(Note: The pictures here were taken on the way to school yesterday -- my old camera has a busted LCD view finder, so the pics aren't ideally composed.)
Maddie is doing great on the tandem. Toe clips are essential for her as she gets used to sharing a drive line with another rider. It's been a learning experience for all of us, since none of us have really spent much time on a tandem.
Maddie took a fall on Sunday when she was standing up on the pedals. Other than a little scrape on her cheek, she really wasn't hurt. It did scare her though. I'm not much for the fear-based school of teaching, but she certainly got the idea about not standing up on the pedals. And she got right b
ack on.
We're digging it.
After a couple days of riding, here are the upcoming mods:
- Fenders - Planet Bike is back ordered on 20" rear fenders, but a front fender will go on in the next couple days.
- Racks - The rack that is on there is more rigid than I expected from the pictures, but I will be putting the Tubus Cargo on there to hold up the grocery and camping loads we'll be putting on there. My buddy, Alex, is learning to braze, so he's going to build us a front rack some time this summer.
- Forks - The folks at BikeFriday will sell me a new fork for $75. Right now the front wheel is running a drum-brake. I'd rather run a dyno hub for proper, no-brainer lighting. So, we'll get a new fork with canti posts a put some V-brakes on the front.
- Lighting - I've got a 20" wheel with a Schmidt dyno hub just waiting for this bike. We'll wire the trusty E6 up front and a home-made LED light on the back fender. Since we'll be running the Tubus, I'll also put a DT-Toplight on the Tubus for an always-on rear light.
- Handlebars - I'm not a huge fan of the straight bars. Liza is ok with them. I'd like to put drops (Noodles) on there. One issue with that though is reach. So I've been talking to the folks at BikeFriday about making an adjustable stem. Co-motion makes a nice one. That's what I want on there. We'll see. Putting drops on there would be a considerable expense since I'd have to get the fancy adjustable stem and new brake levers for the v-brakes.
That is quite a jacket for the youngin there. I can't quite see what kind of fork you have on there, but it looks like a 1" with a quill in it? I am pretty sure you can run a threadless stem on that as the stem attachment is irrelevant to the headset, whether it is 1" or 1"1/8. Ritchey makes a slick little threadless adjustable stem that may fit your needs:
ReplyDeletehttp://ritcheylogic.com/web/Ritchey%7ELogic/Ritchey%7ESite/Templates/eproducts_single.aspx?id=16963&live=true
You can get some cheapy quill adjustable ones too...