Just about a bike: Specialized Deja Two tandem

When we got married in January of 1997 they closed Absolute Bikes for the afternoon so that everyone could attend our wedding. That was pretty special, and not something that I can recall them doing very often, if ever again, otherwise.  It was great to have everyone there (except for Ken, who's mother was getting married back-East on the same day) to celebrate with us.  Their presence alone surely would have been sufficient to please us.

Nevertheless, we were made doubly-happy at our reception when they presented us with an unexpected "shop gift" which they had all chipped-in together to purchase for us: a brand new Specialized Deja Two tandem mountain bike frame.

In my opinion it remains, without a doubt, the most satisfying and enduring gift we got that day, rivaled, of course, only by our abiding love for one another.

My wife agrees.

And we have spent hundreds of hours together on our tandem (occasionally with our kid attached by Trail-a-Bike, too), all over the southwest, during the past 16+ years, reaffirming both of these facts.

Thanks, again, Absolute Bikes-friends!

Thanks, as well, to our friend Chris, who "sold" us his old crank-reducers (I've yet to pay him for them... for like four years), these days it's pretty much my daughter and I who ride the tandem together.  It's kinda become "our thing" and a wonderful means for spending time together, just the two of us, doing something we both enjoy.

She's become a great little stoker and already knows the local trail system like a native (which she is).  Her endurance continues to impress me as well.  We can turn around a 15-mile loop without complaint or fatigue in a little over an hour together, talking the entire time, motoring up hills, and descending like fiends, whooping at the top of our lungs!

Fact: I've never once returned from any tandem ride, ever, either with my wife or my kid, unsatisfied or wishing that I'd ridden by myself.

I read or heard somewhere, once-upon-a-time, that Specialized's tandems were fabricated by American Bicycle Manufacturing in the early 1990s.  The Deja Two's big, beautiful welds and the unique derailleur hanger certainly support this contention.

Our tandem's basic build has changed very little over the years, since I initially put it together shortly after our wedding.

Ken built the wheelset for me, Mavic hoops on high-flange XT tandem hubs.  Shimano DX top-mount thumbies, XT front and rear derailleurs, plus first-generation XT v-brakes are all adequate equipment most of the time.  A Ritchey tandem crankset, a Specialized stoker-stem, and a Rock Shox Duke (perfectly color-matched out of the box, natch) round out the very basic, no-frills parts mix that's served us well, with very few failures, for more than 16 years now.

For the record: our tandem's staying in the family.  There's no other bike in the garage that we would be less inclined to sell, no matter how much we might need the money.  It's a part of our family, like a good dog or a cherished heirloom.  In fact, our daughter's already asked us to promise to give her our tandem when she has kids of her own so that she can take them riding when they're big enough to stoke for her.

That's pretty high-praise, I think.

And, one thing's for certain: we will.

Chilled near zero

Snack stop

"Hey, today is the first day of spring!" my daughter gleefully reminded me as we rode off on the tandem together early this morning.  The wind twisting through the treetops, the frozen morning mud crunching beneath our tires like cornflakes, the patches of persistent snow on every north-facing slope, often bisected by small creeks flowing in the deeper drainages,  all stood in support this fact: spring has arrived.

Our ride today was excellent.  We charged up Dogfood and ripped across AZ Trail through the meadow to Moto so that we could plow through the dozen-or-more creek crossings that have formed on the Easter Island trail... just like Schultz in the old days!

I wish you could have heard us as we descended.  There's something quite uplifting for a father on hearing the joyful, primal squeal of his (nearly) eight-year-old kid as her shoes fill with water chilled near-zero (just hours ago it was brook-ice), as a rooster-tail of muddy cold water arcs high over her head and breaks like a wave on her pink helmet.

Carsonite rock-tossing.

Our little nerd-girl (Love this kid)

When I asked my daughter if she wanted to ride the tandem with me this morning she said, "Well, I was going to play with my friends. But sure, okay!"  I was pleased that the prospect of riding with me on the tandem ranked higher on the fun-scale than running around the neighborhood with her girl-pals... at least for today.

But, a little bit later, as we pedaled away from the house together, my heart quite simply brimmed over with happiness when she asked, so knowledgeably, "Can we ride up Schultz to Onceler and then do Moto and Easter Island?"

Our little nerd-girl (the one who loves Star Wars; who's reading Harry Potter book 5 now; who digs musical theater) knows the trails. And loves them. Has her favorites and plans a route to include them in her ride.  Wow.

We could not have picked out a kid more well-suited to us if we'd placed a special-order for her at The Kid Store.

Love this kid.