Sklandem - a PBJ Tandem

I built a tandem! Pro tip: if you are looking for a tandem, craigslist is full of folks looking to get rid of them. So many cool handmade ones from renowned builders for insanely cheap. But unfortunately I am very vain and had to have one with my name on it so this project began. Megan and I went on a big group campout earlier this summer and there were a few fun tandems there, we had fun cruising them around and thought, sure why not.

The thing about all these cool old tandems, is a lot of them with wider tires are 90's and early 2000's mountain bike geo. Very aggressive and twitchy and we really just wanted something to cruise through golden gate park and take camping occasionally, so of course the PBJ platform seemed like the move.

Funny enough, this is only my second tandem frame. The last one I built about a decade ago and I thought it turned out so nice that I have been thinking about it ever since. That bike was for my old boss Jeff. Who so kindly nudged me out of my engineering job and into doing bikes full time, and ordered a super cool tandem for him and his wife immediately after. Still grateful to him for giving me the padding to go full time all those years ago!

Anyhow, this tandem started out with a Medium PBJ frame in the rear. Building a rear end is the hardest part of a bike and I have enough projects going on so I chopped off the front end and added my own boom tube and front two triangles. With the PBJ being so popular these days, sometimes I forget that I really became known by my curvy tube bikes. It was fun to pull out the tubing roller and try and make some nice curves on this frame. I think they turned out pretty well!

I also make the Titanium seatpost/stoker stem combo. For the last one I had made an adjustable stem, but I figured we didn't really need to adjust the stem position that much and this solution required less machining and welding so I went with it and I think it turned out pretty cool!

We are running a SRAM S200 drivetrain with the drive side timing chain. I didn't want to deal with finding tandem cranks, so I just spaced out and added another chain ring on a spider on the stoker cranks and it works great. The timing chain is tensioned with a Oner components EBB (PF30). We got some blingy brakes and a stem from PAUL component and are running 29 x 2.6" Mezcal tires.

Is there a production tandem on the way? The answer is almost definitely no. Just thinking about how to make all the size combos work makes my head spin. Never say never though...

Some folks have made comments in passing about how it must be much easier to "not be building the bikes anymore" - a topic we could get deep into because I still do make every single bike in my opinion - but the truth is running a bike company is way, way more work than being a framebuilder. That said, it feels nice to get back in the shop and weld things, fit things up. Remind myself of what it means to really put a frame together. It is an essential part of my design process and a lot of the special sauce here at Sklar Bikes.

Thanks for looking!
Adam