Ok you've convinced me that I need maguras, but do I need any special kit to put them on a tandem? i.e. extra length hoses etc.

Extra long hose and the grippiest pads available - Salmon Red I think.

Have fun!!! :-)

Richard.

P.S. If you can - get the brake boosters as well...

Was out at the weekend and had an 'interesting' moment!

We decided to try out a very small wooded area near Stirling (at the Scottish Amicable offices) - never been before but was told there were loads of trails that could be ridden...

Got there and we found one long slog up to the top, the upper portion of the track was very firm apart from the corners which were stupidly slippery.

After some exploratory work we ended up back at the top and decided to tear down the main track...we all headed off and the tandem was feeling very good, the riders appeared to have amazing strength in their legs and the tandem was riding everything in sight.

Boy Brennan decided to challenge our lead and Rick foolishly slowed to let him past, once he was past I tried to put a spurt of speed in but got over cocky and what ended up being a series of 4-inch drops were to almost end us!

We were going at a fair speed when I heard Rick shouting, 'Oh F**L!!!' and then I felt a series of painful crunching noises - the tandem rode the wee drops and the travel was blown through immediately, which left my seatpost and my arse as the only 2 moveable suspension parts - my backside simply squashed around the immovable (or so I thought) object that was the saddle; and the saddle took my force on the rails and ended up bending the seatpost - to the extent that it cannot be lowered anymore!!!

Left buttock is still sore but the tandem has once again held up to something that we initially thought would have damaged something (other than flabby-ish backside!)

Our tandem seatpost (front one) has succombed to a similar fate - it goes round and round but we can't get it down (or up?!) any more... may be somehting to o with the flaky paintwork nearby...which we're ignoring for the mo' - must be the crap paint finish, couldn't be anything else (lie mode on).

Still got one vee on the front and cantis (yes!) on the back. Which is nice - lucky we live in the midlands! We did try a disc on it for a bit but it helped to kill the Judy SLs (like when we put the disc on (a Hope 185 Pro), the forks bent back literally by about three inches,.. and now we're back on rigids on the "bus" neither of us is willing to donate any of our forks to the cause! Anyone know if Bomber Z1s wil hack it? I would have suggested my Pace too, but I managed to break the steerer of them once just on my own bike, and I'm not even that big (just a bit cack-handed at airtime!).

Should definitely try to get a mass offroad tandem rde organised,.. just as soon as I get a bouncy seatpost - i thought the guy steering was meant to tell you about bumps and stuff but all he goes on about is how it's going the wrong way too fast towards trees and irrelevant stuff like that! (We did try swapping but found that someone 5 stone lighter on the front doesn't work too well - more treehugging!).

We found a similar fate when I sat up front - now I just sit and turn the pedals at the back...far safer in all respects!

I'm up for an offroad tandem ride but the pilot isn't really wanting to leave sunny Singletrack'd Stirling - I don't blame him but I appreciate that Stirling is maybe too far for some people!

Any other alternatives?

I've just done the Flintshire challenge, 50 miles of up and down mud fest, on my solo as we are not ready for the off-road tandem experience yet. However, there were 3 tandems with various lunatics ranging from young blokes on a Cannodale with monster DH forks to a pair in their 50s who completed the entire course, respect.