re: [CR]Mel Pinto/ Follis Tandem(s) for sale

Tom Martin posted about some NOS tandems for sale, which is pretty neat. I haven't seen these, and appreciate that he posted the stand-over heights, since they can be very important for tandem sizing. These bikes are much younger than the Mel Pinto tandem my buddy bought, and may be quite different and much better engineered. The one my buddy bought, a tremendous bargain, turned out to have unusually high bottom brackets. I assume that the hub brake on these is the ubiquitous Atom used on almost all French tandems, and would offer a couple of notes about it. (1) It may be threaded for French FW. (2) It is likely to be drilled for over-sized spokes (12 or 13 ga?), and lots of folks popped lots of spokes with these hubs. (3) The hubs also had the bearings pretty far inboard, and many teams had difficulty avoiding bent axles. Or, these hubs promoted a lot of Phil Wood hub sales...

Other than that, some of the tandems of the era used unusual headset sizes, which should not be an issue for the first decade or so with a NOS bike. Also, the fashion of the era tended to favor much shorter stoker (rear rider) front-to-back distances than is customary now. Indeed, I would expect that many riders who fit the back seat as positioned could not ride the drops, because their torsos would first hit the back of the front rider. We, and many others, wound up using roadster bars in back of such tandems. (I think the first Cannondale tandem, in 1988, was the first "production" tandem in which stokers could sit as they would on a single).

But, what time capsules!

thanks harvey sachs mcLean virginia ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Hello All:

Shameless plug for a pair of Very on topic, NOS, straight out of the box, Mel Pinto tandems made by Follis. The 56x50cm tandem is priced at $2450. Speced in the french tradition with Simplex Super LJ dérailleurs, StronglightCranks, drum brake, all fillet brazed Reynolds 531, double plate chromed fork crown, full braze-ons, etc. More info is here: http://velo-orange.com/fopitanew.html

The 54x59cm Tandem is a little less at $1800. It has a Suntour drive train, TA Tevano Cranks, drum brake, all fillet brazed Reynolds 531, double plate fork crown, full braze-ons for racks, fenders, etc. Additional Info: http://velo-orange.com/fopita.html

if you have additional questions, I'll be glad to answer them.

And apologies in advance if you are offended by this posting.

Best,

Tom Martin
Annapolis MD USA