Author Topic: My Two Thorns  (Read 35917 times)

sg37409

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Re: My Two Thorns
« Reply #60 on: March 20, 2014, 09:33:35 pm »
Great looking machine. Was the paintwork on the tandem bad pre-respray ? It's very similar to mine, but the paints quite good on mine. Mind you mine has shamefully few miles on it. 

I find it's a lovely bike to ride slowly on, it's a bit too upright for my wife on the back to do longer rides on.

Joe B

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Re: My Two Thorns
« Reply #61 on: March 23, 2014, 08:19:35 pm »
Hi Steve,

I’ve just been looking at your ‘Rose between two Thorns’ post. I thought I was looking at my tandem for a second. When I bought mine last year the original yellow paint was in a terrible state, a respray to preserve the frame was essential.

The colour was chosen by my 4 year old son when we were dropping the fames off  at Bob Jackson. Good choice I think.

Looking at your Rose and Raven they look as though they both have their tyres in very similar widths. What is your impression of the 700c versus 26”? I’m trying to figure out what my dream touring bike will be (when I can afford it) and I keep getting stuck on the question of 26” or wide seven-hundreds.


sg37409

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Re: My Two Thorns
« Reply #62 on: March 24, 2014, 09:00:02 am »
hi there - On the wheel pref, I can't say I notice any difference really.  Tyre choice and frames influence ride quality far more than wheel size.  The Rose has 700*35's and my Thorn RST has 26*1.6  both are schwalbe marathon supremes.  The Thorn is a slower and much more comfortable ride.  I think 700's "look better"  for what its worth.   700's give a better choice of fast race tyres, but for touring / commuting 700 and 26 have the same choices.

On the tandems, I traded our old triplet (Me n'u2) for the raven twin to use with the boys. We still had our old discovery tandem, which although cosmetically is a bit shabby, its a better fit for my wife and I, and its this bike I have hopes to use more this year to rekindle our tandem mojo.   The shabiness of it and the amount of riding we actually do on it this year will determine whether I send that off for a BJ respray next. (and the finances of course)   

Incidentally, how often have you found you use the S&S couplers ?   I spec'd them on the raven twin, but have used them loads LESS than I imagined.  Its a really nice feature but if we're en-famille the bikes are on the roof.   Its only if I went with 1 son to a remote ride and then I'd put it inside the car.  Prob used less than 10 times

Joe B

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Re: My Two Thorns
« Reply #63 on: March 26, 2014, 11:36:10 pm »
Not at all yet Steve. We haven't yet had the Raven Twin for a full year yet though. My daughter and I are planning to do the Northern England C2C later in the year and this tour will probably see the coupling used for the first time as we head to the West Coast by train.

We have a Fiat Scudo van which is terrific for transporting the tandems, with one of the rear seats removed we can easily get both tandems in as well as tons of camping gear. The down side is that on 95% of journeys its too big and uneconomical. When the fiat eventually becomes uneconomical to keep on the road we might go back to a medium estate with the bikes on the roof and camping gear in a trailer.

Joe B

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Re: My Two Thorns
« Reply #64 on: October 08, 2018, 10:23:08 am »
I haven't posted here for a little while while but I do enjoy seen photo's of touring bike and most especially Thorn's so here's a recent pic of our Raven tandem.

She's was faultless last year on our family tour through Germany and the Netherlands but has seen little use since as my wife's Circe Helios tandem is a better fit for our son.

That said he's now big enough to manage rides of around 25-30 miles own his own bike, (so long as its not to hilly) so the Raven is now set up for 2 adults and the missus and I get to ride tandem again, for the shorter rides at least:)

IMG_20181007_141137274 by Joe B, on Flickr
 

Danneaux

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Re: My Two Thorns
« Reply #65 on: October 12, 2018, 07:45:25 pm »
Absolutely stunning brace of Thorns there, Joe. I'm in love with your tandem!
=====
[This gallery topic diverged as a result of some questions so I split it in two, keeping this gallery intact while moving the tangential queries and replies to a separate post here:
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=13137.0 ]

Best,

Dan.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2018, 09:16:32 pm by Danneaux »

Joe B

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Re: My Two Thorns
« Reply #66 on: November 01, 2018, 08:58:41 am »
Dave Whittle's request elsewhere on this forum for good quality photos of Thorn's out in the wild got me looking through some old photo's. Some of my Audax Classic photographs are pretty good so I thought I'd post them here.
Photo0183 by Joe B, on Flickr

Audax & Lightning by Joe B, on Flickr

Todays ride, quite a climb. Watch out for suicidal goats coming down. by Joe B, on Flickr

20160409_144643 by Joe B, on Flickr