Tandem mountain bike for touring

[upcruiser]

Hey guys, my gf and I are looking at this Yokota Twin Peaks that our local outdoor resale shop has right now. It is in mint condition had True Temper tubing, a flex stem, a rear seat post shock and all the other original components it was speced with. They are asking $800. Does this seem reasonable? I have found a few older CL ads online and they had been asking anywhere from $600 for a really neglected one up to $1,600. I know tandem bike resale is rather high, and it's hard to judge value. I am a big mountain biker and road bike alot, she is a major roadie too. We are looking to use this for paved and dirt road long distance touring, maybe an occasional mtb race. I think it would be a great bike for it personally but wanted to see if anyone here had any advice.

FYI, it's not really that small, she is 6'1"

 

[Victorian]

V-Brakes? I think they are too weak and wont be able to stop that bike fully loaded and the two riders... Look at other touring tandems, they all have heavy duty wheels and brakes. V-Brakes will heat up the rims quiet a bit and could get them to blow up. I have seen it....

Anyhow, I'm sure that bike would be tons of fun!

 

[upcruiser]

Well it is running older cantilever brakes right not which seem to provide adequate power so far. We went ahead and picked the bike up today. I am going to tune it up a bit and we are going to give it the maiden voyage tonight on a route around 30 miles with a mix of bike paths, paved roads and dirt roads. Just riding it back from the store to my house, with the the tires not properly inflated, we were turning 22-23mph with the seemingly same amount of effort it takes on my road bike to produce 19-20mph. This is our first stab at tandem biking and we are pretty excited about it and the potential performance of this setup. We have some multi day trips in mind to bike camp off of it as well as possibly even trying a 48 mile point to point mountain bike race here in the beginning of August if we can get comfortable on the dirt and get our communication skills down! Haha I will snap
Some more pics of it and share.

 

[justinhw]

Hey Upcruiser,

I have a tandem holdsworth road bike that I have toured on. One thing I highly recommend is a hub brake (link) which is a drum-type brake that can be used to dial in constant braking force to control descents. Loaded with full gear downhills were the most scary for us and the hub brake helped control speed without having to constantly heat up the rim brake. Besides that, 40 or 48 spoke rims tend to be standard to cope with the weight.

Either way, it is a blast and I wish you a great time!

 

[upcruiser]

Girvin flex stem, Onza bar ends, Deore DX/XT, this thing totally screams early '90's..... And I love it! Haha

Cleaning it up now and giving it some love....

 

[upcruiser]

Hey Upcruiser,

I have a tandem holdsworth road bike that I have toured on. One thing I highly recommend is a hub brake (link) which is a drum-type brake that can be used to dial in constant braking force to control descents. Loaded with full gear downhills were the most scary for us and the hub brake helped control speed without having to constantly heat up the rim brake. Besides that, 40 or 48 spoke rims tend to be standard to cope with the weight.

Either way, it is a blast and I wish you a great time!

Great advice, thanks! Yeah braking seems to be a critical part of the equation on setting these up I am finding. The previous owners had supposedly done some long distance touring with this bike which I find interesting as the panniers and bar bag don't seem that ideal for it. Perhaps they were hotel camping with it. ;-)

 

[bat]

Tandems can be a blast and fast. Having ridden on both street and dirt tandems the dirt tandem was a hand full even for very experienced riders.

 

[Christophe Noel]

That looks like a fun bike! I always thought Yokota bikes went under appreciated. I remember selling a few Grizzley Peaks and Twin Peaks. I think that bike went for about $1300ish.

By the way, those brakes are AWESOME!!! Those are Scott/Pederson "self energizing" brakes. Trust me, those are plenty strong enough to stop you cold in your tracks. They do need to be maintained and loved, though. In a nutshell, they use the rotational force of the wheel to sorta suck the brakes into the rims. They were nearly certain death on a normal bike, but great for tandems. Before you go far, be sure to lube those brakes well, and throw a couple extra R and L springs in your bags. The arms slide on a little wedged piece that needs to be lubed carefully. Definitely get new pads while you're at it, if those are at all old. Just know those brakes can sorta stick in the braking mode under strenuous stopping applications. That's a great find, right there.

Since that bike doesn't have high spoke count wheels, I might suggest a B.O.B. trailer for your gear. Might save some wear and tear on the hoops.

Looks like fun!

 

[Gooseberry]

Tandems are just fun and get attention.

My wife and I raced solo for many years until we talked Ted into letting us borrow a Ibis tandem he had hanging in the shop. We rode it a half hour that Saturday and took first place the next day in a Mt bike race at Rim Nordic. After that we picked up a Cannondale MT3000 and did a bunch of races from local to 12/24 hour and epic 50/100 mile stuff. The one thing that is stuck in my mind is how the spectators and other riders rallied for you and it made that much more fun.

Oh ya on a decent all I needed to yell was TANDEM and they moved out our way.


A BOB is great for a tandem and have used mine many times


THE BEST THING TO DO AS A CAPTIAN IS TELL THE STOCKER WHAT YOU AR DOING AT ALL TIMES AND WHAT BUMPS SHE MIGHT BE GETTING.

 

[upcruiser]

That looks like a fun bike! I always thought Yokota bikes went under appreciated. I remember selling a few Grizzley Peaks and Twin Peaks. I think that bike went for about $1300ish.

By the way, those brakes are AWESOME!!! Those are Scott/Pederson "self energizing" brakes. Trust me, those are plenty strong enough to stop you cold in your tracks. They do need to be maintained and loved, though. In a nutshell, they use the rotational force of the wheel to sorta suck the brakes into the rims. They were nearly certain death on a normal bike, but great for tandems. Before you go far, be sure to lube those brakes well, and throw a couple extra R and L springs in your bags. The arms slide on a little wedged piece that needs to be lubed carefully. Definitely get new pads while you're at it, if those are at all old. Just know those brakes can sorta stick in the braking mode under strenuous stopping applications. That's a great find, right there.

Since that bike doesn't have high spoke count wheels, I might suggest a B.O.B. trailer for your gear. Might save some wear and tear on the hoops.

Looks like fun!

The previous owner said the retail was $2,300 but who knows. Good info on Scott/Pederson brakes. They are amazing. The backs are Deore XT cantilevers however and they leave something to be desired for sure. I will have to look into finding some springs for them and how to lube them. I wondered what the story was with them, I hadn't monkeyed with them at all yet. Thanks for that. Yeah, the wheels had me nervous but since we mostly will be doing tarmac and dirt roads figured they were probably fine unloaded. The Bob trailer is a good idea, kind of wanted one for my mountain bike anyway. Man that would be a long rig though! haha I noticed in that article of the dude who rode from Alaska to Argentina on his tandem mountain bike, that he rocked a Bob.

So some updates on the bike. We did a couple of 20 mile test rides on it to dial in the ergonomics. I swapped out the front pedals for SPD's, mounted up a women's specific seat in the back, tuned it up, degunked the chain, swapped handlebars a couple of times for a wider rear bar and a riser bar up front. We took it out on a 73 mile ride yesterday as it's first real test. The route was a mixture of pavement and dirt. The bike worked seemlessly. Some of the loose/fast sections of the gravel road were a bit unerving but our coordination skills on the bike seem to be growing exponentially. Some shots...

 

[upcruiser]

Tandems can be a blast and fast. Having ridden on both street and dirt tandems the dirt tandem was a hand full even for very experienced riders.

One thing I really have noticed is how much of an upper body work out it is manning the helm of a tandem, even on non technical stuff it seems to use more strength.

 

[upcruiser]

My wife and I raced solo for many years until we talked Ted into letting us borrow a Ibis tandem he had hanging in the shop. We rode it a half hour that Saturday and took first place the next day in a Mt bike race at Rim Nordic. After that we picked up a Cannondale MT3000 and did a bunch of races from local to 12/24 hour and epic 50/100 mile stuff. The one thing that is stuck in my mind is how the spectators and other riders rallied for you and it made that much more fun.

Oh ya on a decent all I needed to yell was TANDEM and they moved out our way.


A BOB is great for a tandem and have used mine many times


THE BEST THING TO DO AS A CAPTIAN IS TELL THE STOCKER WHAT YOU AR DOING AT ALL TIMES AND WHAT BUMPS SHE MIGHT BE GETTING.

Awesome. Yeah, we have been surprised by just HOW much attention a tandem gets. At first we thought we were getting harrassed by more people driving by in cars but we realized it was actually people shouting encouragment. Its like everyone is rooting for you on a tandem. How funny! We have had some great comments already. The comunication is coming along nicely. I actually noticed last night after the big ride that I was calling off what I was doing around the house because I got so used to announcing practically every action on the bike. That got a good laugh.

 

[DoKarider16]

If you haven't done it yet, you should ride stoker for her. Especially off road it is hard to realize just how scary it is descending when you can't see what is coming up. My wife and I put lot's of miles on a Cannondale Mt. tandem from that era. She actually went over the bars on it when we dropped into a big compression dip and the front wheel got pulled sideways. It taco'd the wheel. I was able to hit against a tree enough to straighten it out and we made it back with nothing more than bruises but it made for good stories. We had the same brakes and they worked for us. For long fully loaded touring you would want to be careful on any long descents, but ours held up well on plenty of steep mountain biking descents. The fastest I have ever been on a bike was on that tandem when we hit 52mph on a long descent.

Have a blast. Tandems are the best marriage counselor or the fastest way to a divorce attorney (sometimes a little of both). One last tandem tale. We lost the chain and got it back on and started riding. I kept trying to get her to position the pedals right and she was doing the same to me. Any time we would coast we be fighting each other trying to get the pedals in the right place. Turned out we got the pedals out of alignment when we put the chain back on. It took way longer than it should to figure out what was going on.

 

[Gooseberry]

If you haven't done it yet, you should ride stoker for her. Especially off road it is hard to realize just how scary it is descending when you can't see what is coming up. My wife and I put lot's of miles on a Cannondale Mt. tandem from that era. She actually went over the bars on it when we dropped into a big compression dip and the front wheel got pulled sideways. It taco'd the wheel. I was able to hit against a tree enough to straighten it out and we made it back with nothing more than bruises but it made for good stories. We had the same brakes and they worked for us. For long fully loaded touring you would want to be careful on any long descents, but ours held up well on plenty of steep mountain biking descents. The fastest I have ever been on a bike was on that tandem when we hit 52mph on a long descent.

Have a blast. Tandems are the best marriage counselor or the fastest way to a divorce attorney (sometimes a little of both). One last tandem tale. We lost the chain and got it back on and started riding. I kept trying to get her to position the pedals right and she was doing the same to me. Any time we would coast we be fighting each other trying to get the pedals in the right place. Turned out we got the pedals out of alignment when we put the chain back on. It took way longer than it should to figure out what was going on.

OMG that is the best way to put it.

And yes the stocker ride is a must. They set me up with a crazy CHP officer that rode the loop with us. I'm amased that we did not break the frame that day. He would be flexing the frame right while I was still going left ( two big guys ) then on the one big decent that happened to have a big jump part way down he took it a full spead ( would not hit it at full spead on my solo bike) needless to say I could see the trail clearly with out having to look around him and the front tire rubbed the crown for what seemed hours at that point. mind you this in between two fences 12 feet apart.

He still talks about that crazy ride and has never asked me to stoker again

 

[Louisd75]

They work great for touring

My fiancee and I have a Co-Motion that we tour on:

One of our first rides was from Seattle to San Francisco, and we had a blast. A couple of recommendations if you're going to be touring and camping:

*A third brake is nice to have. I've got V-brakes on each wheel controlled by the left brake lever through a cable splitter. I've also got a disc brake on the back wheel controlled by the right brake lever. I'm not sure if you can still find drum brakes for using as a drag brake, but that's also an option if your rear hub is set up for it (it'll be threaded on the non-drive side). I doubt your frame is set up for disc brakes.

*Tires. Don't skimp here. The last thing you want to be worrying about ripping down a mountain is the condition of your tires. We put on a pair of Schwalbe Marathon Racer tires and have been extremely happy with them. They're a little heavier, but we have had absolutely zero tire problems other than a sliced open tread after running over some glass with the back wheel (I was able to get the front around it, but as you've probably learned, the back is the tough one to move sideways). We finished the tour (another 500 miles or so of riding) and then replaced it. We have yet to get a flat on the tandem.

* Stoker seatpost. Yes, call out any and every bump that you can. Putting a good quality suspension seatpost in back for the stoker is key. After our big trip we put on a Cane Creek Thudbuster seatpost, and my fiancee loves it. I still call out the bumps and whatnot, it just takes the edge off of the little stuff that wears you down over a long day. When your suspension seatpost wears out (and it will since it compresses down and forward when the rider's weight will be going down and back), go for the Cane Creek.

* Drop Bars. Ok, not really a needed thing, but as you've noticed, being captain is a work out. It's nice having a few different places to put your hands while riding. You'll probably have to lose the flex-stem if you go this route

* Saddle bags vs BOB. I have and use both. For touring on the road, tandem bike or single, I use saddle bags. It's easier to maneuver the bike around and it lets you take turns drafting when you come upon other riders touring. The trailer works just fine on the road, I just don't like how long it makes the bike. Drivers are pretty dumb and tend to forget things as soon as they lose sight of them, even if there's a safety flag flapping in the breeze.

* Cranks. Check your cranksets for cracks. I recall seeing a lot of that vintage crankset with cracks, especially Shimano and Specialized brands. They tend to crack at the base of the crank arm where the chainring spider meets it. If you'd like pictures of what I'm talking about, PM me and I'll go rustle some up.

I like the tandem for touring much more than being on two single bikes. It's easier to communicate with each other, it's easier to maneuver through traffic with the stoker signaling and keeping an eye on traffic. The stoker can also keep a close eye on the map and give directions, or pass up food, etc. As nice as that all is, just keep in mind, as captain you are very vulnerable to attack from an upset stoker, so it's crucial to keep them happy :bike_rider: And yes, it's true that wherever your relationship is going, a tandem will take it there twice as fast.