Copied with permission from
Tandem Magazine Winter '98

^{We take a self-contained bicycle tour at least once a year for two or more weeks, so we wanted a bike that was going to be comfortable as well as reliable. So working with Chris and Dwan at CoMotion, we spec'd out our dream bike--a dual-beam custom tandem.}

Donna has a Softride beam on her single and insisted on a beam for our tandem. If she gets one, so do I! We've paid outrageous prices to take our singles on a plane with us, or entrusted them to a shipping company (look out paint), so the S&S coupling kit was a top priority. I have been pulling a Burley cargo trailer with a Green Gear hitch on my single bike and it's worked out really well, so we had the hitch assembly welded in place on the left chainstay. The trailer tows behind the tandem like a dream, much better than with a single bike. Other extras we had added were the mounting kit for the Hope II disc third brake, extra water bottle cages and Softride Ahead set suspension stems, front and rear.

Getting used to the beams took a short period of time and actually smoothed out our pedal stroke. To say the least, the bike is extremely comfortable on 50-mile or longer rides. I don't have to call out every bump on the road to Donna, since the beam and stem soak up almost everything the road throws at us. At speed, the rig is extremely stable, with or without the trailer--rock steady at 55 to 60 mph is a very nice feeling.

Our first overseas trip was 16 days in Ireland under gray skies and all went well. The tandem fits in its case very snugly and travels incognito. The bike goes together or comes apart in two to three hours with all the adjusting and a test ride included. No, it's not the lightest tandem at 43 pounds before adding the touring essentials, but it's a very comfortable and reliable touring machine. Thanks to CoMo we now have our dream tandem.

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