Tandem for Fred and son

Here it is, the first LaFraise Tandem. The first big ride for this beautiful machine was planned to be the amateur Paris-Roubaix race in April 2020 by a father and son team. It will have to wait until October to be taken across the cobbles.

It is designed to be a road race tandem that is solid enough for the tough roads of the Hell of the North and that can take a little bit of luggage for longer multi-day rides.

Given the extreme forces especially on the fork during a Paris-Roubaix, we decided to equip the tandem with a Truss Fork for extra strength. The fork head is custom made and machined in Roubaix, the fork blades are Columbus 1” disc blades, bent to measure.

The frame is a mix of Columbus Zona and Max tubes. We used the conical oval seat tubes and the bi-oval down tube in Columbus Max to give more lateral stability for such a long frame. The tandem is also supposed to fit into the trunk of a car from time to time, so S and S couplers were necessary.

The transmission is a mix of Sram Rival and Sram Force 1x10 with a tandem crankset from Spécialité TA which allows to combine different crank lengths for Pilote and Stoker.

The wheels, as usual assembled by Matthias, are built on the sturdy Velocity Chucker rims and Hope Pro 4 hubs. René Herse 38 mm tires for a great balance of speed and comfort. The brakes are Juin Tech GT-P cable actuated hydraulic 4-piston disc brakes on Hope rotors to reliably slow down the weight of two riders. Periphery is from Nitto, Velo Orange, and Brooks England with a custom stoker stem and Dia-Comp stoker grips. The stoker handlebar was chosen to be a bit wider to not have the hands on the pilotes behind all the time. A Silca frame pump is neatly tucked away on the boom, painted in the same deep chocolate brown as the rest of the frame and fork (nice work by M-Level).

The shake down ride through Roubaix drew lots of eyeballs already and if all goes well it can be admired on October 24th in Roubaix again.