Conference noted::bicycle

    I would definitely not spend $2000 on a bike of strange design that
    I had never ridden.

    
    	Sorry to rain on your dream, but I have to believe that different
    cadences for captain and stoker will be *HELL* for the lighter member
    of the team (assumed to be your lower cadence, less powerful wife).
    Just slowly going in and out of synch with each other is going to
    be weird, I doubt that you'll ever get used to it.
    
    	Anyway, if that's what you think you want, and that's what they
    cost, then make damned sure by test riding one *WITH YOUR WIFE* for
    long enough, like at least a 150 mile week-end. 

    	Reg
    
    		(Whatever your choice, I hope you enjoy it)

    Why don't you try posting your question about tandem builders to
    the USENET bicycle.net newsgroup?  You'd be almost certain to discover
    respondents with experience or hearsay to share.
    
    Good luck,
    Mac.

I want to fill you in on what I've found. 
There are few (50+) Counterpoints on the road today. Most are in the Pacific
Northwest. I have seen and ridden the only one in Mass...it is an answer
to our prayers!. Captain and stoker really can ride together using very
different cadences. Not only that, the bike is made of very standard
componentry with just a few non-standard bells and whistles. I spoke with
several owners, heard a few complaints, but mostly they praised the builder,
the product and the concept.
I'm going to order one today!
I'll keep you all posted on progress as we go along.
Thanks to all of you for your advice and comments.

Garry (Re: .4):

    Did you get it yet?  Do you like it?

    
    

    The semi is up and running. However, this sometimes bravado cyclist
    is out of commission for a few weeks. Tried to take a phone pole
    out with the Counterpoint. Score 1 for the pole, and -1 for my
    fractured shoulder. Counterpoint survived with a minor scratch.
    
    
    How do we like it? SUPER!!!My wife and I look foirward to riding
    together now. We used to take rides, but we couldn't ride together
    due to the differences in our strengths, and her (slight) handicaps.
    Now we can converse together, she can make p-nut butter sandwiches
    for me, and the bike sure attracts a lot of smiles!
    
    I had hoped to ride it in this week. Now I'll have to wait till
    mid-June.
    

    
    	re .6	Sorry to hear about the shoulder Gary, best wishes with
    the healing process.
    
    	Reg
    

    Injury?  Telephone pole?  Sorry to hear it, I trust the wife is ok?
    
    Make pd&j on while riding?  I can't even do that while riding in
    a 4wd pickup, that must be some comfortable seat.

    ed

    Shoulder feeling fine now. I return to the medics for an ex-ray
    later today. I hope to start PMC training as soon as I can squeeze
    a brake lever with the hand.      
    
                                HOWS THE WIFE?
    Betty watched the whole accident from the middle of the road. You
    see, she and I decided to stop. 
    I did.
    she got off.
    I started to pull my feet from the toe clips.
    @#$!@&%*^$ things were too tight.
    I did one of those slo-mo crashes.        
    It only hurts now when people laugh.
    
    Ed, you never saw such comfort ! It truly is a recumbant seat up
    there. My wife rides essentially without having to hold the grips at
    all. It took her a bit of time to get over the "lack of control"
    fears, but, hey, she's never been able to control me so it was a
    short adjustment.
    I will have the contraption at a "sho-n-go' sometime soon, so y'all
    can try it out.
     

    We test  rode  a  Counterpoint  Opus  this weekend. We're counting
    pennies  tonight,  and  if  we  find enough, we'll place the order
    tommorow.

    My wife  isn't  athletic,  and  was unable to find a diamond frame
    bike  whose seat didn't hurt her crotch. We tried all the standard
    tricks  (but  not the sling seat) with almost no success (she went
    from  unacceptable pain after 2 miles to unacceptable pain after 5
    miles.)  I wanted to get a recumbent which I could ride to work on
    and  she  could  ride  on  the  weekends (recumbents are much more
    adjustable  to  different  people than diamond frames). This would
    take some of the strain off my wrists (I don't have carpal tunnell
    syndrome  yet,  and  want  to  keep  it  that way), and give her a
    comfortable  bike  to  ride.  That  still leaves the problem of my
    riding twice as fast (literally, 17 mph vs. 8 mph).

    So we tried the Counterpoint Opus. It's wonderful Cynthia wants to
    buy one immediately. The front seat is really comfortable (Cynthia
    took  her  hands completely off the handlebars, on a diamond frame
    bike  she was hesitant to reach the thumb shifters), and she feels
    more  secure  with me steering the tandem than with her steering a
    single.  It's a bit slower than my touring bike, but with a strong
    stoker  I'm sure it would be faster. We could make a U-turn in two
    lanes,  and we may be able to make that a bit tighter, but I don't
    expect  to  be  able  to do it in one lane. The different cadences
    worked well. We only felt out of sync rarely, and most of the time
    that  was because I was in too high a gear and we were pushing too
    hard.

    It adjusts  easily  for  very different sized stokers, and with an
    option,  you  can put a child stoker on very easily. I'm told that
    kids  as  young  as two have stoked it. (Of course, they coasted a
    lot,  but  because  there's a freewheel between the stoker and the
    captain, that's not a problem.)

    It's expensive  because  there  are  a  lot of parts and it's hand
    made.  I  think  there are 150 of them by now. They list at $3200,
    and we'll want to add all the usual extras (water bottles & cages,
    a  computer,  racks  for  paniers, a large "handlebar" bag hanging
    from  the  back  of the stokers seat, which the captain can reach,
    an  adaptor  for  my  car's  roof  rack  ...)  It  comes with good
    components,  so I don't expect to upgrade them, but we'll probably
    want a smaller granny chainring.

    The rear rack is a standard blackburn rack, and there's room for a
    front  rack  under  the  stoker. The front rack can hold full size
    paniers  or  front panniers. The "handlebar" bag isn't attached to
    the  handlebars,  and  is  almost  double  the  size  of the large
    cannondale  handlebar  bag.  They sell an adapter so the bike will
    fit on a Yakima roof rack.

    Almost all  the components are standard --The front wheel is a 20"
    BMX  wheel,  the  rear  wheel  is  a  26" mountain bike wheel, the
    deraillers  are  standard,  the  three  chains  are made up from 4
    standard  chains. The Cantilever brakes are cleverly rigged to get
    a  little  more power. Hydraulic brakes are an option, but I don't
    think we'll want to spend for them.

--David  (drooling over a new bike)

>        We test  rode  a  Counterpoint  Opus  this weekend. We're counting
>    pennies  tonight,  and  if  we  find enough, we'll place the order
>    tommorow.

    Just in case anyone in the new England area wants to try the
    Counterpoint, I thought I'd let you know where and how we are. 
    "Dopey", as my grandson has named the Opus, is doing well in Wellfleet,
    Massachusetts.
    We keep it parked there because most of our riding is on weekends
    now, and weekends mean Wellfleet. 
    It's become a member of the family, now, and we have almost gotten
    used to the stares, double takes, and the "AWWWRRIGGGHHHHTTTTT"s
    we get from passersby.
    I just bought an automobile  trailer kit to carry our bikes to and
    fro, (hoisting them up atop the brand new Toyota was getting a little
    scarey) so Dopey will be spending weekdays with us in Bolton, Ma. 
    If anyone is interested in seeing, and test riding the Counterpoint,
    send me mail and we'll arrange it.
                 
                                               =-=-=-=-g=-=-=-=-

    The bike  arrived  this  week,  and if we can get home before dark
    we'll  take  it  out for a spin tonight. It's beautiful. The paint
    color  is  wonderful  (so  much so that my wife told me that we're
    going  to  have them paint the water bottle cages and rear rack to
    match, rather than using a stock color.) There are lots of details
    that are all done well.

    The wheels  are  probably the truest I've seen. Everywhere a chain
    gets near metal there's a piece of plastic (teflon) to protect the
    metal.  There's a clear plastic pad where the boom would touch the
    frame  when  it's  folded.  They  got  almost all the details just
    right.

    There still  aren't  many  around,  ours is serial number 141, and
    they  cost  about the same as a more conventional high end tandem.
    Ours  came  to just over $4000, including the mount for a car roof
    rack,  Phil  Woods  hubs,  an  Arai  drum  brake,  and a few other
    options.

    We're really  looking  forward  to  some  riding this weekend, and
    possibly a week long trip to see the fall foliage.

--David

    	I wonder how many tandem owner will save (frame?) today's page of
    the Gary Larson calendar? [Gad, that man is *sick* (and I love it!)]
    	I bet an Opus II would have been a single WHUMP. (I can just see
    that cartoon, the stroker emerging with no captain, stroker's eyes the
    size of dinner plates!)   - Chris