Thanks everyone for your comments!
GuNKiLLaH wrote:And now with custom paintjob??? AWSOMEx6
What I like about this is that it isn't a custom paint job, but will be available for all new Calfee's. Before, you could have any pattern you wanted, as long as it was solid. And most people chose Cabernet Red, and so these were ubiquitous. Now, Calfee's have a design, and buyer's can choose their color schemes. The size of a tandem is such that it wants to be broken up. Also, with the Calfee's specifically, the joint wrapping build technique makes it somewhat bulbous where tubes join. This paint scheme cleverly breaks this up. It will be satisfying to see future tandems with color schemes, and that this started with my bike.
jz4nyc wrote: if you have any tandem-specific bike forum recommendations, i'm all ears.
Well, the first is to not expect much tandem advice at the Weight Weenie forum. My tandem owes mightily to this forum, but not for anything tandem-specific. The BF
Tandem Cycling Subforum is where you can find all about tandems.
For example, this
recent thread, has a lot of specific information about purchasing a used tandem. I think that you'd not go wrong looking for a used Cannondale. These are priced well new, and have an aluminum frame from the same people that make the legendary CAAD-9. I think you should be able to get one for less than $2000, that will weigh about 36 lbs, should perform quite nicely, and should be a ton of fun. If you find the tandem isn't for you, it can be sold with no loss. But if you and your stoker demonstrate you've got it going on, then you can start ideating about a more definitive tandem.
djconnel wrote:I'm wondering what people think about the sharp contrast between the white and naked carbon: not too sharp? That had been my initial reaction, but maybe in the flesh it looks really good.
Well, I have snapshots in which the naked carbon doesn't look nearly so nice as what this professional photographer was able to show. I think that in the flesh, I'll not be liking the naked carbon, and ultimately I'll be taking it to Joe's Bicycle painting to de-nakedify the bottom tubes.
Powerful Pete wrote:You MUST post pics of this bike in real life and tell us more about the ride.
We will take delivery of the bike on March 12th, and are signed up for the
Solvang Century March 13th. So, there will be a report and in the field pics then!
There are a lot of things that I wonder about. Will the Campy 2006 triple FD shift with the 2009 SR levers? Will the SR 11 spd RD work with a triple (it supposedly needs a medium cage RD, that Campy doesn't make for 11 spd)? Will the Edge 68 rimmed wheels be stiff enough with only 28 spokes? How will the Edge 2.0 fork work, which is deemed a leading candidate for the now defunct AlphaQ tandem fork? And does that look like a big drop for the Captain?
