Colin Blackburn said:
I was walking in and around the Howgills over the bank holiday. One
walk, away from the Howgills proper, took me to Dent. Sitting in a pub
at the end of the walk, sampling some fine beers from the Dent Brewery,
a tandem with a baby seat pulled into the outside seating area-cum-car
park.[Aside: The stoker got off and took the toddler from the seat. As she
walked towards me I noticed she had a Che Guevara (sp?) t-shirt on.
Right next to me was a Skoda with a Che Guevara stencil on the boot
lid. She noticed the car's stencil and said to the toddler, "Look Che,
it's Che!" It turned out the toddle was named Che, after Che G.]When I went in for the next round I had a look at the then parked up
tandem, an Orbit, and noticed it had both disc and V brakes on the rear
wheel. I know tandems need very efficient brakes but is it normal to
have two rear brakes in addition to a front brake? Is the second rear
brake used in conjunction with the first or as an emergency brake?
Tandems should all have a rear hub brake. The rim brake is there for
stopping; the hub brake is as a drag brake and heatsink on long
descents, because otherwise tyres will blow off the hot rims [1]. Often
the rear brake is operated via a thumbshifter because it's designed to
be left on for long periods.
I've seen a newer tandem with front and rear Hope disc brakes and no rim
brakes. This also works well although the discs will get extremely hot
(the riders were a substantial Geordie couple - if you see a blue tandem
with "Howay the lads" at the front of the top tube and "Wor lass" at the
rear, that's them!).
[1] tyres rarely blow off solo bikes, but tandems have to dissipate
twice the energy with the same number of wheels, so it's a real problem