The pedal cranks on tandems can get out of sync if the linking chain falls off. This can be due to the chain being too loose. On this video I hope to show you how to fix this.
I keep the cranks on my Santana Elan two teeth out of phase, (24 degrees), allowing the stoker to push the pedal through the captain's top/bottom dead center phases, and vice versa. This gives a measure of the out-of-phase advantage without the risk of slugging the pedal on a turn or a speed bump. The bottom bracket eccentric shell on my bike is not a split type, but rather in a full circle shell fixed by set screws that press into the eccentric. The split bottom bracket shell is a potential weak spot in the frame, especially with two strong riders, the whole bike is held together by those two bolts. I use half-step-granny gearing, (24-47-52 chainrings and a 13-32 six-speed freewheel), SunTour ratchet shifters, Scott-Pederson self-energizing rim brakes operated from a dual-cable right lever and an Arai drum brake on the left lever. It's a pretty sweet rig, rides smooth, and looks pretty good, even thirty-three years later.
Thanks for the video as I need to tighten my tandem chain. Also great you are offering tandems for special needs people. I'm using a tandem currently as my right foot is in a cast and can't pedal so I put a bracket on (just cut the arm out of a crank and welded the pedal nut part in the centre then attached the pedal back on) and it's been so great to get out again. Great job!
Hi. I have myself a vídeo about this (in portuguese). There is a very important detail, one should tight the boacket using the opposite direction of the usual pedal movement, because the spheres spin tend to untight it. When we bought our tandem, I was doing it wrong, and after 2 or 3 rides, the chain got large.
Thank u for good video. I've just bought a second-hand tandem bike and notice that the pedals are out of sync and basically I wasn't too sure how to put it right. Cheers buddy👍 oh & happy new year 2 u
Perhaps its just me but when checking the tightness of a chain I would always spin it all the way around, as normally I've found there are tight and loose spots on a chain and it depends on where about in it's cycle it happens to be.
