For The Love of Bikes- restoring a 1960's tandem in a week

Great work.

nice one Luke. a pal of mine is riding a tandem at Bakewell this weekend too, with his daughter. keep a eye out for em, and enjoy yourselves.

Well, that was a good do. The stoker’s saddle came loose but otherwise the bike survived. The festival was good fun too- not quite as many pretentious arseholes as I’d feared there would be and I still got to wear my “look at me I’m a pretentious arsehole” cycling cap with relative impunity.

We managed to squeeze it into a Skoda Fabia.

Although even better on the way back we got in three of us, the tandem inside and two bikes on the back.

We took it along on the family ride on the Monsal Trail and didn’t die. Although we did almost run over a child and a dog- it’s similar to a hovercraft. If you see something within 50 feet and aren’t braking you will hit it.

Then my mates had a go. Rob on the front hadn’t ridden a tandem before and watching them set off was frankly terrifying.

We also took the bike I bought to pinch wheels from- a Sun Solo, which was actually pretty cool. I bodged it up with the wheels off my road bike. Turns out 5 speed chains and worn 10 speed cassettes don’t get on too well, though.

There was loads of tasty food. The price for a vast piece of cake was only about £1.50!

There were plenty of steam driven things for entertainment.

It was all rather jolly.

Then on Sunday we crossed a lot of the big ride as we rode real bikes to Kedleston.

We’re now planning a 2 day mostly pub-based tour sometime later this year on it, the Sun Solo and a bike my friend Rosie has called Nimrod Neville the Hunter-

Which should be a laugh!

Thanks for the update! I aim to go myself next year.

If you want a 700c tandem frame I have a bargain one (its big suits two people both about 5’11 upwards) for £50 collected in Bath.

Great post!
You might be able to improve the braking by altering the straddle wire length, particularly at the front
There’s some info here

Okay, the opportunity has arisen to get this repainted and dismantling starts tonight.

I’m mulling over whether or not to paint it in the original colour or go for something different – a powder blue, maybe black or something. What do you reckon? I quite like the original colour but it’d not be my choice and it’s not like repainting a classic car or something where it’s of high value which is retained by keeping it all original.

I forgot to update this. The best man from my wedding got married in September. They were going to get two vintage bikes but then saw I was doing up the tandem and offered to go halves on a repaint and new decals. And so we got to this stage-

It went down a storm! I’m tempted to hire it out for weddings…

We use it for picnics with the rack, for popping to the shops (though the gear is way too steep for the hill back to our house) and tootling along railway lines.

Looks great as do the photos.