How to connect the spring inside an Ultegra Di2 9070 rear derailleur?

Cleaning our new tandem the other day, I noticed that the rear derailleur mechanism had a spring loose!

Amazingly the gears were shifting fine without it, but still, this doesn't look right?

This doesn't look right.

On closer inspection, I could see a "spare peg" (a cross head screw) in the mech, visible just behind the loose end of the spring here:

With a bit of careful pliering, I was able to hook the spring to said peg. This looks more natural when operating:

But the question I still have is, did I get that right? Answers on a postcard please! (or the comment box below will also work)

Our new Paketa, and the many decisions of tandem buying

Last weekend we collected our new Paketa tandem, as we mentioned over on Facebook. While flying back from Colorado I jotted down some of the thinking we'd been going over in the prior months that led to this new addition to the Tandem Thing stable.

The original requirement on getting a new tandem was a fairly simple single item: it must have couplers. We already have two fantastic machines in Dobbin and Katina, which cover a wide range of needs from adventure touring through to fast randonneuring respectively, but for various reasons (primarily: we never anticipated living in USA) neither came equipped with couplers to dismantle for travel. While we'd taken steel framed Dobbin on a number of flights, checked into the aircraft hold whole, we'd always found it a harrowing experience, and never dared contemplate doing this with our carbon tubed Beyond. In London we had plenty of Europe within a day's drive or train journey; even Paris-Brest-Paris was a day and a night's cycle from our door. But the USA is big. Really big. While the locals don't flinch at the thought of 20 hour drives, we're not in that mindset yet. And besides we'd also like to do some more brevet rides overseas at some point, so having a faster rando bike we could fly with in a more serene state of mind was our goal.

Jay, our RAAM team crew chief, first pointed us in the direction of Paketa, and two of our co-teams already owning Paketa tandems, it was an obvious choice to investigate further. The first thing we found on contacting them was how open and responsive they were to our somewhat unusual requests. As we already had 2 extremely enjoyable and highly reliable rides, we decided to take some balanced risks with this one and see what we could achieve embracing the latest tandem technology and designs -- quite appropriately, given Paketa build frames exclusively from Magnesium tubing. First up was switching to a Gates Carbon drive belt for the sync "chain". Paketa have developed a innovative adapter to allow the belt to run on the right-hand side of the frame. This decreases weight and improves power transfer through the the drive wheel: less frame flex, and less torque across the rear bottom bracket. Having already become used to the "direct drive" (albeit with a traditional chain) on our Thorn, Dobbin, this was a natural choice for us to go for.

Next is the groupset proper: we'd had an inkling towards electronic shifting after reading numerous reports on the interwebs about how well it can work on a tandem. Then on the gold-rush 1200km last year, I had found numerous stretches of road where I wanted to stay on the aerobars, and a couple where I really wanted to stay up on the tops, but in neither place could I shift gear and so ended up pushing some horribly inappropriate gear by default. Electronic shifting with Shimano Di2 opens the possibility of multiple control positions, and so this sealed the deal in my mind. Only snag was that the most popular tandem Di2 groupset is the Dura-Ace 7970 series, as it has various adaptations available to expand to the widest range of gears possible, however that is not compatible with the readily available extension shifters as it pre-dates the newer Shimano "e-tube" standard for interconnecting components. So decision time: keep with the older (obsolete) technology, or buy into the new and compromise on gear range. As our theme on this tandem was embracing the new tech, there was only one choice: go with e-tube and hope we're strong enough for the gearing options available!

With the newest Ultergra rear mech, we can get a low gear of 33x32 which is looking good enough so far for all but the silly steepest climbs. Also a risk will be the 50x11 top gear will have us spinning out too readily and become a limiting factor on improving our overall moving average. At least by buying into the newest tech, we have the best chance of being able to make incremental upgrades as new options become available. The long rumored XTR Di2 groupset would make a world of difference for our setup: if any Shimano reps are reading and would like a test-team for the XTR rear derailleur, we'd love to help you out!

The third theme for our new bike turned out to be weight-reduction. We'd never thought too long on this before: certainly in touring and a large part in rando we just accepted the sum of the weight of the stuff we felt we needed on the road was the weight we were destined to carry. Weight saving implied cutting back on food or clothes, and (especially in English weather) we were reluctant to cut corners on either those.

Buying a Magnesium tandem, while simultaneously working hard to loose kgs from your own body weight, puts you in a much sharper mind for finding weight savings though. The single best number for predicting a cyclist's potential is look at their power:weight ratio, and so it's obvious why cyclists obsess so much on this point, even if your primary goal is not all-out hill climbing.

Getting a "coupled" travel tandem is generally contraindicated for weight-weeny wins, as (depending on specifications) the couplers add over a pound of extra metal, so we knew we were setting out from an awkward starting point. However Paketa have previous made a sub-25 pound travel tandem so this gave us hope we could make a competitive build.

[At this point I must apologize for the repeated use of pounds. While I'm resisting the pressure to go-native on units of measurement, bike weights do just seem easier to compare in pounds now. I'm sorry. I still use grams for individual components, so there's hope yet.]

Lighter weight wheels, seat-posts, and the electronic shifting all help keep the grams off. And in particular for short (sub century) ride days, we even splurged out on a pair of "S-Works Toupe" saddles: 115 grams of weight reduction joy. At this point we've stuck with more weighty but tried-and-tested aluminium handlebars, XTR pedals, and a big (200mm) rear disc brake. For those we have some weight reduction plans or alternative configurations in the works, so our current all up weight of 27 pounds maybe one we can push downwards, if needed. (I had predicted 26.5 pounds prior to the build by taking the sum of component weights, so was pretty pleased not to be way off mark with that).

And a great benefit is the bike successfully dismantles to pack into a single bike-case, with total weight under 50 pounds (recorded 47lbs on Denver International checkin scales) which meant $zero excess charges on our maiden flight with her. Original goal of "hassle free checkin" achieved!

TandemThings to Race Across America in June 2015

Riding for Love Sweat & Gears, and Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

As we’ve previously mentioned on the blog, this year we are trying to get faster. We are pleased to announce our reasons behind this: TandemThings will be riding Race Across America (RAAM) in 2015!

Back at the start of the 2014 (on New Year’s Eve, to be exact) we were contacted by Andy and Kami White, who were working with some friends to put together a team for riding the Race Across America next year (2015) as a 4 tandem team, and amazingly they were keen for us to join their team.

We knew that to do this would be 18 months of hard training and commitment, and so we needed to spend some time considering our response. It would undoubtedly be the biggest cycling challenge we have ever taken on, but the more we thought about it the more we realised that it was an opportunity that we couldn’t walk away from.

RAAM 2014 is just over a month away, and anticipation is building. And having been quietly working towards our 2015 ambition, and so very soon it will be just 365 days to go until our own transcontinental adventure!

Race across America

raceacrossamerica.org

For those that aren’t familiar, the basic format has changed little since the first race in 1982, or 1992 when team categories were introduced.

Riders have to cover the 3000+ miles from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland, within a 9 day limit (or 12 for solo riders). Category winners are generally around 6.5 days, meaning riders must average 21 mph non-stop, 24 hours per day, crossing on average 500 miles and 2 states per day, in order to challenge for a podium position. Read more about it on the RAAM fact sheet.

Unlike the self-supported randonneur riding we are more familiar with, this is fully supported with  a crew and following vehicles on hand at all times, and in the team categories only one bike is on the road at a time, typically arranged with one pair of bikes taking in turns for 30min pulls for 6 hours at a time, while the remaining riders get food and some sleep.

Love Sweat and Gears, and Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

lovesweatandgears.net

We’re really fortunate that our team that is under the stewardship of the well established Love, Sweat & Gears non-profit organization; who have successfully fielded teams in RAAM for 3 prior years.

Besides finishing with a great time, the LS&G Tandem 2015 team (as we are known) will be riding to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, a charity several of the are close to, especially our team founder and crew chief, Jay.

The minimum budget to enter a team into RAAM is very considerable, and to have the best chance of a record time costs even more. So aside from training the next 14 months is going to require a lot of work in securing sponsors and general fundraising to allow us to meet our targets.

What’s next?

So for team TandemThing, right now we’re working hard on our summer goal of riding two 1200km brevets, putting a good time on each, before we start to shift our focus to getting faster over 30min efforts. We feel very confident we’ll have the endurance to do our share of the 3000 miles, but the real test for us will be doing so at a speed that does our part for the team. We have plenty of time to improve, but it’s going to be a very long and hard process to get there.

We’ll keep our usual collection of ride-reports and blogging here, but for anyone who wants to know more regularly updates on RAAM specific aspects, we’ll be aiming to put them on our Facebook page. And as ever, our ride updates can be followed on Twitter or Strava!

Expect to hear more from us soon about our fundraising activities! If you’re already inspired to help get us on our way, our donation page along with biographies of all our team, is now live on the LS&G website: http://lovesweatandgears.net/donate/lsg-2015-tandem/

As well as each other’s, we’ll need the support of our friends and family to get through the months of training and to onto the start line, let alone through the days and nights to reach the finish. So we’re really deeply grateful that Stefan - a longtime colleague and friend - has volunteered to be on our crew.

Read more about the full LS&G 2015 line up, as it is announced, here.

Wish us luck, and see you on the road!

Joth & Emma

Ride report: Dunbarton Hamilton 200

As folks on Strava know, we've been keeping up the long distances rides over the last couple months and working on getting a bit faster moving speeds. We're signed up for the full San Francisco Randonneur (SFR) brevet series this year. The 200k, 300k and 400k were successfully completed, the latter just 2 weeks ago in some very wet conditions.

We now have a lull as the 600k is not until 10th May, so for our April brevet we had to invent something of our own. We've been itching to re-ride the Dunbarton/Hamilton 200k loop, after crawling our way around in a mid-summer blaze last year, and so today was a perfect opportunity to do that.

The route heads out over the always-blustery Dunbarton bridge, and then up Niles Canyon road which can be pretty busy on occasion, but is always pretty pretty and is the first chance to feel like you're a getting out of the south bay urban sprawl.

After a stop in Livermore (thankfully, no grass fire just outside town this time, so clear air) it was on to rural Mines Road, all 40 miles of it to the top of Mount Hamilton and so which makes up the largest piece of the ride. As we hit the first steep climb up out of the Livermore valley, the morning clouds had completely cleared and the sun was working in full force. Fortunately still a lot cooler than the 110°F (43°C) we hit last time we road this route! A mere 22°C at the bottom, raising to about 30 when we hit the next stop.
The Junction cafe is ideally placed 20 miles into Mines Road. It had been closed for a change of ownership and renovations at the start of the year, this was our first chance to see the all-new look and we were very happy to see nothing radical had changed, it still has all its back-of-beyond charm. And while the menu has been extended with lots of tasty barbecue fare, the trusty favourites like mac and cheese and a top-notch Root Beer float were still there for us to enjoy!

The climb to the top of Hamilton is a long haul. 15 miles is rolling with a couple big raises, and then you hit 5miles of wall. On paper it's 8% grade average, but I'm sure parts are a good bit more than that. Happily the views are amazing and just get better as you climb, eventually opening out to see right to the Sierras on a good day. Alas a bit too hazy to come out in pictures today, but still it took the mind of the climb.

The second reward on passing Lick observatory is 18 mile descent on the west side, right down to the edge of San Jose. We got there with 9:30 on the clock and thought we might finish in a little over ten hours. Alas the continual stop lights skirting the city, and a strong headwind that had whipped up coming off the bay, meant this was the one part of the day's ride where we were slower than on our prior 13+ hour attempt last year.

Still, the Sunnyvale Fair Oaks 7-eleven eventually arrived, and more ice-cream duly consumed to mark completion of a successful day's ride.

Plans for 2014

One of the most enjoyable bits of the winter ‘off season’ is planning the following year’s rides and targets. In a turn of events, this year we are aiming for speed! We are still riding long distances and have reserved entries for two 1200km Grand Randonnees, but we aiming to complete them with a faster moving speed than similar rides we have previously done. We won’t necessarily be aiming to reduce total time than we have previously, as we may use the extra time for sleep!

This change of emphasis has had some interesting effects - firstly, the diet has started early. In the UK it was normal for us to put on some ‘winter plumage’ in the dark, cold winter months. Over here in California the weather rarely stops us riding, so there is really no excuse for the weight gain. Instead, we have started our annual reeling in of alcohol and ‘treats’ early with the aim of getting our weight down further than we have in previous years.

We have also started training; with a (sort of) training plan and everything! What us? TRAINING!?! At the moment, we have mostly just invested in all the modern toys, gadgets, training aids and are learning how to use them such as his & hers PowerTap cycle power meters.

We have even tried some non-randonneuring events, including a very low key 100 mile Time Trial (TT) last weekend, and a 10 mile TT this weekend. At the moment the times from these are acting as our baseline starting point. Hopefully we’ll see some improvement on them!

The mental shift is also interesting, as the first thing to do to improve speed is actually to aim to go faster. We rarely push hard for sustained periods on the longer rides, and historically there have been times where our aim has been to just keep moving. As the old audax/randonneuring saying goes “time moving equals miles”. It’s going to be interesting to see how this speed experiment works on the multi day rides, but it can only be helped by us practicing on the shorter rides first. By ensuring we are focusing on average speed rather than overall time on the long rides the goal is that it doesn’t dent our enjoyment of the sport, as it will allow us to spend time at the controls with other riders. We’ve never found it difficult to find people to keep us company on the road either, as tandems are always a popular choice for riders looking for a ‘tow’.

Looking back at the Death Ride

After posting our R-12 write up, one Wascally Weasel sent the following tweet. This inspired me to finish off a ride-report that Emma started 6 months ago! 

Things, hello! "Local equivalent of La Marmotte" got my interest! RT @TandemThings: R12 - An RRTY Californian Style http://t.co/cgM6KQLKyk
— Iain Houston (@Iain_Houston) December 29, 2013

Tour of the Californian Alps: The Death Ride 2013 by Tandem

Back in July we took part in a cycling challenge which was a little different to our normal randonneuring fare. For several years Joth had heard about The death ride from work colleagues so a year ago when the entries opened we were on the ball to secure a place, as it sells out very quickly. In that and several other ways this ride is similar to La Marmotte in terrain and length, and was an obvious comparison for us. We hoped that our day would be slightly less eventful than that day however!

The preparation for the ride was less than perfect, as we had yet more mechanical issues. This time it was one of the bearing cartridges in the headset which caused the problem by falling apart. Our favorite bike shop didn’t have a set of bearings in stock, but managed to get the headset back together to the point of being rideable. The steering was a little heavy at low speeds, but wasn’t too bad considering. We also developed problems with the front derailleur, in that we had problems shifting from the middle chainring into granny (the smallest chainring). We could ‘surprise’ it by shifting straight from the biggest chainring into granny though. On occasions this wasn’t possible, we just stopped the bike and manually put the chain on the chainring. Fortunately the elevation profile of the ride meant that we only needed to do this a couple of times.

One of the difference between this type of mass participation ride in the US and those in Europe is the subject of timing. In Europe on this type of ride, everyone has a timing chip and you are timed over the course. Over here in the US, these types of rides are not timed. In contrast, the timings for all the randonnees are provided, whereas they aren’t generally in UK audaxes. This meant that there wasn’t the same ‘race’ mentality at the start of this ride compared to rides like La Marmotte. This was reflected in part by the variety of equipment being ridden. We saw mountain bikes (including at least one which was fixed gear), touring bikes, a recumbent bike, Eliptigos and a cargo bike as well as the standard carbon race bike. There were also five tandems riding, although they didn’t all ride all five passes. The attitude of the other riders to us was also noticeably different to La Marmotte. We had a huge amount of encouragement from other rider, and even a push or two! I think on average more US cyclists have tried tandeming and know what an effort it is on the hills! The main comment though was on the size or our rear disc brake. We quickly lost count of the times we were asked about it.

Our day started in the dark as we left the comfort of our motel room for the 25 mile drive to the start point, at Turtle Rock County Park. The thermometer in the car indicated that we were going to be in for a cold start to the ride, as it showed a temperature in the 30’s for most of the journey. Brrr! It was too cold at 5am to wait for very long, so we missed starting with Joth’s colleagues, but were confident that we’d see them as they passed us on the climbs.

Unlike La Marmotte (and most of our UK rides), the route was a series of 3 out and back legs, with the first two being on closed roads. While there we climbed 5 passes, there were only really 3 in that the first two were climbed from both sides. The ride started with a 5km descent which combined with the low temperatures made for a pair of very cold Things. Rarely have I been so looking forward to starting a climb. Most of the first climb of Monitor pass occurred in the dark, but one of the advantages of the out of back route was that we’d get to see it again on the way back down. Near the top, one of Joth’s colleagues pulled alongside. One of the advantages of the tandem is that it is easy to spot, even in large groups. While we managed to chat to quite a lot of riders (mostly about tandems, or the size of the disk brake), it’s always nice to see someone you know.

We coasted over the top and Joth recognised the layby where we stopped to take photos when we were visiting California in 2011. There was no time to stop to enjoy the view this time though: we had some solo bikes that needed passing on the descent! Riding on closed roads was a very nice change, and apart from the start of Marmotte and PBP not something we’ve done. In contrast the first four climbs (and descents) of Death Ride were on closed roads.

We decided to stop for a few minutes at the bottom of the pass to grab a snack, and make use of the large line of porta potties. One of the advantages of our audax/randonneuring experience is that we don’t need to stop as often as many riders on this type of event do, even though we stopped more often than we would on a normal audax of this length.

While it was still fairly early in the day when we reached the top of Monitor Pass for the second time, we had been on the road for nearly four hours, and it was time to get some food. We had a cunning plan to stop and get some sandwiches at the top, which we could start digesting on the way back down. This was thwarted by there not being any, so it was a quick snack and drink before heading down to the official lunch stop on the road towards Ebbets Pass. Officially, as 5 Pass riders, we should have stopped for lunch on the way back, but we weren’t going to let that stop us! Refuelled, we headed off to Ebbets Pass.

The support on the ride was excellent. We were surprised how many locals and families of other riders were out on course cheering people on. A particular mention must go to ‘The Wild Women of Ebbetts Pass’, who were entertaining the riders near the bottom of the climb in their great costumes. All the volunteers, from those helping at check in to the ones manning the rest stops were excellent. Cheerful, enthusiastic and very helpful; they really made the atmosphere of the event.

Ebbetts Pass itself was the most picturesque of the climbs, narrowly winding up a stream gorge. We were warned it could get fraught climbing here against the flow of faster riders descending. Fortunately we had no problems, although we did get passed by one ambulance going to attend some incident up ahead of us, we never found out what though.

At the turn around point, to head back over Ebbetts from the west, we saw the support stand from Crank2 Performance Tandems (who had fixed the headset a few days before) so we stood and chattered there while refueling.

The return climb seemed to take longer, even though it was actually less height gain than the east side. The hot afternoon sun was in full effect here, and we saw more riders struggling at this point than anywhere else. These were likely the stragglers on the four-pass variant of the ride -- a sensible choice as only the final, fifth pass is on open roads so by doing four you get an entire day of motor traffic free riding.

The run back into Turtle Rock from Ebbetts was a nice run for stretching the legs a little, and we soon picked up a small peloton wanting a tow. We passed the start point and soon after our car, where we stopped for a couple cool drinks from the cool box. While sat we saw another tandem pass by -- turned out this was Will and Lynn von Kaenel, who we’d spoken with online prior to the event. Unfortunately they’d had some mechanical problems and decided to call it a day. We still had one more pass to conquer though, so got back on the road.

The 5-pass ride finishes atop Carson Pass, which is reached via the busy route 88. As we started the ascent we saw a sign that said the cut off time was 5:15, and we were getting worryingly close. For a while we thought we were not going to complete it in time, which made for some nervous pedaling. Happily, this turned out to be the cutoff time at the final reset stop part way up (at the junction with route 89).

The final slog from there to the top ground on, but the view became ever better as we winched our way up past Red Lake and to the summit.

Looking back and comparing it to La Marmotte, the differences that come to mind

• DR is less of a ‘race’ atmosphere, staggered start, lack of timing chips and no official result leaderboard lends it a more festive feel
• DR is mostly on closed roads, and generally nicer (leafy, shady) cycling conditions. On the other hand the open climbs of La Marmotte rewards with much grander views over snow-capped Alps.
• DR has the more predictable weather conditions, I would imagine. French Alps can swing from hail to sunshine to storm in hours.
• Both rides were equally well supported, although there were numerous small differences in the way the support was supplied partly due to the topology of the route (e.g. Marmotte provides a SAG bus and stationary mechanic stations, vs. a support motorbike but no SAG on DR)
• The Marmotte route follows a circuit which appeals far more to me, lending a journey/tour feel to event in comparison to the spidery web of out-and-backs that make up DR.
• The Cols of Marmotte are just more magnificent, from the overpowering grandeur of Galibier to the deep sense of history on finishing atop the Alpe d’Huez, it’s an epic ride. It’s hard to imagine this planet will ever host a more glorious 174km of paved road.

---

We wanted to include some official photos, hence the original hold up, but they all came out poorly, certainly not worth the $25. You can search for Bib 37 over here if interested! (Unselect "Partial Bib Numbers")

R12 - An RRTY Californian Style

Well it’s been a while. After our great Gold Rush ride we rode the wonderful Death Ride (Tour of the Californian Alps) before continuing with our RRTY/R12 challenge. The R12 is the RUSA award for riding a 200km (or longer) brevet every month for 12 consecutive months. Living where we do, we really have no excuse not to ride a brevet every month; it’s not like we are going to be snowed in any time soon. RRTY is the Audax UK equivalent.

Having finished the Gold Rush in good form we were in a good position to attempt the death ride. This is an annual event 129 miles (207km) long and with 15000 feet (4572m) of climb in Alpine county south of Lake Tahoe. In some ways it’s the local equivalent to La Marmotte, in others it’s completely different. It was a great day out though, and I’d recommend it to anyone who is looking for a challenge - the local support is wonderful.

Our assault on the R12 started last December with the Davis-Auburn-Davis ride, and we managed to keep it going through the spring and early summer. Our July brevet was our second ride of the Tres Pinos Scamper. This time we were a little quicker than we were back in February. It still seems like a harder ride than it should on paper though. August was another permanent, but this time it was Roland Bevans ‘Carmel Cruise’. With long sections of the coastal cycle path what looked like a slower perm on paper actually turned out to be an absolutely fantastic route, and is definitely on the list to ride again. In September we rode our first calendar brevet since the Gold Rush - the SFR Davis 200 night ride. This ride started up in Rodeo at 8pm and the route took us up to Davis and back, overnight. It was lovely to catch up with people who we hadn't seen for a couple of months and made a change to ride the (mostly) familiar roads in the dark. In October it was back to riding a permanent in John Guzik’s Happy Trails To You. This linked together some of the longer creekside trails in the area, and was really nice day out. A week later in November we rode the Del Puerto Canyon calendar event. The first section of this ride was perfect tandem country, and we spent long periods gathering groups of riders in our wake. R12: achievement unlocked.

One week on from Gold Rush - assorted musings on riding ultra long distance

Here's some various notes about the DBC Gold Rush 2013 that I wrote on 5 July but never posted as I was miles away from internet access at the time. For the "real" ride report, see Emma's post.

Never wear new kit

Somewhat foolishly, I purchased new cycling shorts (Specialized Race) two weeks before the ride, and started out wearing them -- only the second time I'd ridden in them.
The first 300km went great, I couldn't believe how comfy they were. Especially given how went the weather was. On reaching Taylorsville I decided to have an early change of shorts anyway, to get some dry ones on, as I'd sent 2 clean pairs ahead to there in the bag drop. At this point I discovered the extent of damage done! The seems on the tops of both legs had rubbed in the wet, just below the hip-flexors, and caused some quite extensive abrasions. Strangely neither hurt at the time, indeed they bore through until the final day. It was only in the days after the ride that the pain really kicked off!
To be fair, I don't think these were entirely the fault of the shorts: I was wearing my new 'touring' jacket for the first 2 days, and this is still pretty stiff material, which I think had pushed down onto my legs and caused the chaffing. For long rides a thinner lighter jacket has more benefits besides weight saving. (Although they tend to be more 'boil in the bag' hence why I'd taken the heavier, more technical jacket).

Beware new bike components

A random observation. We changed the cassette 3 weeks before the ride, at the same time as the rebuild due to frame crack.
We'd previously run a 11-34 tooth cassette, but decided to switch to the latest MTB style 11-36, as this allowed fitting of a slightly larger granny chain ring with only a small increase in minimum gear available. What I hadn't reckoned on though was that this meant switching from Santana's custom specified tandem 10-speed cassette to a stock MTB sort. I hadn't realized how much I'd liked the consistent 2-tooth increments from 11 to 23 on the first seven gears. The new cassette only maintains 2-tooth separations for six gears, before getting into 3 & 4 tooth incements. This meant on top ring on rolling terrain, I had only 6 gears to play with for small adjustments. On a short ride this would be no odds, but on a long ride I started getting quite tired with the effort of trying to select sensible gear and dealing with the shifting.

Getting lucky with sleep stop strategy

I think this is one of the things we're both most pleased with. We entered with the same overall plan as when we rode PBP, the details worked out quite differently, but overall we thought we had it spot on for the terrain and the conditions.
Like PBP we more or less planned to "race out, tour back", getting a good time to the turn around and then having almost an extra day to play with for the return. Unlike PBP, we actually managed to tour rather than race back, hence a somewhat slower time, but a happier state of being on arriving at the arrivee!
Coordinating sleep stops on a tandem is tricky as you need to be sure that when you stop to sleep both parties are tired enough to get meaningful rest. On PBP we solved this by banking up sleep debt until we got in 2x 4.5 hour stops, and that worked well. We wanted to do the same on Gold Rush, getting to Adin at 520km to have our first sleep, but at the control before - Susanville - we realized we were already ready to drop so got in 2 hours kip, even though it was only 4pm. This was such a good decision! While I can't claim we flew over the next stage, it was a surprisingly undulating affair, and attempting that after 30 hours awake (almost 24 hours cycling) would have been a disaster. As it was we arrived at Adin ready for another 90mins snooze, which we managed in a control volunteer's car they kindly lent us! This was perfect. We were then getting up to finish the remaining 100km of outbound leg in the early hours, pedaling into dawn -- resetting the body clock nicely.
Due to this, the last 1.5 days were splendidly enjoyable, being able to stop for an impromptu ice cream, enjoying the catering at each control stop to the full, having an extra sleep to avoid the hot part of Thursday afternoon, and being able to finish in comfortable time and without lasting injuries to ourselves. This was really important for us, on our second ride of this length; not wanting to repeat the time off the bike we suffered after PBP.

Roads

This surprised me a lot, it maybe a sign of how cotton-wrapped I’ve become in south-bay smooth paved roads, but the middle half of the ride was supremely hard work on me due to the state of the roads. Due to the tough winter weather up at altitude, they seemed to systematically crack right across its width at regular ~20 meter gaps. Perhaps due to the concern I had as we were running a front wheel with 2 emergency spokes, or just from the miles of tandem-piloting fatigue, I seemed to get worn down by this more than other riders who barely seemed to notice it.
The effect was we were delighted to get back over the high-point and onto the Feather River canyon. Several other riders reported the logging lorry traffic being unbareable there, but we didn’t seem to suffer that too much: maybe being larger and faster than a solo, and needing to ride a bit further out from the fog line, they tended to keep back on the narrow sections for us.

Front wheel after the ride. Can you spot two unusual spokes?

Company makes it memorable

Randoneuring is a strange beast. Part of what we love about it is the time we get alone, just with our own thoughts and each other's understanding company, but equally we like the shared adventure and occasional chatter of riding in a group. This ride had a good mix of each. The opening 100km we were in big groups but bashing out the miles too eagerly for much conversation. The final 100km was superb - retracing though same roads but in a small group with Billy Olsen and Patrick Chin-Hong, churning out the miles through the night and then enjoying the sunrise over the flatlands north of Davis. We split up just before the end, Patrick wanting to ride faster to wake up a bit, us wanting to stop at a Starbucks for a relax and a bathroom break, but this worked out just fine for everyone and the chat through the last few stages was a great way to round out the ride.