Frame: Santos double travel custom built

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.