£1,495.00
This is to my knowledge, the first ever mountain-bike tandem ever made, in the UK at least. I commissioned it from legendary framebuilder Tony Oliver in June 1987. At that time I lived in Iceland where we made two crossings of the interior. Later we used it for off-roading in the UK, France and Ireland. We also used it in the Polaris trial in the Lakes in 1994, the first people mad enough to do it on a tandem
Since then it’s seen limited use, but it’s always been maintained and upgraded. It was resprayed by Chas Roberts in 1999, when we added guides for hydraulic brake tubing. Otherwise it’s pretty much original. Â
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The ride is super-stable, but the handling is different from a single: the fork has a long offset, to provide some spring over bumps. The low-trail geometry means the bike can be driven round rocks and bumps, but is still rock-steady at speed. It’s a really comfortable ride, on pretty much any terrain or surface. Â
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The frame is a double marathon, of Reynolds and Columbus tubing. The forks are 531 Tandem blades with a Cinelli cast crown, and the dropouts are heavy-duty Sugino tandem items. The front BB is a Haden eccentric and the rear BB is raised for additional clearance. Â
The 1″ steerer was from the then-new Columbus ATB tubeset, as is the downtube and the rear chainstays. All joints bar the rear BB are lugless.Â
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Although designed for 26″ wheels and 2.5″ ATB tyres available at the time, the bike will happily take 650B wheels and tyres. Currently the bike has 40mm Schwalbe Marathon road/touring tyres and rolls easily: you won’t have a problem keeping up with solo company, and downhill or into a headwind you’ll leave them for dead. Â
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Components were all top-range (at the time) and include:
– Stronglight Delta sealed roller-bearing headset
– Stronglight 106 Tandem triple cranks, 175mm front and 172.5mm rear, with Sugino Autex self-extracting crank bolts and 52/42/28 chainrings
– FAG sealed front and Stronglight Competition rear BBs
– Shimano 8-speed indexed shifters, with Alivio rear and Deore XT front changers to cope with the massive gear range.
– Sunrace 8-speed 13-32 tandem freewheel
– Magura hydraulic caliper brakes, with QR fittings, braces and new Magura and Kool-stop ceramic-specific brake pads.
Wheels are super-heavy-duty 26″ items with
– 559x27mm Mavic 121 Ceramic rims (which replaced Mavic Rando M4 originals)Â
– Small flange Campagnolo Record hubs, with 10mm Swallow EN8 solid axles and Campagnolo track nuts
– 36 x 13 gauge stainless steel spokes
Rear is 140mm OLN, front is 126mm OLN. Both hubs are rear hubs – the front wheel can take an Arai drum brake, which I still have and will include with the bike. Â
Front bars are Jones-style 630mm alloy loop bars with Ergon grips, on a custom 130mm stem. Â
Rear riser bars are fitted to an original Swallow stoker stem, with Ritchey bar-ends.
Seat posts are 27.2mm diameter micro-adjusters: the rear is a suspension post: on a tandem the stoker doesn’t always see the bumps coming. Saddles are Specialized anatomic front and Terry female-specific rear
Racks are Blackburn ATB front and ESGE/Pletscher adjustable rear, and the mudguards are black aluminium 65mm Velo Orange.
There is a spring steering damper fitted, which doesn’t affect the steering but prevents wheel flop at standstill.Â
The tandem’s listed on eBay, but I’ll take a decent offer and throw in UK delivery and a stainless steel roof rack and spares too. Ping me if you want to know more…
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