How to select and adjust your tandem's braking system(s) for safety even at high speeds.

There is a good deal of technique required to get the most out of riding a tandem. While anybody who can ride a single bicycle can manage a tandem, there are a few tricks and pitfalls that you should know about.

Life is not easy for the family with young children that is serious about cycling. There are several awkward years, when the children are to big for baby seats or even trailers, but too little to keep up with the adults on their own bikes. The ownership of a suitable tandem can make all the difference, and allow the family to maintain a continuous cycling tradition.

The mountain bike has revolutionized the solo bicycle market, but what are the implications of mountain-bike technology for the tandem market? Do mountain tandems make sense, and if so, for whom?

A cheap American tandem with skinny frame tubes and a coaster brake may sometimes be found at a yard sale. With some important equipment upgrades, it can work well for an adult riding with a child stoker or smaller adult.

The synchronizing chain on a tandem is usually adjusted by an eccentric-mounted bottom bracket at one end or the other. When you service a tandem, or, especially, when you set up a new one, you may notice that the tension on the synchronizing chain varies as the cranks turn. It may be quite tight when the cranks are in one position, and rather droopy after the cranks have rotated a bit. This is not good.

Now with more tips on eccentrics and chainwheel selection. (August 8, 1997)

This article describes one way of building a tandem by grafting two solos together. The resulting tandem will not have the ride quality nor the reliability of a multi-thousand-dollar tandem from a tandem specialist builder. It will, however, be superior to many "serious" tandems of the 1970's and earlier.

This article describes how to build up a tandem crankset using solo-bike parts. The results can be just as good as with a spacial-order tandem crankset, with a major cost savings.

Short fiction and satire by Tom Shaddox, from the The Tandem@Hobbes email list email list.

Former L.A.W. President Ralph Galen loaded his Globetrotter tandem with camping gear where a stoker would normally fit, and spent two years on the road.

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