Frame: Santos double travel custom built
Our yellow partner
Rear Shock: N/A
Fork: Santos reinforced chrom-moly
Head set: Santos
Rear drive chain: Rohloff Speedhub 500/14
Shifters: Rohloff twister
Brake levers: Magura HS33
Brakes: Magura HS33
Hubs: Shimano XT black
Cassette: Rohloff 17 teeth
Rims: CSS ceramic coated hand made rims
Tyres: Schwalbe Marathon Supreme 2″
Crank: Shimano LX tandem
Chainring: 48 (will also take a 44 for the really steep mountains!)
Bottom Bracket: Santos eccentric
Pedals: Crank Bros. Candy
Stem: Santos
Handle Bars: Santos straight aluminium
Grips: Ergon MR1
Saddle: Brooks B17 select (front) SQ-Lab 611 (stoker)
Pack racks: Tubus low-rider (front) Santos TravelRack by Tubus (rear)
Weight: 22kg (with pedals and empty racks)
Date bought: June 2012
Why this bike?
I always wanted a tandem and to travel using it as the main transport. Ria was less keen because I have a bad history of falling off my MTB and her reasoning was: ‘if he falls with the tandem, I fall too’.
Anyway we both agreed that it would be a great way to travel and we agreed to buy a tandem after testing one at a bike and travel expo. Never looked back since.
We have over 3,000km behind us at the end of 2013, and many more to come 🙂 We will be making our next long trip from Prag to Porec in the summer of 2014 and I will be reducing our gearing from a 48 chain ring to a 44 as there are quite a lot of steep climbs on this route (>12%) and we struggled over the Simplon Pass last year. I will take both chain rings and change as needed as it will only take about 20 minutes to do so.