April 4, 2023
The Bike
The new bike!
We've been touring since 2015 on our two Bike Friday tandems. We sold the red tandem a few years ago, so recent tours have all been on our hot-rodded Tandem Traveler XL. It's been a great bike for our use.
BUT. It has some limitations. Most significantly, the compression fittings that attach the frame. When we put it into the car, we have to remove the front section of the frame. And when we put it back together again (usually in a dark parking lot) the frame is always just a slightly different length than it was before.
As a result, the rear brake, rear drag brake, and rear derailleur cables are always the "wrong" length. So every tour began with debugging a bunch of rubbing or too-soft brakes and bad shifting. It's not fatal, but it's an annoyance and cause a drop in confidence in the bike we're so dependent on.
And then on last year's "over the Alps" adventure, we had some equipment failures. A crank that came off and hub bearings that failed. So it seemed like we could benefit from a more robust bike.
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We're also not getting any younger. So last year we decided that we wanted to splash out on a bike that would solve the problems of the Bike Friday and provide us a platform for touring for the future. We're hoping that with some good luck, we have another 10-15 years of touring ahead of us, so an investment seemed worthwhile.
We're fortunate to have some serious tandem experts among our friends, so we consulted with Dave Walker (Paketa Tandems) and Sanna and Chuck Phinney. The consensus was that Cycles Chinook was the builder to go with. So that's what we did!
We took delivery of our new bike in November. It's beautiful!!
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1 year ago
1 year ago
The bike is titanium with 2 pairs of S&S couplers. 1x12 wireless shifting and 220mm disk brakes on 650b wheels. To the extent possible, it was designed to be electrified at some point in the future. It's the first of our bikes to have a name: Schnooks.
We've done some test rides over the winter/spring and it's a dream to ride. We can't wait to get it out on tour!
We're going to keep the Bike Friday, and possibly do some more tours on it. There are some "use cases" where the packability and "train mode" of the Bike Friday would be advantageous. But Schnooks is going to be our main ride for touring for the foreseeable future.
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1 year ago
I don't miss it either, although it's hard to believe it's been 7 years since I wrote a line of code.
1 year ago
Re Rohloff - I will give you weight and twin cable runs but not so sure about field serviceability with electronic shifting!
1 year ago