Spirit Tandem

Posted on March 18th, 2011 by Dave under Bikes, For Sale, Tandem bicycles.
Tags:

Off to the Santa Fe Concorso

LeMans winner Bob Bondurant and wife Patty at Concorso

Framers and visitors:

Finished and ready for the San Diego bike show… It’s pretty sweet if I may say so myself..

I was in a hurry and took the pictures before I’d properly adjusted the handlebar positions.. so I’ve already been chastised for that..

This is the low trail design that Martin Manning (bike geometry 101) suggested that I try. This falls below the 2″ threshold and I must admit that it feels very light. The idea is that it will be less twitchy at lower speeds but still very stable at higher speeds  due to the team weight (mass).

Haven’t had a stoker on it yet, but due to initial feeling I see no reason for it not to be as predicted. It’s a 74.5 degree head tube if you all are wondering.

OK, if one looks at the pictures you’ll see that the captain’s bars are at the same height as the seat.  I don’t know precisely what the dynamics of this arrangement set up, something akin to over-leverage, Suffice it to say that after I flipped the stem over to a slightly negative rise the oversteering issue disappeared and the tandem handles like a dream.

In respect to the short trail design, I suspect that the major tandem suppliers don’t do this to protect themselves from litigation arising from neophyte owners with little or no tandem experience.

Hope you all approve.. have a great weekend

dave

Click on to enlarge-return arrow to escape

tote that load

sure is green

lotta rake

pretty Turquoise bits

adequate stoker space

Price yet to be determined…

Comments (2)

The record book pages

Posted on March 1st, 2011 by Dave under Bikes, velodrome.
Tags:

I’ve had a few days between projects to dust off some old stuff and try to tie down things that have gotten away from me. Because of interest from some of the CR bike list I’ll post this today and add others details as I am able.
This first one dates from 1989 and and may be one of the oldest surviving records.
It is Carolyn Donnelly in the midst of her US senior woman’s Hour record ride..

Donnelly Hour Record ride

5 km 6:40.61 Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

10 km 13:31.15 Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

20 km 17:12.40 Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

1 hour 44.028 km Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

50 km 1:08:26.24 Carolyn Donnelly, Colo. Springs, CO, 10/29/90

 

This next one is from a recent Velo-News article, no doubt about Lance.
 Nevertheless, on his elbow is New Mexico's own Noah Kaufman.
click on to enlarge.

US Junior squad
L to R: George Hincapie, Noah Kaufman, Lance Armstrong, Chann McCrae and Bobby Julich.  Pretty neat old picture. Here is one of Noah and relates to my association with him and his parents.

Noah and his medal

The interesting thing here is that they both used the same bike. In the picture of Carolyn
the seat post can be seen as all the way down, and in fact I vaguely remember sawing some of

the seat tube off at the top..This next one is Jane Marshall, who has just won the Moriarity
NM Record Challenge 40K for senior women. Jane went on to the National squad and I believe
she was in the Olympic road race with the then local rider Janniel Parks.

Jane Marshall Gagne

This is a unique bike from the last one above. I think it was sold off to another local rider.
The red and white paint jobs were all shop team equipment.

New World/US record- Kent Bostick

Above John and I are holding Kent up moments after the 100K record. He was, ahh…tired..   Also in the photo is Bruce, who was the manager of the Springs velodrome… Don’t remember where Fred Cappy was that night.. Sorry about the photo, has some water damage-hell it’s been on my refrigerator for 20 years ;~)

Here’s another from 1989. It is John Frey and Kent Bostick.
I think this is the meet where Kent set the US 100km record, which also still stands.  Kent’s 100K record was 2:09:11 which bested Ole Ritter’s record by 20 minutes!

I don’t recall John as having used this MAX tubed funny bike for his Hour ride. I’ll look for that picture. Also its a film photo so it’s a problem to reproduce herein. Click on photo for a better size..

John and Kent around 1989

Picture at the Colorado Springs velodrome..

49.97KM per Hour

There’s John and the Hour bike and ride.. and the last one for today is the crowd around John after the record

ride. The 150 is the lap count around the 333.3m track. It was one of the times the bike was re-badged in accordance with Ten Speed Drive contractual PS. If you can tag anyone, please leave a comment. His record was 49.9 Kilometers .

Victory crowd

OK kids now we’re getting down to it, here’s a rare shot of the bike store team..

Squadra Harvard Bike House ABQ. NM circa 1990

and and even more rare shot of the backup team..

 

NM Velo

Here are a few shots from the start line at the Record Challenge Time Trial in Moriarity.. not sure if this is Jennifer or Janelle?

two of John Frey warming up and at the start line (nice bike..)

Shaklee sponsored rider

go!

Here’s Gabe Aragon.. he got his National jersey with a tandem time trial ride with Desi Brown from the shop team.

lil Gabe Aragon- nice kid!

This looks like Robbie Quinlan..

Noah Kaufman on a Bruce Gordon (NM) tt bike

The next are from a Tuesday crit in town.. this is Brian Belew on

George Tapley frame..

in the lead..

the pack..

sprint for a prem

That maybe Bart Bowen at the front, I see Frey and his green rims…and several Harvard guys in the hunt..next up is Jim Warsa

Waz

Wow, another oldie.. Frey with his (probably) first win at Moriarity Challenge or the State TT’s ? Early “flintstone” disc wheel. You could hear it coming a mile away, heavy too..

1st "funny bike" and 1st place for JF

Here is a link to a recent NM Sports magazine article about the Record Challenge history: http://www.nmsportsmag.com/2011/fall/

pages 24 and 25..

 

Here’s one many years later with Ten Speed Drive Rossin funny bike..

~6500 feet above sea level

Another cool pix- Frey and Rod Bush on my first tandem at the Red River Century. JF and Rod still hold the national tt record for a tandem..cool.

togetherness

One of the team sponsors and accomplished frame builder from Albuquerque–Bruce Gordon.

Bruce and Steve Hegg

An ad hoc 4 man TT squad..

Bostick, Frey, the late John Stenner and Hegg

J. Stenner and his very nice Pinarello. John was hit and killed by a motorist. Very tragic.

John Stenner

here they are in action…

Flying

and I guess by now some are wondering about me.. this is about 2006.

impatient with the cameraman

here’s another rare photo of me actually in a race, note the Sidi clown shoes and the Bell helmet on young John Castillo behind me..

downtown crit 1980 something..

and here’s Frey doing his best to hammer the chasers at a local crit.. enlarge to really see the power he had..

Human power!

here’s a look at a very small mountain bike I made for a chick I was in lust with.. 24 inch wheels! Wish I had a better picture of it. It was really neat. I don’t have any pictures of the girl.

tiny MTB

Here’s Frey (again) this time on one of my full sized MTB’s. My signature brass P is just visible on the head tube.

mud puddles

and lastly today a really out there paint job that was requested by a female customer..

Columbus SLX and Campy Chorus

More to come..

Comments (0)