Take Two
As time went by, carbon fiber forks got better. A few companies introduced tandem rated carbon fiber forks. As is customary, I will let other companies run with something like this for a few years before we jump on board. Strength wise, the forks seemed fine and I didn't hear of failures. Eventually we had customers requesting carbon forks for their tandems. I think that it was probably the year 2000 or so and we special ordered a few and they are still out there on the road. Funny thing about these tandem rated carbon forks though, they really weren't any lighter than the lighter steel tandem forks that we made (like every other company, by this point in time we'd been using carbon forks in our race bikes and they were lighter than the steel forks). We probably used two or three of them before just realizing that the customer wasn't saving any weight, so what was the benefit? So it was back to steel forks on all of our tandems. Light steel forks on the light tandems, and heavier steel forks on the touring tandems. Steel forks give us much more design freedom as we control the rake, trail and fork height (but there's a whole separate article).

It wasn't until 2004 that I had a customer who came in the shop (we'll call him Mark) and wanted one of our super-light tandem frames. He specifically requested a carbon fiber tandem fork that had a carbon fiber steering tube as well. I told him that we could build a really light steel fork instead, but he really wanted the carbon/carbon tandem fork. I said that "even though it's tandem rated, I still recommend a nice steel fork on tandems." He said "there's another reputable builder using the fork. I don't think they would use them if they weren't good." I figured "it's tandem rated, other expensive bikes are using them...what's the harm?"

When the bike was done, it was beautiful. It was very light, and the custom painted carbon fork looked really cool in the bike. There was trouble on horizon though. A few weeks after the customer had the bike, he called to tell me that the bike had terrible handling and was even difficult to stay upright at times. His thought was that maybe we had built the frame too light, and the frame was flexing under load. Well, we'd built a lot of these bikes and never had this issue, so I asked him to bring it in.

I took the bike for a ride with one of our mechanics. The bike did not ride well in my opinion. It did have control issues, and felt unstable. When we got the bike back to the shop, I started looking for loose components. A loose headset can cause a handling problem, so I tested for that. I did feel the customary 'knocking' of a loose head set, but verified that the headset was not loose. "What was loose?" I thought. I figured that I should take out the front wheel and check the front hub. When I flipped the skewer loose, the left front dropout (the part that holds the wheel on) fell completely out of the fork leg! I'd never seen anything like that before. They were riding the bike with the front wheel attached to the right fork blade only. It was a miracle that they did not suffer a catastrophic failure on the road!

I immediately called the company who had manufactured the fork. I explained what happened and couldn't believe what the representative told me. He said "Oh yeah, sometimes we forget to take the release compound out of the fork legs before we epoxy the dropouts into the fork. The epoxy will not stick to the release compound. It's easy for us to fix, just send it in." Here I thought they would be shocked, apologetic, and relieved that nobody was killed. Instead, it was like it happens all the time, nothing to worry about. I explained that this was a brand new, $5,000 bike, and I think my customer should have a new fork, not a 'fixed fork'. "No, we can't do that" I was told. "Our warranty is that we fix it." I explained to the customer that I no longer had confidence in this company, their products, or their customer service skills and offered him again a custom steel fork at no charge. "Let's have them fix it" he said.

The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth about carbon forks on tandems, and a bad taste (fair or unfair) in my customers mouth about his new $5,000 bike. Although he didn't tell me, he ordered another expensive tandem to replace this one from another company. A few years later, I was searching Craigslist for Rodriguez bicycles (I do this often) I came across Mark's tandem for sale. I was sad as I knew that his experience with that fork had spoiled his relationship with us as builder. I called him and told him to take the ad down and that I would buy the bike from him. He told me "You don't need to do that. We've already purchased a different tandem, and we no longer need this one." I said "you gave us the opportunity to build your dream tandem, and I can't have you sell it on Craigslist out of disappointment. Bring the bike in."

He did bring the bike in. We had a great talk, we loaned he and his wife a light-weight tandem that we had in the shop at the time to take for an extended ride. They came back all smiles, and said "That's what we wanted our tandem for feel like!" "Let me keep your bike for a while and see what we can come up with" I said. Mark agreed.

I rode his tandem, and sent some of the other employees out to ride his tandem. We all came back with the same feeling. The steering tube in the fork was flexing so much that the handling was compromised. I put one of our basic steel tandem forks in the bike, and we all rode it again. The verdict: All fixed!

I called Mark and asked if he would be willing to ride his tandem again with a basic steel fork in it to see if he liked the handling any better. If he did, the offer still stood to put a custom light steel tandem fork in the bike. He agreed.

It didn't take long before Mark called and said "it feels great!" We built and painted a light weight custom steel tandem fork and installed it into his light-weight Rodriguez tandem. We weighed his carbon/carbon fork against his new steel tandem fork and it was less than 2 ounces heavier. A small price to pay for much better handling.

Well, it was only a few months later, and Mark had his 'other brand' tandem up for sale on Craigslist. His confidence in his Rodriguez had been restored, and it was now his favorite bike.

Thanks for working with us Mark, and we'll see you on the road.