New Member of the Tandem Club

[Sixmile]

After well over a year of searching, emails, close calls and near misses, I finally have a Circe tandem to call my own. After hiring from Bristol Tandems last summer, the kids and I have been keen to get a tandem of our own. It's not exactly the spec that I wanted but very close. I compromised on the Alfine as I'm not a fan of it due to a bad few experiences with Alfines on a Boardman commuter that I reluctantly own (long story). The condition of the bike for 2nd hand is unbelievable. No bike that I own is in what you could call as new condition, but this certainly is.

The courier dropped it to us yesterday and we built it up rather quickly, including shiny new crank shorteners from Laid Back Bikes. I took the kids in turn, younger child for 11 miles and older girl for 16 miles. It's quite hilly round where we are and we were in 1st a few times. The bike is heavy, especially at the rear and we ended up a touch slower than i would've expected. I've a shopping list made up already containing a rear rack, thudbuster seatpost, double kickstand, mudguards, new grips and bar ends. I understand though that this all adds weight when I should really just admit that it's already heavy enough. For now, due to lockdown we're limited to local roads but we've got bigger plans once this passes. We'll have our legs prepped and our tyres pumped in anticipation.

 

[wisdom]

Brilliant.Great for the kids to be out as well.They are after all the future of cycling.

 

[stoatsngroats]

View media item 10553They’re fantastic fun, best of luck to you all!

 

[roubaixtuesday]

After well over a year of searching, emails, close calls and near misses, I finally have a Circe tandem to call my own. After hiring from Bristol Tandems last summer, the kids and I have been keen to get a tandem of our own. It's not exactly the spec that I wanted but very close. I compromised on the Alfine as I'm not a fan of it due to a bad few experiences with Alfines on a Boardman commuter that I reluctantly own (long story). The condition of the bike for 2nd hand is unbelievable. No bike that I own is in what you could call as new condition, but this certainly is.

The courier dropped it to us yesterday and we built it up rather quickly, including shiny new crank shorteners from Laid Back Bikes. I took the kids in turn, younger child for 11 miles and older girl for 16 miles. It's quite hilly round where we are and we were in 1st a few times. The bike is heavy, especially at the rear and we ended up a touch slower than i would've expected. I've a shopping list made up already containing a rear rack, thudbuster seatpost, double kickstand, mudguards, new grips and bar ends. I understand though that this all adds weight when I should really just admit that it's already heavy enough. For now, due to lockdown we're limited to local roads but we've got bigger plans once this passes. We'll have our legs prepped and our tyres pumped in anticipation.

View attachment 515920

Fab, love it. We had a standard tandem but with kiddycranks for years.

One holiday featured eldest as stoker, middle on child seat and smallest in the trailer. Also had a trailer bike and turned it into a triplet. Happy days.

How old are your girls? What's the plan to get them both moving at the same time?

 

[mudsticks]

View media item 10553They’re fantastic fun, best of luck to you all!

I had one if these for several years to commute the youngest to school on.

A good step up from a tag along

 

[Sixmile]

Fab, love it. We had a standard tandem but with kiddycranks for years.

One holiday featured eldest as stoker, middle on child seat and smallest in the trailer. Also had a trailer bike and turned it into a triplet. Happy days.

How old are your girls? What's the plan to get them both moving at the same time?

Girls are 6 and soon to be 8. That's the eldest in the original photo. She has two of her own bikes and can cycle 20 miles solo without much issue. The younger girl has only recently 'took off' cycling her 14" single speed and wouldn't be confident enough to go on roads on her own. Here was yesterday's 'solution' to getting them both out...



Now the Croozer trailer has been a staple of our cycling over the last 4 or so years and is a simply fantastic and versatile piece of kit BUT it was murder on yesterdays ride. They took turns at riding stoker but on any sort of incline we were down to 1st and giving 100%. A 25 mile ride felt like harder than any 100+ solo ride I've ever done. I've come to the conclusion (maybe somewhat prematurely) that the trailer will just not work with this unless we're touring Holland or find a decent route without any reasonable inclines. I need a lower gear, the 1st on the Alfine just isn't low enough so I'm guessing i either need a bigger cog at the hub end or a larger chain ring at my pedals? I'm not too worried about losing speed on 8th as we're not there very often and when we are, we're happy to coast. On a side note, i have Alfine 8 on a C2W boardman purchase and I had returned it twice as i thought the alfine didn't seem right. A number of different experts said there was nothing wrong with it. The Alfine on the tandem is far smoother, quieter and softer changing and was what I'd expected my Boardman to ride like.

I'm considering purchasing a rear rack and putting a seat on it. The rack will be useful without the seat too. I have a few full sized child seats but that's not the way I want to go. The girls are too old to want to sit in a regular child seat so it needs to seem fun but still reasonably comfortable and I want a seat that folds flat when they're not on it for storage, load carrying and transportation so I've looked at the popular Bobike Junior seat but I've found a shop in Holland that does this...

It folds into...

There is the issue where they'd have nothing to hold onto so I think I'd need a set of bars or at least some sort of handles protruding from the rear seat post for the rear passenger to hold onto. It'd mean that we'd have 3 on the bike without the added weight of the trailer (approx 30kg). I'd estimate the seat, rack and extra handlebars could be 5-10kg so a minimum reduction of 20kg which puts more strain on the rear wheel but then I've 2 less wheels attached to the road, halving my possibility of future visits from the fairy. I worry that maybe i'm away with the fairies and this just mightn't work with 3? Thoughts appreciated. The other option would be journey limiting due to comfort but I'd thought of buying/making a rack cushion and buying separate footrests for the rack. It'd be the lightest solution but I couldn't imagine a child would enjoy that for more than half an hour at most.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Girls are 6 and soon to be 8. That's the eldest in the original photo. She has two of her own bikes and can cycle 20 miles solo without much issue. The younger girl has only recently 'took off' cycling her 14" single speed and wouldn't be confident enough to go on roads on her own. Here was yesterday's 'solution' to getting them both out...

View attachment 516245

Now the Croozer trailer has been a staple of our cycling over the last 4 or so years and is a simply fantastic and versatile piece of kit BUT it was murder on yesterdays ride. They took turns at riding stoker but on any sort of incline we were down to 1st and giving 100%. A 25 mile ride felt like harder than any 100+ solo ride I've ever done. I've come to the conclusion (maybe somewhat prematurely) that the trailer will just not work with this unless we're touring Holland or find a decent route without any reasonable inclines. I need a lower gear, the 1st on the Alfine just isn't low enough so I'm guessing i either need a bigger cog at the hub end or a larger chain ring at my pedals? I'm not too worried about losing speed on 8th as we're not there very often and when we are, we're happy to coast. On a side note, i have Alfine 8 on a C2W boardman purchase and I had returned it twice as i thought the alfine didn't seem right. A number of different experts said there was nothing wrong with it. The Alfine on the tandem is far smoother, quieter and softer changing and was what I'd expected my Boardman to ride like.

I'm considering purchasing a rear rack and putting a seat on it. The rack will be useful without the seat too. I have a few full sized child seats but that's not the way I want to go. The girls are too old to want to sit in a regular child seat so it needs to seem fun but still reasonably comfortable and I want a seat that folds flat when they're not on it for storage, load carrying and transportation so I've looked at the popular Bobike Junior seat but I've found a shop in Holland that does this...

View attachment 516250
It folds into...

View attachment 516251
There is the issue where they'd have nothing to hold onto so I think I'd need a set of bars or at least some sort of handles protruding from the rear seat post for the rear passenger to hold onto. It'd mean that we'd have 3 on the bike without the added weight of the trailer (approx 30kg). I'd estimate the seat, rack and extra handlebars could be 5-10kg so a minimum reduction of 20kg which puts more strain on the rear wheel but then I've 2 less wheels attached to the road, halving my possibility of future visits from the fairy. I worry that maybe i'm away with the fairies and this just mightn't work with 3? Thoughts appreciated. The other option would be journey limiting due to comfort but I'd thought of buying/making a rack cushion and buying separate footrests for the rack. It'd be the lightest solution but I couldn't imagine a child would enjoy that for more than half an hour at most.

Interesting.

We've got derailleur gears on the tandem, and I'd guess they're a little lower than the Alfine. We never went touring, but used it quite a bit on Cornwall holidays, which is not a flat place!

So, first of all, my thoughts would be to lower the gearing as far as possible. I've never had a hub gear, but I guess in principle you can both increase sprocket size and reduce chainring size?

Second, I'd say a 6yo is very heavy to be lugging around without contributing motive power. Even from about 4, I found it surprising how much difference even a small amount of effort made on the hills. So if you want them both on the same bike as you, I'd recommend a proper, rack mounted trailer bike. We had a burley one, and they are brilliant bits of kit. Seat post mounted ones, however, are awful, and I definitely would not consider one on a tandem.

Finally, like you say, it is fantastically hard work powering such contraptions once loaded up. 10 miles, large ice cream then return is a solid day's work if hilly. I doubt we ever went much beyond 30 miles in a day with that sort of set up.

 

[Sixmile]

Interesting.

We've got derailleur gears on the tandem, and I'd guess they're a little lower than the Alfine. We never went touring, but used it quite a bit on Cornwall holidays, which is not a flat place!

So, first of all, my thoughts would be to lower the gearing as far as possible. I've never had a hub gear, but I guess in principle you can both increase sprocket size and reduce chainring size?

Second, I'd say a 6yo is very heavy to be lugging around without contributing motive power. Even from about 4, I found it surprising how much difference even a small amount of effort made on the hills. So if you want them both on the same bike as you, I'd recommend a proper, rack mounted trailer bike. We had a burley one, and they are brilliant bits of kit. Seat post mounted ones, however, are awful, and I definitely would not consider one on a tandem.

Finally, like you say, it is fantastically hard work powering such contraptions once loaded up. 10 miles, large ice cream then return is a solid day's work if hilly. I doubt we ever went much beyond 30 miles in a day with that sort of set up.

I think I'll maybe drop Circe an email asking if they've advice on what's best to extend the Alfine range. I guess the other thing is I need to get used to just travelling slower, i.e. climbing hills at 6mph instead of 12 but then, it's harder work for twice as long.

Last year we hired a Helios and rode 80 miles over two days around Bristol/Bath and that was with our luggage and my then 5 yo on a Yepp seat on the rear rack. That was one of our best ever trips but yes, I'm starting to question how much longer I can carry 25kg of child that can't assist with the pedaling. I bought a trailgator without much thought on Gumtree about two years ago and sold it on before even fitting it as I wasn't convinced once I had it. I'm not keen on the trailer bike idea for a number of reasons with the main one being that it's more expense. I've got way too many bikes (10) and equipment (double trailer, 3 bike seats, roof rack etc) as it is in the shed, and my wife, understanding as she is, would rightly question my sanity. I bought the tandem so that we could do little overnighters and short tours over this summer and next. Once the lockdown is over, I guess the proof will be in the first tour to see how this will actually work.

 

[Duc gas]

Looks great fun👍 Out of interest what is the rough weight? And what do the lightest ones weigh in comparison? Enjoy 👍

 

[roubaixtuesday]

I think I'll maybe drop Circe an email asking if they've advice on what's best to extend the Alfine range. I guess the other thing is I need to get used to just travelling slower, i.e. climbing hills at 6mph instead of 12 but then, it's harder work for twice as long.

Last year we hired a Helios and rode 80 miles over two days around Bristol/Bath and that was with our luggage and my then 5 yo on a Yepp seat on the rear rack. That was one of our best ever trips but yes, I'm starting to question how much longer I can carry 25kg of child that can't assist with the pedaling. I bought a trailgator without much thought on Gumtree about two years ago and sold it on before even fitting it as I wasn't convinced once I had it. I'm not keen on the trailer bike idea for a number of reasons with the main one being that it's more expense. I've got way too many bikes (10) and equipment (double trailer, 3 bike seats, roof rack etc) as it is in the shed, and my wife, understanding as she is, would rightly question my sanity. I bought the tandem so that we could do little overnighters and short tours over this summer and next. Once the lockdown is over, I guess the proof will be in the first tour to see how this will actually work.

Completely understand. Maybe the 8yo riding their own bike might be the best solution? 8yo solo unladen vs tandem with all the luggage and 6yo is probably quite an even match? As much as 40-50 miles is OK for a keen 8yo in my experience. Depends on child, bike and route of course.

I'm sure you'll work something out, many happy memories of trips with kids at that age.

 

[Sixmile]

Looks great fun👍 Out of interest what is the rough weight? And what do the lightest ones weigh in comparison? Enjoy 👍

I think it's around 18kg mark.

I managed to test it out on the Seasucker today. The front chain guard is pretty close, although I did remove it for the test run. Both our cars have pretty curved roofs which makes this awkward. A long flat roof would be best.

This morning I had to take a 5 mile trip to the post office with the eldest and this evening did a little 11 mile loop around our local town and remarkably seen two other tandems (Ridgeback & ?) after never having seen one anywhere near us!