My new off-road touring rig!
Posted Sep 24, 2013, 1:43 AM UTC
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You and your lady riding it together?
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A lady, I don't own her.
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Had I implied ownership, I may have said, "Do you and the lady that you own ride that together?" Semantics is for losers.
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Relax, this is the internet!
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Indeed, a place where political incorrectness is unbridled.
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Just renting? (I kid, I kid!)
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No chainguard on the timing chain? My girlfriend nearly lost her big toe that way :( Nasty scar...
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[deleted]
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What do you mean by "clipped yourselves"?
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[deleted]
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Nope. Is that a common occurrence?
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Dayum, that looks like a fun machine. Congrats on the purchase.
I hope you've got some good protection for those leather saddles, however. I know, I know, you just took off the covers for the pix. Nice.
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Super fun. Grocery bags and my butt seem to protect sufficiently.
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I have one of these covers & really like it: http://www.rivbike.com/product-p/s92.htm
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- and for those of us with fenders, the simple top covers are only about $10.
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...and for the rest of us, grocery bags stuffed under the seat are free, readily available, and can be used for all sorts of other things.
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I never cover my brooks, how damaging is rain?
In fact I treat my whole bike like shit 80% of the time.
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Keep it treated (Proofide etc), and I think it is worth covering it in rain. Neat covers are not expensive.
The worst is if it gets too dry of oils. If it gets wet a lot but has no oils in it, it'll get brittle and break down when it gets dry again.
If it's fairly regularly treated, so has a good amount of oil, leather can stay supple and in good shape even with fairly frequent wettings. Fundamentally it's skin - living skin produces oils to keep itself in good shape, and if not you add moisturizer (oils).
But I think the risk is you'll get a lot more stretch if it gets wet a lot. I found that riding it wet once really sped up the wearing-in. But, I suspect you could get non-optimal stretch if you do it a lot; perhaps the spine will stay unstretched but the sit-bone areas will be saggy, making for pressure on the - ahem - soft tissue areas where you don't want it.
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My proof ride melted all over my tools in Belgium. :-(
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A few naked bike rides should sort it out.
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Just completed a it's first loaded shakedown ride on dirt. Floats over bumps like a cadillac. Super stable. Super fast. Handles great. A+. Would mtb-tand again.
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Yeah, loaded MTB tandeming is pretty wild. We did it with a BOB. All kinds of crazy effects from the third wheel and so much momentum. A couple of times coming down a steep sleep, I completely washed out the front wheel in a rut, only to have the two rear wheels stay upright and push us through.
Also, there's nothing like the torque and weight of a tandem to pedal through a deep muddy puddle - woot!
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I dunno, with two bikes you get eight panniers! But it looks rad!
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I love tandem riding. If only I had a place to store one. :(
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When I go offroad touring, nearly half of the time, I am pushing or caring the bike. How do you do that with the tandem, or do you avoid difficult trails?
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I haven't ridden it on anything too serious...and I'm going to stick mostly to semi-maintained dirt roads/trails with it.
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"I find your lack of fenders disturbing"
I tried...but they won't clear them 2.1 knobbies
Yeah, I guessed that.
In the past I've seen people try to hack together fenders to fit, but they don't realise just how incredibly dangerous that is. Besides, a bit of mud and grit never hurt anyone, but I do fear for the well-being of your brooks!
I never thought of ghetto fenders being dangerous. Care to elaborate for the ill informed?
I don't know, that bag on the front is pretty waterproof. May help to block some of the rain. Can't see the back well, but I suppose whoever is riding back there counts as the second fender.
Fenders also protect the drivetrain.
- and your feet (esp with mudflap). Everything really.
I've been baffled by fender-resistance all my life. I see seasoned commuters with quality bikes, Ortleib panniers and $300 jackets, yet with a dirty stripe up their back, feet and legs covered in filth.
Baffled.
Especially important on tour where you don't have the time or energy to constantly clean your bike. A dirty drive-train means poorer performance, and accelerated wear.
Having your water bottles sprayed with road-shit cannot be a good thing, and I know that the leather in those saddles will suffer greatly from the water and grit thrown up under your moving butt.