2000 Miles!

Poorman's Calfee Tandem at 2000 Miles

We just crossed 2000 miles on the Calfee and here's the latest report.  It's the main steed on our cross country tour from San Diego to St. Augustine, FL.  You can read all about that trip here.  Overall the bike has been performing well.  Things that we like so far are:
The light weight.  Even with day packs on the frame it weighs substantially less than our
Davidson. 
The Di2 shifting with dual chainrings.  When you can't see what chainring and cog you're in, it really helps to either go one step up or down and have the shifter figure out when to change chainrings.   I do need to dig into the firmware and adjust the downshift from large to small chainring to reduce the step size.  The 34-52 chainrings coupled with 11-40 cassette provides a larger range than our Davidson's triple chainring and more steps in between lowest and highest gear.
The Ride Comfort: The frame geometry and carbon fiber material contribute to a comfortable structure that damps out road vibration.  The lack of a direct lateral tube improves compliance in the up/down direction while the large tube diameter reduces the side to side flexing that complicates steering.  A springy seat-post softens the ride for the stoker.
The S-S couplers: For our cross-country ride, we were able to pack the tandem in its shipping box, which then fit sideways in the back of our pickup truck.  There are several critical steps that need to be done, mainly to do with the handlebars, timing belt, and shifter wire, but overall it's a quick transition that takes an hour or so.  Two couplers, instead of four, saves weight and cost and still allows a compact teardown.
Carbon Fiber belt: The belt has performed flawlessly and has not needed tension adjustment after the first setup.  It's quiet and clean - I can rub my leg against it and not get covered with black "tattoos".

The disk brakes: They're powerful and eliminate the rim heating from conventional brakes.  The weight is substantially less than a drum brake.  An annoying squeal has developed that needs to be investigated, though.
The Wheels: To save cost we went with alloy wheels.  The deep-V rim geometry compensates for a lower spoke count than we've used in the past (32 vs. 48), providing a lightweight, strong, and durable wheel.
The Continental Tires: With our Davidson tandem and Specialized Expedition tires, we were lucky to get 1000 miles out of a rear tire.  We are now at 2000 miles on both tires and both are still going strong.  We have had a few flats - two from puncture vine goatheads and one from a tiny piece of wire, presumably from a shattered truck tire.  When I do need to replace them, I'll be stepping up to a Continental puncture-resistant model.  But overall the tires are performing phenomenally. 
The Rear Saddlebags: We got a bv rear bag that has integrated saddlebags that roll up into side pockets on the main bag.  The main bag expands vertically with a zippered flap and a small compartment holds a waterproof cover to protect the contents during rainstorms.  The bag has proven to be highly flexible and versatile.  Its mounting scheme holds the bag securely and the clamp with single release button allows quick removal and reattachment.

 

Some items that aren't so flattering:

The captain's cockpit: The short reach handlebars and short stem contributed to a hand position that was just not comfortable.

 I was able to find an old set of long-reach handlebars that work, but I would still like to do better.  A longer stem, combined with 46cm long reach handlebars with 31mm diameter would improve matters substantially.   I replaced the skimpy HB tape that came with the bike with 2.5mm thick tape that is much more comfortable on long rides. 
Flakey things with the Di2 Shifter: For some reason, the Di2 battery goes dead when the tandem is separated and packed in its shipping box.  This happened when the system arrived from the factory and also during a 2-day traverse to the beginning of our cross-country ride.  Either one of the wires is shorting to the frame or one of the shift levers is being pushed into an always-on position when the handlebars are strapped to the frame. 
We did have an interesting almost-disaster with the shifters.  We were cranking really hard at the end of a long day in the highest gear when the chain just jumped off of the chainring and freewheel.  After putting the chain back on, the shift lever wouldn't adjust the rear derailler position.  The front shifter worked though.  After pondering the problem, I was able to manually move the rear derailler back to the largest cog on the rear, and then the rear shifter woke up.  For some reason, the Di2 unit thought that it was in the largest cog when it really was on the smallest one.  Fortunately it was an easy fix.
The front brake-hose "braze-ons": The furthest forward pair of clamps that hold the rear brake hydraulic hose seem to be reversed. 

The hose is continually popping out of the two clamps.  The problem is that the hose goes down at the handlebars, but the front clamp faces down.  It would work a lot better if the front clamp faced up and the rear clamp faced down.
Headset: The headset is sturdy and durable.  But we have had to tighten it a couple of times as slop seemed to develop with usage.
The Handlebar Bag Mount: The long-reach handlebars I found have a 26mm center diameter, but the stem is 31mm.  I had to use spacers to hold the handlebars securely. 
The handlebar bag mount was also 31mm and it doesn't seem to clamp on the spacers securely.  I was able to jam a screw into the gap between the two spacers, but it's not a permanent fix.




Summary:
Overall we've been really happy with the new Calfee after the first 2000 miles.  The light weight, modern components, and frame comfort are huge improvements over our 30-year old Davidson.  And it sure is pretty!  The few negative issues are minor and I'm working on fixes for most of those.

250 Miles!

We've now had the Calfee tandem for a little over a month and have around 250 miles on it so far.  We've gotten over the Di2 shifting hurdle and have gotten it to shift to the small chain-ring from gear B-4 (4th cog out on the freewheel).  This makes for much less chain noise that before when it had to get all the way down to gear B-2 before it dropped into the small chain-ring.  The other change I made was to have the Di2 only drop down one cog on the freewheel when shifting to the small chain-ring and this reduces the overspin when the change in gear ratio is so large. 
I'm still working out the kinks on the handlebar position.  It seems like long-reach handlebars just aren't made any more and I'm still trying to get used to having my primary hand position being on the brake hoods. 
With those minor issues mostly resolved, we're really enjoying the bike.  Taking 20 pounds off of the load compared to our first tandem and having a much-stiffer frame really makes for a fun ride.  The iridescent paint job is beautiful with the carbon fiber facets glowing through the cabernet-red top tube color.   Here we are on a 58-mile ride to Sand Hollow.

I hope to go through several of the technology improvements that the Calfee has over our 1987 Davidson in a future post - things sure have changed in 31 years!

The New Tandem Arrives

After almost four months of waiting, our new tandem has arrived.  We've been talking about getting a Calfee since we first saw one on RAGBRAI four years ago, and now we have our own.  It is a beauty.  The carbon frame, lightweight wheels, disk brakes, and Di2 shifting come together to yield a two-person machine under 35lbs.  Of course we loaded it up with racks, fenders, and packs,  so now it's a bit heavier, but it still saves almost 20lbs over our alloy steel Davidson.
The bike comes apart with S&S couplers and ships in a re-usable plastic box.  So it should be ideal for the international trips we like to do.  Here's our first view as we took the top off of the crate.

Assembly was straightforward with the only hitch being adjusting the tension in the carbon synchronizing belt.  The latest technology has an internal wedge bolt that holds the front eccentric from rotating instead of a split in the frame with external clamp bolts. 
After several adjustments to seat and handlebar position, the bike was ready to ride.  But all was not well.  After our first 55 mile ride, my hands were pretty numb.  Comparing this HB positions to that of other bikes that I ride, I concluded that the brake hoods were too far down on the handlebars, so I unwrapped the HB tape and moved them back.  Now we just need to get past this insane heat and see if the fix worked.  Other than the handlebar issue, the first ride was a dream.  The bike is super-stiff in the lateral direction, so instead of snaking down the road like our steel tandem, it tracks almost like a single bike.  Here's the assembled steed:

The synchro mode on the Di2 shifters worked really well with one exception (see further down).  The captain on the tandem has a very hard time knowing what gear the bike is in.  If I don't know what we're in, I call to Gayle to report the gear, but with 11 cogs on the rear, and part of the frame blocking the view, it's difficult for her to see.  With synchro, the Shimano shifter automatically shifts the front chain-rings and then adjusts the chain position on the freewheel cogs so the gear change isn't too extreme.  This works really well by only having two levers: one to shift to a higher gear and one to shift to a lower gear.  The only problem was that with shifting to lower gears, the synchro would go all the way down to "B2" (the next to largest cog on the freewheel), before it would shift from the large chain-ring to the small chain-ring.   Needless to say, the chain alignment in the last few gears before the chain-ring shift occurred was pretty bad.  So, I embarked on trying to fix it. 
The first thing I did was download the Shimano "E-Tube" smart phone app that is supposed to let you change the shifter parameters.  It appeared to do what I wanted, changing the large to small chain-ring shift point from 2nd cog down to fifth cog down, but it didn't take.  Then the app said that new firmware needed to be loaded.  Alarm bells should have gone off, but they didn't!  After less than a minute of trying to download the firmware update, an error appeared, and then the shifter unit completely hung.  No lights, no motion when buttons were pushed, no nothing!   After scanning the internet and finding numerous reports of others having the same problem, I connected the shifter unit directly to my PC using the computer version of the E-Tube program and then after many attempts, I was able to connect to the shifter and update the firmware.  And finally, I was able to change the shifting point to drop to the smaller chain-ring earlier in the shift cycle.  Whew!!!