, not so much for our Calfee. But, that’s just my preference.
Speaking of the triplet and those 24mm Dyads, we just received a new wheelset from Mel at Tandems East. These 40/48 Dyad/White Ind. black beauties (no photo yet, that’s just a placeholder) replace the original silver 48/48 Dyad/White Ind. wheelset that came on the triplet to complete the cosmetic redo. We have some 36/36 DeepV/White Ind wheels that we’ve used with 28mm tires in the past, but with 400+ lbs of riders a wider rim and more spokes are good things to have. Now, should we have gotten an even wider rim to support 32mm or even 35mm tires? Hard to say, but we can certainly use these wheels on our Erickson or the Calfee with our Reynolds Ouzo Pro Tandem fork to see how a wider, lower psi tire performs and probably will.