In the spring a young American journalist’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of … gas prices.
Every year about this time, as gas prices rise — as they will — the hacks trot out their woeful tales of the long-suffering American motoring public to celebrate the impending summer road-rage season. This one is from The Washington Post, and it is superior to the usual vacuous drivel in that it mentions the bicycle. Once.
Not as a tool for actually taking that road trip, mind you, but for scooting around the vicinity of your motel once you’ve parked the 12-mpg family battlewagon.
Sigh.
Famous alien spokescreature and marketing Machiavelli Gregg Bagni has posited that we may see some drift away from four wheels toward two once gas prices hit four smacks per gallon, which is just a few klicks down the turnpike. We paid about $4.30 per gallon in Hawaii in March, and nationwide the average has topped $3.50.
So, yeah. Should be interesting. Meanwhile, for $1,700 — about the price of 17 tanks of gas in the old Cadoo Escapade — a guy can buy himself a touring bike like the Jamis Aurora Elite* and hit the road under his own power.
You can’t take the family along, of course. But some might consider that a feature rather than a bug.
* In the interest of full disclosure, I’m test-riding an Aurora Elite as we speak and will review it for Adventure Cyclist magazine.
Mad Blog Media 
My question, from the perspective of a small bike shop that specializes in commuter/lifestyle bikes, is whether Americans actually spend less on gas and more on bicycles when gas is $4/gallon – or, do they simply spend more of their discretionary income on gasoline and less on everything else, including “discretionary” items such as bicycles? Although we will see a small increase in ridership when gas is $4/gallon, I think we’ll really have a sea change on our hands when gas hits $5-6/gallon. At that point it really begins to become impossible for the average American’s driving habits to continue. Of course, as I’m sure Larry will point out, $5-6/gallon is still much less than the Euro standard of $8-10/gallon… but we might have a civil war brewing if the ol’ dino juice gets that expensive here.
Joey, I think the conventional wisdom is that Average Joe (and Jane) reserve their dwindling stacks of dollars for go-juice and cut back on everything else.
It’s largely a consequence of the way we construct our hives, I think. Imagine living east of Powers but working in downtown Bibleburg: Bus service is limited and unreliable, it’s too long a hike to hoof it, nobody does carpools anymore, and the weather occasionally sucks with malice aforethought. Is a guy (or gal) gonna park the Feared Exposition and ride the bikey bike back and forth?
I’ve seen some uptick in cyclo-commuting — nothing I can document, but it feels like more folks here are using bikes as transport. Still, I expect that for most Bibleburgers, anyone riding a bike is either a yuppie prick or a homeless bum, not a Sensible U-nited States of America American.
It’s difficult, time-consuming and flat-out inconvenient to use a bike the way you’d use a car. It can be done, as you and I both know … but it sure ain’t as easy as turning that key and stepping on the pedal, no matter how much gas costs.
That’s a sweet bike. I was also lookin at a Fuji ‘cross bike at the Madison Bike Show last month. I feel an itch.
Patrick is correct. Its tough to use a bicycle to the exclusion of a car in most of the USA so as prices rise, gasoline will replace discretionary purchases. That, to most folks, probably includes bicycles.
Bikes don’t work that well because Uncle Sam built its infrastructure in the era of 33 cent to buck a gallon gasoline. Yeah, it was nice when my parents moved out of the inner city (Buffalo) and out to the sunny burbs. For one thing, I didn’t have to worry about getting beat up all the time, being the last honky on the block.
So its hard to unwind sixty years of history. We will have to make do. In the future, such commie-euro-socialist thinking like “smart growth” will likely be inevitable–frankly, people will voluntarily move closer to town when its too expensive to drive there. When I was in Germany (Bremen) a couple months ago, it was three km from the airport to the city center. Bike mode share is over 20%.
In some places where distances are compact we will probably see more bicyclists and frankly, you can do better than a 1700 dollar Jamis for everyday putzing around. I think the big surge in riding that caused all that road rage and hyperventilation in 2008 occured during the last gas spike.
By the way, I see from the Jamis catalog that they have gone to a compact drivetrain. I still think that a 34-32 low gear is way too steep for serious loaded touring. One could probably steal a 12-36 from a 29er and get below 1:1 but even that is a lot taller than traditional triple loaded touring gears, which typically bottomed out at 24 or 26 on the granny ring and a 32 or 34 in back. My bike is almost identically set up to the Jamis. I’m thinking of tossing a 12-36 on my Delgado Cross wheelset, loading up my panniers this summer, and riding over the Jemez to Cuba via Rt. 126. Wish me luck.
K, I have my doubts about that gearing, too, having tackled a few of our local hills unencumbered by anything other than my own fat ass, a water bottle and a LaraBar. But the SRAM Apex drivetrain tops out at 32T in the rear, so there you have it. I’m gonna load the sumbitch up this week and see what’s what.
Incidentally, adding a front rack requires a bit of thought, as there are no canti’ bosses and the disc-brake machinery gets in the way. A Nitto Mini-Front or Mark’s Rack from Rivendell would work, and look sharp, if I only had them. But I think I can make an Old Man Mountain Cold Springs rack work with hose clamps and some profanity.
I’m thinking it must not be that hard to retrofit one of those 29er dual 44-29 cranksets (Origins, CODA, etc.) to a touring rig like that pictured above (I may try it with my mule). That would give you some real dynamic range, i.e., when combined with an 11-36 ten speed cogset, you would have a low of 21.75 gear inches and a high of 108 gear inches. Or with a 12-36 nine speed, a high of 99 gear inches, with deference to my hero Frank Berto. I might go with the 18 speed since busting a chain in the Outback can really suck.
That’s a little higher stump-pulling gear than the 19 gear inch low end on our old Trek tandem (24×34), but still pretty damn good and probably as good or better than the stuff on any out of the box tourer sold these days.
I think the Jamis’ stock drivetrain would be great on a ’cross bike, especially the way I ride ’em, on everything from bike path to street to jeep road to single-track. There are days when I definitely do not feel like muscling a 34×28, or getting off and running.
This is why I usually buy framesets instead of complete bikes. I can hang all kinds of oddball stuff on them. My Voodoo Nakisi monstercross bike has an old M737 Deore XT crank on it with 42/32/22 rings, an Ultegra rear derailleur and a 12-26 nine-speed cassette ’cause it’s what I had lying around.
That 22×26 comes in mighty handy on steep single-track, and if I find a couple loose bucks around, I’m gonna add a couple teeth to the backside of that bad boy.
OG,
The trend to remake touring bikes at cross bikes has been going on for awhile. My Volpe is a touring frame, lots of eyelets and and fork bosses. But the thing is geared for cross. MTB type triple with a road cogset.
The STIs got tossed for a set of barends and it has fenders and an OMM rear rack, but still needs a new lower cogset.
IIRC the Surley isn;t geared low enough either nor is your test Jamis.
Marketing, marketing.
So why don’t you sponsor a Mad Dog Tour of the SW? A Burley trailer and cooler should hold the most important supplies, though the wine might need some cushioning.
I’ll bite on that Tour de Southwest, Ben.
Good news is the newest generation of ‘Muricans are starting to rethink the ‘burbs idea and instead choose to live in the city where they can walk to pretty much everything, according to some stuff I read recently. I keep annoying my local bike shop owner with the crazy idea of putting a huge sign up in his windows (visible to plenty of folks trundling by in their Chevrolet Subdivisions and Ford Exploders) reading “$0 per gallon!” but so far he’s not interested…and perhaps neither are the folks spending ever more of the paltry salary the Repuglicans bestow on them, on dead dinosaurs. And we ARE in the center of kookoo-land when it comes to ethanol – folks are convinced we can somehow grow enough corn and cheaply distill it into something they can burn in their trux to solve the problem. Someone told me this is just fine and dandy with the fossil fuel folks — they sell the farmers the equivalent of a gallon (fertilizer and diesel fuel) for every gallon of “automotive moonshine” they create! It’s a win-win…for THEM, not for us! Why do we keep doing stupid things like this? You already know what my wife says.
No argument here. $5-6 will be the turning point, helped if it occurs during warmer weather.
Though every winter now I see an increasing number of year round commuters. Not just minimal wage guys and gals forced to bike, but managers/white collar types (you will know them by their panniers) who have bought into the commuting ethic and stay with it. Winter rider numbers seem a more accurate indicator or serious commuting.
There is only so much redirect able income that can go to cover for decreasing miles/dollar. Cycling will see some growth again, but I’d watch mass transit ridership and the prices on used smaller cars over the next year o find the tipping point.
It sure looks like a bunch of hings are coming together, Republican overreach, income inequality, erosion of the middle class, costs of everything, infrastructure decay on and on, but does in mean a left/progressive revitalization? I don’t know, sure hope so.
I sure hope so too, but as Larry’s wife says….
I have 3 choices, the 2005 Trailblazer that gets a dissmal 18mpg, bought to haul my pop up camper. The 95 Thunderchicken that get an amazing 25 mpg, with a V8 no less. When gas rings the $4 bell, I stradle the 85 Honda Nighthawk 650 which gets close to 50 mpg. The problem with a lot of this is that some of us have to choose where we live by the schools we send our kids to. I have a 30 mile commute right now because the schools in the town where my work is suck…alot. I’ll spend the extra dough to make sure my daughter can read when she leaves high school.
Brian, with gas on the Big Island at $4.50, we saw plenty of two-wheelers … all of ’em motorized. Itty-bitty Honda Metropolitan scooters, Chinese scoots, all kinds of cheap, underpowered rice-grinders. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen a really big dude with his groceries, a couple sixers and a week’s worth of laundry pooting up a hill on a Honda Metro.
Yep. Between the lack of parking and the expensive gasoline, the moped has always been popular in Hawai’i. At times, the Univ. of Hawai’i at Manoa used to sound like one giant bee colony from the constant buzz of 49 cc engines. It used to be rather amusing to see a 350 lb Hawaiian-Samoan defensive lineman at UHM come scooting down the street on a bike that weighed about half what he did.
‘fraid I’m not as optimistic as you all. I see the average ‘Merican spending the $6 plus per gallon on gas and sticking with the SUV. Given that I haven’t seen Hummers getting traded in on Priuses (Prii?), it looks like price is no object. I see it as a “frog in water” sort of thing (not “frog” as in French, either): we’ll all get used to $6 gas just like we all got used to $3 gas, and before that $1 gas. Oh, and if the poor suffer as a result, well this is America, land of opportunity and nut job Republicans, so it’s your own damn fault for being poor.
No, I think what’ll take is long lines in front of the dino juice stand, just like in the good ol’ 70’s. If it costs a lot more to drive, they’ll drive; if it takes more time, and they need to wait in line for gas, then they might considering using one of those bicycle things, just like their buddies with DUI’s.
When gas spiked in the seventies, people still had decent-paying blue collar jobs. I think at some point the middle class, aka the future poor, will really run out of money. Then the shit will really hit the fan.
Before we change as a nation and get rid of our SUVs, I fear we will elect a man on a horse (or a woman on a horse, take your pick) that will promise to bring back cheap gas. Kinda like a 21st Century Mussolini. I fear for this place. I think Larry has the right idea. Get off at the next port of call (Italy, in his case) before we hit the iceberg good and hard with the USS Ship ‘O State.
I’m not sure what it will take to get people out of their cars. When gas prices spiked to $4/gallon after Katrina, I saw all sorts of people on bikes. After about three weeks, not so many. The real problem is that land is way too cheap. There is no incentive to have a dense population that will make light rail, buses, cycling much more palatable to the driving public. I’m afraid that John’s post above is pretty close to how it will play out.
I read something else over the weekend — 3-5 year-old Japanese 4-cylinder used car prices are going up. The dealers are planning for plenty of gas-guzzling V-8’s to be traded in for more efficient cars, but with the automakers in Japan having trouble due to the problems there, they think new cars in this category will be in limited supply, so they want a good stock of slightly-used ones to sell. The report was used-car auction prices were already up more than 10% for these vehicles. One solution is the one done by the Europeans back in the 70’s. They knew folks would go back to wasting fuel once the price went back down (and we’ve certainly seen that how many times in the US of A?) so they taxed the dino-juice so much the price never really dropped and the less wasteful behavior became the norm. No drive-thru in Italy! Think about how much drive-thru shit there is in the US, fast-food, banks, dry cleaners, coffee, liquor stores, you name it — there’s probably a way you can get it while reclining in the seat of your Chevy Subdivision. Imagine all the fuel wasted in all those vehicles idling in all those drive-up lines! Long waits to fill up with dino-juice or automotive moonshine would change things, but ONLY until the lines went away, just they did in the 70’s and 80’s. Same with the prices — $8-10 per gallon will change things only if they’re permanent. But there’s no political will to do it here in autocentric America.
Less than 6 weeks from now we’ll be paying those high prices, but using a diesel powered 9-passenger van that gets much better than 30 mpg on the highway, it makes the fuel costs a small part of our overall budget each season.
Y’all,
What really sucks is not just the higher fuel price Bubba has to pay to get to his shit job — and maybe even do his shit job — but the higher fuel prices that will be folded into anything created or shipped via the Dinosaur Wine Canal, especially food, which is pretty much a must-have item for everyone.
Talk about your domino theories — it’s not hard to see a whole bunch of the sonsabitches toppling over. Anyone who delivers items, does gas-powered yard/construction work, drives a ton to serve a far-flung network of customers (like bike reps) is gonna be in the hurt locker for sure.
Instead of ‘Murkins cycling to the Safeway, they’ll be cycling to the soup kitchen.
While you’re doing that review, you might query the Jamis rep about availability issues. That group has been dishing out some really nice packages for over a decade, and I’ve recommended it as a price point to several people who were stepping up their cycling. But, finding them is an issue! I had one buddy who went psycho and ran all over the midwest and picked one up in Wisconsin while he was at a conference. Real bikes like this will sell. I hope to seem more reviews of bikes like this instead of $7500 “introductory” race bikes. Anyone who needs a $7500 bike doesn’t pay half price.
Millions of people travel to work one or both ways in the dark or near dark. They travel when mass transportation is not available for one or both directions and when walking or biking is far less safe due to darkness. Even if it could be managed in darkness one-way it doesn’t mean it could be safely managed in daylight. Lots of places in the U. S.experience “winter” for 5-6 months a year ! I commute in darkness and near-darkness year ’round. I don’t live in Alaska and work 8 hrs/day. (I drive a very ordinary sedan btw.). I don’t like the hours and I used to have only one leg of my commute in darkness.in any case, millions of full and part-time jobs require “dark” commutes and limited or no mass trans.
Nice looking ride, but discs on a touring bike? Hmm…..makes me wonder. Especially with that steep gearing on the top end. Oh well, I am sure it is more fun to ride than a, well, anything!
For credit card touring while packing lightly (or for someone with monster quads) the Jamis gearing would be great outa the box.
Patrick points out an issue–getting low riders or other front panniers around the disk hardware. I’ll take a look at that myself. My low rider hardware has been hanging on a nail in the garage wall since I sold the Univega.
James, I’ve seen discs on a couple of touring bikes now, among them the Jamis and the Raleigh Sojourn. They’re nice stoppers, and I bet they’re wonderful to have when you round a blind downhill corner fully loaded to find a Dodge duallie towing a horse trailer executing a leisurely U-turn in your path.
But they keep me from mounting my Jandd low-rider rack, and I expect I’ll have to use hose clamps to fit the OMM Cold Springs. Plus I’ve never owned a disc-equipped bike and thus don’t know a damn’ thing about their care and feeding.
Oh, well. They say learning new tricks spares an old dog from Alzheimer’s.
As someone who has done a few short loaded tours, count me as a big vote against disc brakes on a touring bike. I don’t doubt that they have fine stopping power, but so do my well adjusted Avid linear pull brakes. And my Avid brakes are far simpler, easier to adjust and maintain, and don’t have any brake rub issues, unlike every disc brake I’ve see with any sort of decent mileage on them.
Disc brakes seem to be like STI shifters: they are there to sell the bike, but once on a loaded tour they add complexity that can turn minor problems into major one. What’s more, STI shifters limit your gear choices and it sounds like disc brakes can interfere with panniers. In summary: not worth it.
Yeah, I’m not a big fan of needless complexity. I like STI/ErgoPower/DoubleTap shifters on race bikes, ’cause they’re convenient as all hell. When they break you can catch a lift home in a follow car (road race) or just roll off the course (crit or ’cross), throw your useless bike in the car, and drive off to the LBS to piss away a month’s whiskey money on a new shifter. (This is one of the many reasons why I don’t race anymore.)
As all my high-falutin’ shifters drift off one by one to the Happy Hunting Grounds I’ve been replacing them with bar-end shifters, which are comparatively cheap and have a friction mode when the indexing spazzes out beyond repair. Learned to love ’em in ’cross, now I love ’em in everything.
Likewise the much-maligned cantilever brake. Disc-lovers and linear-pull fans pooh-pooh them as “speed modulators,” but I get pretty decent stopping power out of a Paul’s Neo-Retro/Touring combo (front/rear). The latest Shimano cantis are fine, too, and I like the Cane Creeks as well. Both are reminiscent of the old Dia-Compe 986s, as the Paul’s are of Mafac/Weinmann.
Are cantis and bar-cons perfect? No. Are they lighter and more easily adjusted in the field than the latest whiz-bangery, and serviceable at any bike shop on the planet? Yup.
Okay, I’ll go on record as someone in favor of disc brakes in most situations, including touring. I have a set of latest-generation (about two years old) XT hydraulics on my load-hauler, a Civia Hyland. Yes, I am a mechanic, but no, I haven’t had to maintain those suckers much at all – certainly less than the Avid linear pulls on my Bianchi CX bike (the one I bought off you, O’G). I also have front and rear racks mounted to the Civia, no problem – Jandd up front, Topeak Super Tourist in the rear.
I also have a set of the XT’s on my MTB (these require more maintenance due to usage environment and severity), and my girlfriend has them on her commuter, and I swear by them. They just work.
That said, for long tours, I would probably still go with Avid BB7’s – there are versions compatible with any lever you choose, they use standard brake cables, and I have literally never seen one break. Adjustment is as simple as a rim brake – just different. No more worrying about wet rims, out-of-true wheels, or going through a set of brake pads on one gritty wet descent. Final nitpicky score – the rim stays free of the nasty brake dust that coats your hands every time you change a flat or handle the wheel.
I know I keep harping on Italy as the example of how to do this but, except for perhaps the Dutch, they have it down. What’s needed to get ‘Muricans onto a bike for transportation has nothing to do with the LBS, which in the USA especially is a place for enthusiasts.
If an Italian just wants a cheap bike to ride around the town, he/she can get one at the equivalent of our Sprawl-Mart. NOT a one-size-fits-all, dual “suspension” 50 lb hunk-o-junk “MTB” for $99 like you see so many immigrants and others plodding to work on here in the ‘states, but a 700 c wheeled, basic city bike with fenders and upright bars. Until THESE are available at Sprawl-Mart, don’t expect much replacing of cars with bikes — they’re just not mainstream enough. Right now this is certainly a “chicken or egg” situation – but maybe $6-7 gallons of dino-juice will change things? Of course, THEN folks need to move closer to their job and let little Caitlin and Conner get to school using their own two legs instead of being hauled to and fro in 4X4 “shopping utility vehicles”. $6-7 a gallon gas might put a dent into this practice as well, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Why just the Mall-Wart? Our shop carries exactly what you’re talking about, starting at $300 new and $120 used. Yep, most IBDs are catering to enthusiasts, but not all of us… and if the American public ever begins wanting commuter bikes more than DrugStrong’s team replica bike or the DH motorcycle sans motor, I’m guessing there will a lot more shops like ours.
The Mall-Warts out there – at least in this country, can’t speak for those in Italy – will never be able to match our knowledge and quality, two things that actually matter to people who use their bicycles as a matter of course.
For my own part, since I live in a two job family and have to pick up the kid from one disparate part of town to take him to another at least twice a week, riding bike to work has become more of a problem than normal. I’d love to spend the scratch on getting a commuter bike but don’t have that much in one chunk right now and refuse to push the credit card higher. Still, when the weather gets permanently better I might be able to do some escort service so the kid can ride his bike with me to his after-school gymnastics.
But this is part of the problem of a two income family. When the middle class wasn’t reduced in income to the point where both parents had to work things like this were less of a problem. Until we make the rich pay their due in society, we’re stuck saying “thank you sir; may I have another!”
Both my parents worked when we were kids. We had school buses, which also ran late trips home after sports and band practice. Nobody I know had their parents trucking them back and forth. Kids within a couple mile radius were expected to hoof it or ride a bike.
To some degree, we are victims of our own change in expectations. Frankly, I wonder about the future independence of kids who have to be taken everywhere in the family battleship. Even my brother and sister-in-law, who never had a chauffeured family sedan at their disposals as kids, now take little Tinkle Belle everywhere in the SUV.
Oh, well. I think cheap gas made us all a little spoiled. Its eventually going to be back to the drawing boards, whether we like it or not.
My mom didn’t work outside the home, but she wasn’t big on chauffeur service, either. My sis and I walked or rode our bikes to school and most everywhere else, or caught a school bus.
Hell, I didn’t have a driver’s license until the end of my first year of college. Then I promptly lost the sonofabitch and was back on the bike or shank’s mare when I couldn’t mooch rides from pals. Finally got the license back and a Datsun pickup to go with it when I graduated.
Thirty-four years later I could give a shit about cars. I have two, but they’re absurdly functional — a 1983 Toyota longbed for hauling things and a 2005 Subaru Forester for everything else. They get OK gas mileage, I don’t drive much anyway and the Forester is about two payments from being free and clear.
But if gas prices get seriously out of control (for America, anyway), I’ll do like Brian and use the 75-mpg Vespa LX50 for heavy lifting and the bikes for everything else. I’m old, but I ain’t dead.
Oh, this isn’t helping my blood pressure.
I know what you mean. I used to check in with O’G to see what’s up in the bike world and get a laugh at our world leaders. Nowadays I visit the typical news sites, get pissed off at the world, then visit this site and get REALLY pissed off at the world.
Hey, but at least HERE we read your rants and most often agree with ’em, unlike most of the US mainstream!
Where I live, there’s snow and ice coming out of the sky four months out of the year. The roads get cleared off pretty quickly, but they’re either really sloppy or potentially icy, and the wind chill on an open vehicle can be vicious … so I’m still burning old carboniferous swamp stuff. At least it’s only 6 miles each way.
I think its unreasonable to expect Uncle Sam to stop using dino juice. But JFC, how much we waste! I suspect we could have cut out 30% in ten years with a REAL fleet turnover. That never happened. One of the problems with capitalism is that people are free to spend their money to fuck up the world.
Most of the traffic going to and from the Bomb Factory every day is single-occupant dinojuice burners. About half are SUVs and trucks. Our parking lot at my building looks like Battleship Row.
Of course, everyone has a reason to be driving a car half the size of some small German towns (just try to find a big SUV in Bremen). That’s the problem. Ma Nature doesn’t give a damn what our reasons are. Ma Nature ain’t makin’ new oil any faster because my neighbors want to raise four kids, transport a fleet of horses around on weekends, haul a boat up from the Rio Grande Valley, and use their SuperDuty MesaSmasher Turbo-XTL for their daily driver too.
I hate to sound ornery, but we tried to get more kids to bike to school here to reduce traffic and improve their physical fitness. Hell, one of our elementary school’s chief nurses is on my Transportation Advisory board (which hopefully will have a new Chair next month–whew). The schools refused. Why? Because it was too fucking dangerous to have kids riding their bikes to school in a sea of minivans and SUVs descending on the school parking lots twice a day–at speed.
People ARE stupid. Not because they want all this shit. Because they don’t see the connection between wanting all this shit and the huge mess we are in.
“People ARE stupid. Not because they want all this shit. Because they don’t see the connection between wanting all this shit and the huge mess we are in.”
Khal, this is one of the most honest things I have read in months. Kudos.
Very Interesting blog comments!!!
The west was settled by people on horses and mules. Somehow that evolved into nothing but autos.The cities of the west are not designed to be bicyclist friendly relative to commuting. We are screwed and the older we are the more screwed.
Just maybe the kids of the future will no longer be fat asses.
I see from the OMM web site that Gearing Up in Taos stocks Old Man Mountain. Its a good shop. I don’t know Rey Deveaux, but do know Sherry Koch. They are pretty serious about running a good shop and keeping us on the road. I know Sherry as she seems to be the smiling face in the shop as well as supporting regional advocacy.
With good LBS in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Taos, things are good here. Seems that BombTown is too small for anyone to make a serious go of it here. I’ve seen several shops crater in my ten years in the joint here.
Seeing the response to my earlier comment I am trying to remember what brakes were on a friend’s father-in-law’s bike which I rode last summer in Holland. I believe that it was cantis (or linear pull) but not too sure. I don’t see the need to have a disc on anything BUT a serious off-road bike. And by “serious” I mean “at least a few inches of travel” and not “Cyclo-cross.”
The point here is that if we want something which works well in all seasons then maybe we should take a lesson from those Europups and return to our bygone days of cable brakes on the rim, fenders and enclosed chains. Just a thought…
I’ve seen more tandems show up on the floor with disks. With a 1:1 fatso to wheel ratio (and therefore a 1:1 fatso to brake ratio) I think they make sense. Right now I’m considering putting a disk or drum on the Co-Motion as a drag brake for long descents, too.