This bike has been a journey of it's own.
I bought this Columbia Twosome tandem 17 or 18 yrs ago and had fun with it when my kids were little. We even had a trike kit on it for a while. Then up into the rafters it went.
Years go by and I build a Huffy Daisy and a few years later I turned that bike into Harlequin T. Not quite a burrito but close. I kept eyeballing the Columbia, I almost built it first but the Daisy had lines that I couldn't resist. Although I did a few drawings.
The chain and rod drive steering I used on Harlequin just wouldn't work smoothly on Muscle Spasm because the head tube and the seat tube weren't parallel. But I kept working on it, I even ran it in a Muscle Bike buildoff with the chain and rod steering.
It was crazy. The springer worked against it too, twisting when the bike turned too sharp. Grrr! But I kept on it, fabbed a shifter down low using a grip shift mechanism. There's plenty of examples of those here at ratrodbikes. But soon after the buildoff was over I pulled the steering column off. Early versions had the tall apes that are available. They're flimsy if you're thinking of trying them. Lots of folks use em' but this is a big bike, 6'5" axle to axle, and it needed some decent bars with reach. I didn't really want tiller style bars so I modded what I had used before. I spliced them big o' butterfly bars together a couple three Muscle Bike build offs ago for Cyclodelic, another bike I dismantled later...
Notice I've been tweaking the frame all along. When I straightened the bottom bar out it raised the whole thing up a bit and I'm okay with that. I can roll over speed bumps and curbs when I'm out cruising with no problem.
It's a WIP I call it Muscle Spasm.
Carl.
I bought this Columbia Twosome tandem 17 or 18 yrs ago and had fun with it when my kids were little. We even had a trike kit on it for a while. Then up into the rafters it went.
Years go by and I build a Huffy Daisy and a few years later I turned that bike into Harlequin T. Not quite a burrito but close. I kept eyeballing the Columbia, I almost built it first but the Daisy had lines that I couldn't resist. Although I did a few drawings.
The chain and rod drive steering I used on Harlequin just wouldn't work smoothly on Muscle Spasm because the head tube and the seat tube weren't parallel. But I kept working on it, I even ran it in a Muscle Bike buildoff with the chain and rod steering.
It was crazy. The springer worked against it too, twisting when the bike turned too sharp. Grrr! But I kept on it, fabbed a shifter down low using a grip shift mechanism. There's plenty of examples of those here at ratrodbikes. But soon after the buildoff was over I pulled the steering column off. Early versions had the tall apes that are available. They're flimsy if you're thinking of trying them. Lots of folks use em' but this is a big bike, 6'5" axle to axle, and it needed some decent bars with reach. I didn't really want tiller style bars so I modded what I had used before. I spliced them big o' butterfly bars together a couple three Muscle Bike build offs ago for Cyclodelic, another bike I dismantled later...
Notice I've been tweaking the frame all along. When I straightened the bottom bar out it raised the whole thing up a bit and I'm okay with that. I can roll over speed bumps and curbs when I'm out cruising with no problem.
It's a WIP I call it Muscle Spasm.
Carl.
