Tamdem Recommendations

Dear All,
I am looking for a cheap and cheerful tandem. Intially it should be able to
take a 7 year old at the back nad an adult. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Neil

On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 21:12:34 +0100, "Neil Smith"
said in
:

I am looking for a cheap and cheerful tandem. Intially it should be able to
take a 7 year old at the back nad an adult. Any suggestions?

Second-hand ads in the Tandem Club journal
(http://www.tandem-club.org.uk)

And for new tandems, I think Thorn are good value, the Orbit used to
be cheap as well.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:27:57 +0100, "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:

On Mon, 6 Oct 2008 21:12:34 +0100, "Neil Smith"
said in
:

I am looking for a cheap and cheerful tandem. Intially it should be able to
take a 7 year old at the back nad an adult. Any suggestions?

Second-hand ads in the Tandem Club journal
(http://www.tandem-club.org.uk)

And for new tandems, I think Thorn are good value, the Orbit used to
be cheap as well.

Amongst the Barracudas and Vikings on Ebay there's a fair few second
hand bagains. I recently pointed a friend of friend at a Thorn
Voyager (the budget end of their range) with a buy it now of just over
two hundred quid. And even better the vendor was flying out of
Gatwick last weekend so brought it up FOC from the west country (the
buyer lives a stone's throw from Gatwick).

Anyway, where was I? There's a Dawes Galaxy twin on Ebay starting at
£500 which is a bit ambitious to put it politely. There's a Longstaff
tandem trike which I really fancy but will get me in life threatening
trouble if I buy it.

The trouble with 7 year olds is that they tend to grow. You (OP not
Guy) might be better getting a standard(ish) sized tandem and fitting
kiddie cranks then crank shorteners as the 7 year old gets older.

What sort of budget do you have in mind?

--
Tim

On Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:11:49 +0100, Tim Hall
said in
:

The trouble with 7 year olds is that they tend to grow. You (OP not
Guy) might be better getting a standard(ish) sized tandem and fitting
kiddie cranks then crank shorteners as the 7 year old gets older.

That's where the orbit is good, it has a lot of adjustment. I have
a Bike Friday family tandem, which will fit virtually any size in
either position. But that fails the test of cheap by about three
grand :-)

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

We are the proud owners of a Thorn Voyager childback tandem, see

http://simon.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/swmp...-09-06-Tandem/

It wasn't "cheap and cheerful"; by the time we got it all kitted out
the way we wanted to (including a custom wheel build with my own old
Schmidt hub dynamo in front) it was near £1000. However we expect to
get many years' use out of it. My daughter is now 5 and we have a 2
year old who will ride it later. Also, we got it through Cyclescheme
which made it tax-free.

One thing you must watch when buying a tandem that you intend to put a
kid on the back of is the crank length. See the picture here to see
the sort of absurb riding position your kids gets if you have full-
length 170mm cranks on the back

http://www.camcycle.org.uk/newslette...-childback.jpg

Compare that with this pic of me and my daughter:

http://simon.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/thum..._MG_0613.2.jpg

We got the Thorn double-drilled (115 and 140mm) cranks for the back of
our tandem. I feel it is essential to do something to provide sensible
length cranks for kids. You can get cheap cranks driller and
shortened, you can buy double drilled cranks, or you can get bolt-on
crank shorteners.

-Myra

Myra in Cambridge wrote:
We are the proud owners of a Thorn Voyager childback tandem, see
Also, we got it through Cyclescheme
which made it tax-free.

It's your commute bike? Wow.

BugBear

Neil Smith wrote:
Dear All,
I am looking for a cheap and cheerful tandem. Intially it should be able to
take a 7 year old at the back nad an adult. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Neil

If you head over to the Tandem Club site there are usually a few tandems
for sale plus the forum will be able to answer any other queries that
you may have.

You don't have to join ( £10 per year per team ) to use the forum or the
For Sale section.

http://tinyurl.com/4vhw9s


Sam Salt

bugbear wrote:
It's your commute bike? Wow.

It may seem strange, but yes it's my commute bike. Here's a pic of it
in full commute mode, with trailer on back.

http://simon.trinhall.cam.ac.uk/thum..._MG_0643.2.jpg

I start out in the mornings at home with my daughter as my stoker and
son in the trailer. On to school, where I drop off my daugher. Then on
the child minder, where I drop off my son. Then on to work, pedalling
the tandem by myself, with an empty trailer. And then the reverse on
the way home.

-Myra

"Sam Salt" wrote in message
...
Neil Smith wrote:
Dear All,
I am looking for a cheap and cheerful tandem. Intially it should be able
to take a 7 year old at the back nad an adult. Any suggestions?
Thanks
Neil

If you head over to the Tandem Club site there are usually a few tandems
for sale plus the forum will be able to answer any other queries that you
may have.

I reckon the ones for sale over there tend to be overpriced. I occasionally
make myself unpopular by pointing this out. Thing is, tandems really have
come on quite a lot in recent years, so recent ones are quite a lot stiffer
and stronger (both the frame and the wheels). I've seen 500 quid asked for a
super galaxy twin, which is 10 years old, 2 generations old frame of a not
terribly robust design to start with. The more recent dawes tandems were
close to that price new, much better frames, just a nominally lower label.

cheers,
clive

On Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:25:16 +0100, bugbear
said in
:

It's your commute bike? Wow.

We used a Me'n'U2 as a commute bike for a while, it's not /that/ odd
- though of course once you've dropped the kids off there is always
some wag telling you that you've lost the stoker...

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound