My off-road tandem:
1996 Santana 'Fusion'
(component list)

Santana FusionA recent pic of my tandem.The left picture is from the 1995/96 Santana catalog. It shows what the bike looked like when we tested it. I still got the nicer XT cranks, though, instead of the ugly painted LXs. The pic to the right is the most recent.

I have been intrigued by tandems ever since I was working for German Möhren's shop German's Mountain Bikes in Heidelberg. German builds some of the most beautiful tandem frames to be found in Europe. The opportunity came in the form of a close-out sale of Santana tandems at a San Antonio bike store while I was an exchange student at UT for a year.

The bike started out as a stock 'Fusion', a 26" wheeled bike with drop bars. I had the bars replaced with flat (MTB-type) bars as I did not feel comfortable using drop bars off-road. Santana uses the same frames for their 'Enduro'-styles tandems as for the off-road versions. Thus, technically we now ride a 'Cilantro'.

I have since made numerous changes to the bike, adding a Votec GS IV OS/S suspension fork and a Formula rear hydraulic disk, to name just the most expensive two. The stoker is now made comfortable by means of a Moxey XC suspension seat post. You can find more information about how I fitted the disk to the frame here.

Tandems can do almost anything.
 LEFT: Torture-testing the new tandem in Austin. We're both wearing the 1996 UT Cycling Team jersey, as I raced for them on the collegiate circuit in the 1996/97 season. My stoker yelled at me for smiling at the camera instead of looking where we were going when she saw the pic.
RIGHT: In both 1998 and 1999, I participated in the Black Forest Ultra Bike Marathon in Kirchzarten near Freiburg. It is a 116km ride with 11,500 ft. of climbing. Both times, my stoker was Evelyn, one of the strongest and smoothest stokers I know. This a picture from 1998 (still without the suspension fork).
Kirchzarten 1998
Rappeneckwiese
 LEFT AND BELOW: Tandeming in the Black Forest around Freiburg.
RIGHT: For 1999, Evelyn and I decided to ride the entire series of four "MTB-Marathon" events organized by the German MountainBike magazin. This is a picture from the first race in Garmisch in the Bavarian Alps. This pic shows the Votec fork, but the rear brake is still an LX-V and an Arai drum.
Garmisch 1999
Sabine and Dorothee.
RIGHT: Preparing for the 1999 Black Forest Ultra Bike Marathon in Kirchzarten. Next to us our friends Petra and Felix with their green Santana Rio and Mary and Marvin with their green Cannondale RT 1000.
Three tandem teams
Hinterwaldkopf
 LEFT: Snow tandeming in the Black Forest near Freiburg. We killed our front rim that day, but we sure had a lot of fun!