Idle tandem

A guy named Mark emailed me last week and asked me some questions about my tandem. In my response, I sent him a link to this post from last year. One thing that's interesting about a blog is looking at how you thought exactly one year ago, two years ago, etc. I found it interesting to go through the list of stuff that I wanted to change on the tandem after Liza and I took our first overnighter on it.

I actually accomplished two of the items on the list:

• I laced up a new rear wheel. Dare I say "bomb proof?" It's a 40-hole, 7 speed ebay special hub laced to a mongo Salsa Gordo. The last Salsa rim I had was a mongo pain to build up, but this one was easy. I went with 7 speed since the NOS Shimano tandem hub was only $40! And my old Burley is 135 OLD and I didn't see a need to get a newer 145 and spread it out. Whatever. Let's be clear though -- show of hands for those who would blame the Salsa rim before the hack wheel builder?
• Bought a Thudbuster for Liza. Wow. If you are on the fence with a Thudbuster and if you're not sure if it really will make a difference for your stoker, get off the fence. It's an easy $160 (!!) to spend for a seat post to keep the stoker happy. Especially if the stoker is your S.O.

As for the rest of the list. I still need to put a mountain crankset on there, fuss with my bars, and figure out a kickstand solution.

The tandem bummer is that we just don't get out on it enough. We had a plan to do a two-day overnighter this weekend, but Liza's mom (aka: Nonna, aka: "the sitter") got sick. So we down-graded the plan to a lunch-destination ride, which got utterly rained out. Erg.

So instead of riding it, I took it down off the hook, stared at it for a while, took a few photos, and wrote this. All in all, not nearly as satisfying as taking off with Liza for the weekend.

Here's proof of the rain we've had:

I really need to put a proper roof on the tree house.

Siphoning is easy with 10 feet of drop. And a mouthful of pollen'y rain water beats unleaded any day of the week.