Ah Serenity… Reality
was anything but serene however. As a
bike she has yet to live up to her name.
Maybe P.I.T.A. would be a better name for her.
My wife, Vicky and I were in the market for the ultimate
bike geek couples bike, a tandem. We’ve
had upright tandems before and knew we were compatible on tandems. I call out the pot holes and surprises; she
doesn’t smack me in the back of the head!
However since we have to be different, we were looking for the oddball
of oddballs, a recumbent tandem. Talk
about a truly niche market, we were looking for something that was a niche
within a niche within a niche. Truly we
were looking in a very limited market.
Let’s just say that the pickings on the used market were a little slim.
We ended up doing a lot of reading, research, and picking of
other tandem rider’s minds to see what was going to suit us best. Since what we were looking for just was not
going to found at just about any local bike shop there wasn’t going to be a
whole lot of test riding to do.
Fortunately when it comes to recumbent tandems there aren’t that many
manufactures or models in current production out there to choose from, Rans has
two models, Volae has one, and every now and then John Morcigliio does a custom
one off.
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| A Morciglio classic |
We settled fairly quickly on the idea of a Rans Seavo for two main reasons, both wheels are the
same size and there was one local to us to test ride. The wheel size issue was a big deciding point
for me, I like not having to stock and carry multiple tires and tubes for one
bike.
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| A Rans Seavo in green |
We missed two bikes that were in the used market by a day
each. One was in St Joseph Missouri and
the other was in Wichita Kansas, both of those within driving distance to pick
one up. But due to funding issues,
(scraping up the cash) and actually making the decision to purchase we missed
both bikes by less than 24 hours. One of
the two bikes had been on the market for 2 ½ years and it sold hours before we
decided to commit to it.
Our next option was to buy a new bike. The penny pinching part of me rebelled at
this as I like getting a deal and saving money as much if not more so than the
next person.
Somewhere in the back of
my mind was also the thought of keeping the whole deal simple. Show up, give someone money, ride off on
bike, see? Nice and simple! Unfortunately nothing I seem to do is
simple. There is an easy way to do
things, a hard way to do them, and then the Dave way, (which is usually harder
and more expensive).
Soon a Rans dealer was located, a paint color chosen, a
parts list written up and a deal negotiated.
A quick note on the dealer we used. He is a good guy, he runs a good shop. He was just way out of his comfort zone on a
tandem build. I should have asked more
questions, I should have done more research and found a shop with a lot more tandem
building experience. I don't lay any
blame with the dealer. Hind sight being
20/20, it was an almost comical cascade of problems.
September 21st Vicky and I attended a recumbent
event hosted by the dealer who ordered our bike and was to have done the
build. We were bringing the wheels and
the plan had been to pop the wheels onto the bike, adjust the brakes, adjust
the derailleurs and go ride. Yea, plans,
so much for the best laid plans. What we
ended up bring home was the Rans Seavo frame with some parts mounted to it, a
box of some of the other parts and a
wrong seat.
The build for the bike involved the following:
- Three different bike mechanics, (not counting myself)
- Their bribes of:
- Jack Daniels Green Label
- a six pack of beer
- two dozen bagels
- a gallon of coffee
- a $20 bill
- Trips to five different local shops for unexpected and unplanned for needs
- Four fingers and a big water glass of Knob Creek Rye whiskey and doing something I have not done in 25+ years
- More swearing than you would hear in a Marine Infantry Brigade.
The laundry list of "challenges" in the build is
long but here are the highlights.
- The bottom brackets were missing spacer rings. No really that isn't a new self adjusting chainline, it's just someone forgot to space the bottom bracket cups properly.
- A missing headset, Rans said the bike came with one, it didn't.
- The new short reach riser for the captain's handlebars. Opps, someone put the riser on backwards.
- The auto eject feature for the captains seat complete with auto eject screws holding the brackets on that hold the seat to the bike.
- Rans forgot to ship seat mesh for both seats, (let's hope that they pay a little more attention to their airplanes)
- The random chain, really a nine speed chain spliced in with a ten speed chain, spliced into an unknown chain really doesn't work well.
- Shifters and derailleurs really work better if the shifter cable isn't shattered, (housing strands broken and poking out of the ferrules.
- Brakes stop better when the correct adapters are ordered, especially when you ask the dealer three different times if they ordered the correct adapters.
- A rear derailleur that when the lower limit screw is adjusted to stop the chain from being thrown into the spokes on the lowest gear, won't let the bike shift into the highest gear. (That one issue caused all sorts of headaches). Thankfully Dreadlock Mike at Richardson Bike Mart is the Albert Einstein of derailleurs.
- And finally a really nice wheelset that was sourced off Ebay. All the specifications indicated it was a 145 mm rear hub, the auction listed it as a 145, the bike it was built for uses a 145 rear hub, the hub manufacture builds 145 mm rear hubs. Nope not mine however. It's some sort of mutant space alien 155 mm rear hub. Yay! That meant a new rear wheel overnighted from the land of cheese and beer, and a new axle kit for the original rear wheel as well as a future date with a shop to get the axle installed and the wheel re-dished.
Finally though the build is done, it's finally a bike! Monday evening was our maiden voyage, 10.5
miles of seat slipping, gears crunching, stopping and adjusting joy. Let's just say I am hoping she will settle
down and live up to her name after all, she had better, we're stuck with her.
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| Serenity... |
