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2001 'Warsteiner' MTB marathon at Riva (Italy)
on my Tandem Technology Pinus Cembra

Original ride report as sent to Tandem@Hobbes, the international email list for tandem enthusiasts, on May 1, 2001:

"The bike festival in Riva at Lago di Garda is an annual party organized by the German bike mag 'bike' (http://www.bike-magazin.de). It includes a "bike marathon" race composed of three loops arranged in cloverleaf fashion. The lake has been a favorite area for freeclimbers for many years, and European mountain bikers have made it one of their favorite spots since the early nineties. Most of the trails are rocky and gravel covered. It is usually quite warm and dry. The course includes some spectacular downhill sections, and thus we chose this event as the first test ride of my new full-suspension tandem.

All last week packages from various manufacturers kept coming in, driving my housemates crazy as I was at the office whenever the mailman rang the bell. The last parts for the new bike (long shifter cables for the Rohloff Speedhub and tires) arrived Friday morning - the day before I had planned to leave for Italy. Surprisingly, all parts I needed did come in! Only the new fork which Rond/Magura has promised us will not be ready for a few more weeks. Thus, I put in the trusted old Votec GS IV OS/S again, this time set up to 140 mm of travel (5.5") instead of the 80 mm (3.1") I ran in my hardtail tandem. As it turned out that the front Gustav M disk brake doesn't fit the Votec fork without some additional modification to the hub I also used the HS 33 rim brake off of my hardtail Santana up front. The rear brake is a Gustav M, but the most exciting part on this bike is the Rohloff Speedhub, a 14 speed internal gear hub. This allows the use of regular single-bike cranks and a dishless wheel with 135 mm spacing (read: low Q-factor!). It also just looks plain cool!

I got the bike built up on Friday night, and my only test rides were short trips to my LBS to get some last parts. Everything fit together well, the new Rohloff hub shifted perfectly, and thus I took the wheels off, loaded it all into the car and drove down to Riva (Italy) early Saturday morning. I met my stoker Tino at a campsite, we put the bike back together and headed out to the festival site to look at the exhibitions and to let others drool over our bike.

After a few hours at the festival we headed up one of the mountains to break in the brake and to test the suspension setup. We discovered that we were a bit too light for the spring rates I had chosen. We did use up all the travel, but decided against changing anything the night before the race. Everything else fit us perfectly, which is no wonder as the frame geometry is the same as on the prototype version of this frame I have been racing for two years now. After lots of pasta, we tried on the new helmets, glasses and other clothing provided by some of our sponsors to make sure everything fit, and wrapped up in our sleeping bags to catch some z's.

The next day was race day! Some more pasta for breakfast, a last check of tire pressures, and off we went. The start was just as disorganized as last year. Too many riders in too few starting blocks, chasing out over too narrow roads... We were even forced to walk our bike for a few minutes because the roads were too narrow. After a while we were able to get into a good rhythm, though. We started to pass plenty of riders on the first long uphill stretch out of Arco. I had my heartrate monitor set to beep at 170 bpm, and I managed to stay below that except for a few quick passing maneuvers before narrow sections.

Thu, we felt good all around when we entered the first downhill section. Quite a few single bike riders cheered us on when they noticed what was passing them. Not many riders can keep up with a tandem with 5.5" of travel on rocky downhills. Until our rear brake failed... After 22 km, I noticed that my right brake lever bottomed out and that the rear disk had turned into a screeching soundmachine, but didn't do much to slow the bike down. As we were in a particularly steep and rocky section, it was quite a fight to get the bike to stop using just the front brake. Tino and I jumped of and dragged the bike into the undergrowth to make way for the millions of single bikers to come.

We examined the brake and noticed that one of the brake pads had come off its metal backing plate. The spare disk pads were at the campsite, of course, so we knew that the race was over. We couldn't leave, however, as the section where the failure occured was so narrow that we were forced to wait about 90 minutes until we could push our bike down towards the next road! We made good use of our time, though, providing a helping hand to the many riders who crashed right in front of us, or chatting with the wiser riders who had othed to walk that particular section.

After a quick lunch at the campsite we threw the tandem back into the car and hopped onto our single bikes. We had come down to Italy to enjoy cycling in the spectacular scenery, and a small mishap was not going to stop us! 800 miles of driving for just a weekend of tandeming is pretty hard to justify anyway, but if we'd driven back with only 22 km on our odometer ...

Tech Report:

FRAME: 2001 Tandem Techology Pinus Cembra full-suspension

Excellent tandem frame - superb handling, excellent stiffness, long stoker compartment, cool color

FORK: '99 Votec GS IV OS/S with integral Votec XL stem and Votec bars

Decent fork for both tandems and singles. Some brake shudder under high loads. The bolt-on hub greatly increases steering control. I would not want to miss it. I would not have wanted to ride this course without suspension. Others, like Kirchzarten may be fine on a rigid bike, but not Riva! Votec's XL stem allows three extension settings.

REAR SUSPENSION: Tandem Technology single-pivot design with Shock Therapy coil-over shock

Great suspension design; excellent shock. We will play around with various spring rates and damping settings some more before the next race.

FRONT WHEEL: 36 DT Competition 2.0/1.8 double-butted spokes, Mount through-axle hub, silver Mavic D521 rim

REAR WHEEL: 32 DT Competition 2.0/1.8 double-butted spokes, Rohloff Speedhub, silver Grünert rim

The Rohloff hub held up on the steep climbs. Due to the symmetric flange spacing, 32 spokes should be enough even off-road.

TIRES: 26x2.25" Schwalbe Big Jimmy light up front, 26x2.1" Schwalbe Black Shark XR light rear

Good tires; the extra cushioning of the fat front tires is good for this event.

BRAKES: 2000 Magura HS 33 Quicksilver with red Koolstop pads front, 2001 Magura Gustav M rear

The HS 33 is my favorite rim brake. The rear disk failed, forcing us to abandon the race. As many downhill racers and tandemists use Gustav Ms, this should be a one-time mishap.

DRIVETRAIN: Shimano 105 cranks (175 / 170 mm) with 39 tooth timing rings and a 42 tooth drive ring; 109 mm front BB, 118 mm rear (Shimano spline type); Rohloff Speedhub (14 speed internal gear hub) with Rohloff twist shifter

The large diameter BB spindles made for a noticeably stiffer drivetrain. The Speedhub shifted well, but I'll some more miles to evaluate the hub.

PEDALS: Ritchey SPD

Cheaper and lighter than Shimanos, but by far not as good.

GRIPS: Biogrip Race front and rear

I love Biogrip for long rides with flat bars; great vibration dampening and better wrist position.

SEATS: Selle Italia Flite front and rear"