Already making plans for next season

As some of you know, my daughter and I will be riding the Assault on Marion/Mt Mitchell in 2008. The date just in case anyone wants to know is Monday, June 9, 2008. We will be riding our tandem for the Marion portion of the ride. Once in Marion I will be switching to my single bike to complete the epic ride. This will probably be the last year I do Mt Mitchell as I want to try some other rides in the area about the same time. That decision is not final, if The Stoker wants to do Mt Mitchell on her own I will do it with her in 2009.

In order to prepare for the ride, we will be doing the Freewheeler training rides starting in February. Most likely only one will be done on the tandem and the rest on our single bikes. I already have a friend that will be going with us to Tigerville, SC for all the training rides, but if any Bee Teamers are interested in car-pooling, please let me know. I know, February is a long ways off, but if you don’t set your goals early, you can’t adequately prepare!

We will be making some changes to the tandem over the next couple of months in order to shed weight and allow the tandem to roll a little bit better. I will try to document all the changes here, and let you know what the net effect was good or bad. For a complete list of the current specifications on the tandem go to this link on the Cannondale site.

We made some cosmetic changes last year to accommodate our riding styles and contact points on the bike. They were the addition of Shimano Ultegra Pedals, replacing the bull horn stoker bars with a set of drop bars and dummy brake levers and new saddles. I use a Specialized Toupe Gel (I think it is one of the most comfortable saddles I have ever used) and The Stoker uses a Selle San Marco Aspide Glamour saddle.

Our next modification will be to remove the Avid BB7 Disc brakes both front and rear and replace them with Avid Single Digit 7 Linear Pull brakes. I will post pictures after the modification is done. The tandem currently weighs almost exactly 38 pounds, we are hoping to reduce rotating weight by 3-4 pounds with another 1-2 pounds off the bike itself. Pretty ambitious but we think we can get close to our goal.

As our training gets underway I will post the progress. We are currently using a Garmin Edge 205 on the tandem. I use a free application from Zone Five Software called SportsTracks to keep track of our progress. I will post statistics as we continue on our quest.