Day trip to Denver, to go see the daVinci tandem. VERY nice concept, we’ll see how the real deal stacks up. First, went into town (Fort Collins) to get breakfast – The Breakfast Club again, and I got what I really wanted this time – Corned Beef Hash and eggs. Mmmmmm. Delish.
Ok, got to daVinci, and got to see the system, and ride a tandem. WOW! What’s so great about the daVinci? A few things – number one, either rider can coast while the other one pedals. Yes, this is actually HUGE. One of the biggest pains on a tandem, if you use clip less pedals (and you should!) is that when you first start from a stop, the stoker (the person in the back) is already clipped in, so they have no problems, but then, the captain either has to pedal not clipped in for a while, or has to pause the pedaling until he gets clipped in, and that causes some unbalance, and also does not let the bike accelerate smoothly – you have to coast for a bit, and sometimes clipping in is harder than at other times. With the daVinci, the stoker can get the bike going, and the captain can take his (or her, to be fair) time getting clipped in, because the stoker is providing power. On a mountain tandem, this is even more important, because some trails require proper placement of the pedals to avoid a pedal strike on a rock, well, on a regular tandem, where the pedals are tied together, the captain may not move the pedals correctly for the stoker, and those pedals will hit a rock – with this system, each rider can independently move their pedals where they need to be. Again – HUGE.
The second thing? TINY chainrings, and four of them! Equivalent to a spread of 22(!) to 60(!) teeth conventional chainrings! Which means you can have a gear so low that you’re barely moving even while pedaling quite rapidly, to one where you are moving quite fast, while not pedaling very fast. Means big hills are easy, and a top speed of maybe 40-50 mph, easy, depending on how fast you can pedal! Can’t wait to get it – it looks kinda like this:
but ours will be grey, with a 26-inch rear wheel for strength, and a 27.5-inch front wheel, for easier obstacle roll-over. Sweeeet! Delivery is in 6-8 weeks. Can’t wait!
Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention it? It’s a full-squish bike – full suspension, front and rear! Woohoo! Look at that ground clearance, from the tiny chainrings!
What a day!