No hooks on the rims!

[Jon Norstog]

I have an inquiry from a friend.  Their 40-year-old tandem needs new tires and it has no hooks on the rims.  All the tires he can find are for hooked rims.  I suggested using a wire bead tire but thought I would put the question out to the list.

Come to think of it I've got a wheelset, Campy hi-flanges & Ambrosio 27C rims with straight walls.  I mounted a set of CST (Cheng Shin) road tires and installed the wheels on a very early Waterford Superior.  They seem OK, haven't ridden them, but they centered just fine.

What say you, gentlemen?

jn

"Thursday"

[Alex Meade]

Jon,

Don't do it.  Make sure the tire is matched to the rim.  Either find correct tires or update the rims.  

My opinion comes from many years of tandem riding, including racing, and seeing the effects of not being careful about tires and rims.  I'll never forgive the tandem team that caused us to crash when they lost the front tire in a crit corner because they'd used a tire too narrow for the rim in an attempt to save a few grams and a bit of rolling resistance.  At least I didn't end up in the back of an ambulance as they did.  

Most all equipment used on tandems is designed for single bikes, and tires and wheels are particularly vulnerable to failure on tandems.  Tire life on a tandem is really short, sidewall and bead seat failures are not uncommon and with twice the mass and often higher speeds, any failure can be a disaster.  Even not in racing situations, a tire failure on a tandem can be really scary.  They're a *lot* harder to stop than a single bike and the captain is responsible for someone else's life besides their own.  

Just my $0.02!

Alex

http://www.alexmeadetools.com

[Steven Johnson]

Insanely good advice.

Saw one of the first Cannondale tandem forks fail at the steerer tube to crown. Capt felt something funny, and we pulled it apart. Would have been really bad at speed.

I would only have hooked rims on a tandem.

Steven Johnson, Millersville, MD

[D Gillies]

I think your friend must be confused.   Just about the only tires available now for 27" rims are wired-on tires.  Everything from Kenda.  Everything from IRC.  All are wired-on.  You have to look very far and wide and only one special type of panaracer 27" pasela tires has aramid belts, $30+.  Anything less than $30 in 27" size will work.  As it's a tandem you probably want a large cheap Kenda tire with 27 1 1/4 or even 27 1 3/8.

- Don Gillies

Palo Alto, CA, USA

[D Gillies]

Are you saying you think that tandems need both hooked rims AND wired-on tires?  I think tandems worked just fine with wired-on tires and straight-walled rims for 80 years, from about 1895 to about 1975 with straight-walled rims and wired-on tires.  Our family tandem (Schwinn Twinn, 1960s-1970s) had simple wald or rigida straight-walled steel rims and worked just fine.

I have experienced kevlar-beaded tires (clement ventoux post-2000) coming off rigida 1319 traditional rims (solo bike).  Behaves like a blowout.  Never mix vintage rims with kevlar or aramid-beaded tires.

If you think about who will ride the tandem, if the pair is relatively light, the bike would weigh maybe 45 lbs, so the bike might end up with only 300 or maybe 350 pounds of weight, not very different than some solo bikes.  I think people might be over-reacting to demand wired-on tires and hooked rims.

- Don Gillies

Pallo Alto, CA

[Alex Meade]

Don, I'm assuming your question is to me.  No, I'm only saying the tire and rim need to be made to work with each other.  If the tire and rim manufacturer's specs match, you're good - or at least you can start with an assumption they'll work.  If they don't match or don't exist (for example vintage rims with modern tires),  I'd be cautious advising someone they can use that combination of tires and rims on a tandem even if the tire apparently seats and doesn't blow off the rim in the shop.

But that's just my opinion based on lots of tandem miles.  Tandem crashes can be really bad and I've seen too many tire-related tandem crashes.

Alex

alexmeadetools.com