Taliani

The Waiting Is The Hardest Part

For several years I’d been talking about getting a Litespeed tandem frame and building it up with Di2.  This idea was accompanied by a fantasy of stashing that tandem at Will’s place in Berlin so that we could ride in Europe without flying around with the bike.  Perhaps you can tell that I was not entirely serious about it.

Here’s what they say about Litespeed tandems on bike forums:

They started out as customs, then Litespeed played around with production-model tandems for a few years (’98 – ’02 or ’03?) and then switched back to build-to-order / custom fabrication

The first Taliani’s used Rick Jorgenson’s Tango uptube design but shifted to a more conventional, full-length internal tube before kicking into production and the basic road tandem design has remained the same since then.

Here are the Litespeed catalogues I could find on-line for the relevant period:

2006 – custom tandem mentioned, but no specifics

2004 – no mention of tandems

2001 – caliper brakes, looks like a carbon fork  [PDF]

2000 – cantilever brakes, specifies a steel fork  [PDF]

1999 – cantilever brakes, specifies a steel fork  [PDF]

1998 – cantilever brakes, specifies a steel fork

1997 – tandems not discussed

It is interesting to note that the ownership of Litespeed changed at some point in 1999, which may have influenced their appetite for low-volume, labor intensive,  high price-point products like tandems.

I saved an eBay search and went to the Seattle Craigslist periodically to see what was available there.  During most of 2024 and the first nine months of 2025 there were only a handful of Litespeed tandems listed on eBay (and none that I saw on the local CL).  I saw one, with an original Ultegra groupset, that was listed for $4,500 and which sat there for at least six months.  (It was a medium frame – 56 captain –  which was just slightly bigger than I wanted or else I might have made a bid of a couple of thousand.)  I don’t know if it sold or was just deleted but the seller didn’t lower the price and nobody was ready to pay that much for it.  There was another one at a similar price that I almost jumped on.  It was a medium sized Ultegra located down in Portland.  I equivocated too long and it sold, but it was a Santana anyway and not really what I was looking for.  It became apparent to me that there was no trade in bare frames.  Everything listed seemed to be not just a complete bike but decked out in bling.  Generally they were listed for much more than I would consider but they still came off the site quickly.  Somehow when people spend eight or ten grand upgrading a bike they expect to recover at least part of that when they sell it used, so they list their tandem for ten or twelve grand.  In my experience it generally doesn’t work that way –  fancy components don’t usually command much of a premium on vintage bikes.

For several months during the summer of 2025  my saved search didn’t turn up any eBay listings, but one day when I checked the Seattle Craigslist I found this listed for $2,500:

This is a rare titanium tandem that weighs under 30# on a bath scale! Size Medium. Seats are set for 5’11” captain and 5’4 stoker. Everything on this bike was upgraded to best of including Carbon spoke spinergy wheels, gates carbon drive, carbon FSA cranks, Campagnolo record 10 long cage and ti cassette, carbon tandem specific fork, titanium stems from Seven cycles, carbon bars from Zipp, titanium Campagnolo record seat posts! Can include shimano or speedplay pedals. Continental tires. Metallic blue custom powdercoat. None like it. I would put this up against any tandem at all for ride quality, weight, speed, shifting and braking, whether comotion, moots, seven cycles, Santana…whatever. This is 10# -15# lighter than most preowned tandems. Must see and ride to appreciate. I live on the Burke Gilman Trail in Lake forest park. Come test ride for 5-10 miles before you decide.

https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/bik/d/seattle-litespeed-titanium-tandem/7882773889.html

The post had been there for 17 days (updated 3 days earlier) so I confirmed that it was still available and arranged to come over to his place that afternoon to look at it.  Odette came and looked over my shoulder as I set up the meeting which gave me the chance to broach the idea of a third tandem – she didn’t object too loudly and agreed to come with me to see the bike.

I was afraid that the bank would be suspicious about me withdrawing that much money in cash (or at a minimum that they would say I needed to come back the next day) but Odette was polite and they gave her 25 – $100 bills with no questions asked about elder abuse or anything else.

The seller (“Brian”) was a guy about our age who said he had been married 40 years.  The bike was in his garage with bunch of other bikes hanging up – the nearest one was a Davidson.  He bemoaned the decline in people riding tandems and said that he and his wife bought a tandem together before they were married.  He said he had a quad and then a quint when his kids were young.  He had health problems that meant he couldn’t ride any more and he was in the process of cleaning out his garage.

Brian said that the bike was from the early 2000’s.  The Litespeed catalogue for 2000 shows a change in the seat post collar that year, and this bike seems to have the new style, so it should be from  2000 or later. The 2001 catalogue announces a change to Ultegra dual-pivot  brakes and since this bike has canti posts it must be from before 2001.  However, this bike has the David Lynskey signature on the left chainstay – probably meaning that it was built before the change in ownership.  It could be that it was in process when the deal closed and that the closing was at the end of 1999.   Or it could be that the new seat post collar got phased in during 1999 but didn’t show up until the next catalogue when they needed something for marketing. And, of course, if it was a custom build, all bets are off.

Here are links to Taliani specs for 1999, 2000 and 2001 – you can see the evolution of the brakes here, matching what is shown in the catalogue, and placing this bike in the year 2000 – but I’d take those user reported spec sheets with a grain of salt and question if they really put V-brakes on the 2000 tandem.  (The seat-post collar change was evidently across models, not tandem specific, and I encountered it once before while dating Odette’s 2000 Tuscany.)

In retrospect, Brian didn’t say he got the bike new in the early 2000’s, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he got it used some time after it was built.  He said that he had upgraded it at the start of the pandemic and that it hadn’t been ridden since then.  (The belt drive – and probably the FSA cranks – are older than that.)  He said that the powder coat was done at a place in Mukilteo and that he got the bike painted  just to make it  unique.

When we went to load the bike on the roof rack I couldn’t release the brakes to get the front wheel off and ended up having to deflate the tire.  Brian said that there were brake releases on the side of the hoods.  Google has a better description: To release the brakes on a Campagnolo 10-speed shifter, squeeze the main brake lever, then push the small, inner lever (also used for downshifting) inward. This action opens the brake caliper, providing clearance for wheel removal. You learn something new every day – but it kind of makes me think about how close Brian was to the operation of this bike.

On the way home I had the usual buyers remorse (not very serious, but I kicked myself for spending a bunch of money on a toy.)  This time my train of thought was something like “this bike has been freshly painted and has a new fork – maybe it’s stolen or he’s hiding a crash.”  I definitely didn’t get the vibe that Brian was fencing a stolen bike.  I couldn’t see any indication of crash damage.  It’s possible that he was flipping a frame he got somewhere sketchy, but it’s unlikely you’d pick a tandem frame for that kind of exercise and expensive components like Spinergy wheels aren’t what you’d put on a bike you’re flipping.  I’d like to get a serial number and ask Litespeed what they know about this bike, but I haven’t seen any sign of an engraving yet, what with the powder coat (no serial number – another red flag.)  I checked BikeIndex and didn’t see any Litespeed Tandems reported as stolen anywhere on their site.

That powder coat was one of the things that made me call this a “weird-ass bike.”  Who paints a Litespeed?  If you lay out the money for a Titanium frame don’t you want to flaunt it?  (I’m exaggerating here – the Litespeed catalogues include some bikes with paint options and at least one of the Litespeed tandems I saw listed on eBay was painted.)  The paint on this bike seemed to be intended to evoke a mid-90’s Lemond or something where the chrome sleeves and the colored paint meet in hard lines.   (Those white “Litespeeds” are official replacement decals and the heraldic blocks are newer and must have come with the powder coating.)   Weird.

I also reacted to the Bontrager fork as weird-ass.  Brian said he wanted to upgrade to a carbon fork and he wanted one that was tandem-rated and that this one was top of the line.  But Bontrager?  To me, it changes the whole esthetic of the bike to put something that big and bulbous out there in front.  Surely there were tandem-rated carbon forks available from brands that didn’t target the mass market.  (The spec site talks about about Co-Motion forks, but from a time before Litespeed switched to carbon.)  I expect that this fork is the reason that the brakes don’t match – vintage campy side-pulls on the front and Shimano XTR cantilevers in back.  The Bontrager fork didn’t have canti bosses so he must have gone to his parts bin and pulled out a pair of Campy Record calipers and said “good enough.”  (I’ve heard reports that Campy caliper brakes don’t stop all that well, but I believe that was directed at older models.)   In any event the mis-matched brakes undermine his intention to have a best-of-breed, tandem-rated, configuration.  (The cantis likely came stock but the brake pads are thin and wrinkly.)  Weird.

The other big-deal thing that contributed to the “weird-ass” reaction was the drive train.  The bike had Campagnolo Record 10-speed brake/shift levers, a Shimano Ultegra front derailleur, an FSA triple crankset, a Campagnolo Ti 10-speed rear derailleur and a Campagnolo Ti cassette.  Weird.

I’ve seen bikes that have Campy shifters and Shimano derailleurs, but except for very specific combinations they generally don’t work well together and people normally want a complete groupset.  My guess is that the FSA crankset came first and that Brian wanted to stick with the triple chainrings when he upgraded the rest of the drivetrain.  It wouldn’t be surprising if he had to use a Shimano derailleur to make those chain rings shift smoothly.  Campy made triple cranks in the ’90s and definitely made derailleurs that would work with them – but that doesn’t mean that a vintage front derailleur is going to work well with modern levers or with that set of Shimano chainrings.  Or it may have just been something else he pulled out of the parts bin.

When I got the bike it was set up 53/39/30 in front (FSA crankset) and 13/29 in back (Campy cassette.) That (30/29) is pretty close to a 1:1 gear ratio at the bottom, which is about what we’re currently riding on our Rodriguez:  30/32.

My last entry in the weird-ass category is the handlebar situation:  carbon in front  / alloy in back.  The front bars are  Zipp – expensive but they don’t match anything else on the bike.  If you’re going to shell out for fancy bars why not get FSA Wing Pro or something that complements your other components?  Besides, you got money for expensive titanium stems and seat posts both front and back but you can’t afford matching handlebars for your stoker?  Weird.

I took the Taliani in to R+E on a Wednesday afternoon (10/15) to discuss my project  with Alder.  When I told him that I wanted to convert the bike to Di2 his first question was “why?”  I didn’t have a prepared answer and responded with something about reviews and flawless shifting with larger jumps and just wanting to get educated about it seeing as how Di2 has been around for over ten years now and isn’t going away.  I didn’t feel like I was exactly convincing so I added that I was thinking about eventually needing to put Odette in front and thought that she’d do better with the effortless electronic shifting.  Somehow that seemed to resonate with Alder.   (He told me a story about accidentally shifting into the big ring while climbing all-out in a cyclocross race.)  Here are some Di2 links that I saved in advance of that conversation.

Here’s the list of questions I prepared for our conversation:

1. 1. 1. can you convert this tandem to Di2?
         1. which Di2 version?
         2. can you use the FSA triple crankset?
         3. can you swap free-hub bodies on the Spinergy hub and use that wheelset?
         4. can you drill holes for internal wiring runs?
      2. can you drill a hole through the brake bridge to mount caliper brakes on the rear?
      3. what about a steel tandem-rated fork (slender, like the one on our Rodriguez ultralight) but with bosses to get canti brakes up front?
      4. how do I remove the cranks (are those self-extracting bolts on the non-drive side?)
      5. why does the rear hub look like a narrow hub with a spacer?
      6. what do you recommend for a stoker suspension seat post?
      7. any ideas where I would find / uncover the serial number?

A couple of days earlier I took the cassette off the hub to verify that it had Campagnolo splines (the visible side of the cassette didn’t have any markings labeling it as Campy, and I wanted to confirm that it was a Ti cassette as described in the listing.)  When I put it back together I tightened it until it squeaked, but that was evidently not enough because it wasn’t shifting right on the ride over and when Alder went to count the cogs he exclaimed about how loose they were.  Luckily that cassette won’t be on the bike when I go to ride it home.  (Evidently only the four largest cogs are titanium, but before tariffs that cassette retailed for $300.)

• • The consensus of the shop (Alder, Smiley, and a random frame-builder) was that it was a cool bike
  • probably looking at 11 speeds in the back and two in front
  • I said I’d go for 50/34 over 48/30
  • to avoid drilling holes in the frame it sounds like we’ll run the wires under tape and use external battery mounts
  • the belt drive is old – from before the advent of a center track in September 2010 – I don’t know what they’ll recommend in that regard although it sounds like the FSA cranks are keepers
  • I shouldn’t think about caliper brakes.  Cantis are more adjustable and have more stopping power
  • to mount caliper brakes on the rear of this bike you’d need to add a reinforcing bracket or something, not just drill a hole
  • a steel fork with canti bosses would look good and give a more flexible ride
  • the Spinergy hubs are made by White Industries and ought to take a regular Shimano free hub body
  • those wheels were expensive, as were the Campy Ti rear derailleur and Ti cassette
  • body float seat posts likely need more room than we’ve got on that frame, at least the way the stoker saddle is currently adjusted. They need to have Odette come in for a fitting to see if it will work
  • l left the bike there, Alder will work on a quote

I hadn’t planned to leave the bike at R+E so when I left the shop I called Odette and asked her if she had time to pick me up.  We agreed that I would walk up  Ravenna toward Green Lake.  First she confused R+E with Recycled Cycles, then she had trouble remembering where Ravenna was.  She stopped three or four times to use Apple’s “Find My”  app but couldn’t project where I would be when she arrived.   I finally saw her turning left onto Ravenna from 65th (about halfway to Green Lake) and called her cell to say where I was.  She turned around but then got into the left turn lane and went back onto 65th…  We finally got together but I gave her a bad time about impending senility.

Alder called on Thursday (10/16) saying he had found a freehub body for the Spinergy wheels and had specced out an 11×2 set-up and that parts would come to about $2,300 plus $400 in labor to install.  I told him that was a bargain.  I told him I wanted a steel fork (and that I would supply Paul Components  canti brakes) and he said that the fork would be another $400.  I gave him a credit card but I expect there will be some additional costs (like a body float) and some stuff I need to procure on my own (like saddles).

The next day I started thinking about using those touring cantis on a go-fast bike and decided that doing it right would mean getting a set of neo-retro brakes.  I ordered them that evening, but nothing will happen over the weekend and I’ll be lucky to have them by the end of the next week.  R+E isn’t going to start working on this bike for at least a couple of weeks so my timing will still be fine.  (The touring cantis will go on Odette’s Stellar where they were headed before this whole thing got started.)   I cut a length of housing liner that ought to be enough for the run of brake cable along the top tube and I plan to put that in the box with the brakes.  I think it makes sense to cover the cable just to protect the paint but using a chewed-up length of exterior housing  leaves much to be desired.

Stuff still in process:

• saddles – I’ll start with that Selle Anatomica carbon saddle I’ve got in the garage; we’ll try to get Smiley to sell us something for Odette when we go in for a fitting
• Time Atac pedals / cleats – nothing to consider, I just need to get around to ordering them
• body float / bike fitting – we’ll do this separately after the conversion is done
• ProblemSolvers downtube shifter boss covers – unless Alder has a better idea I’ll order them myself
• bar tape – the front needs new tape; if we do anything other than black there we’ll do the same on the rear bars
• fork color – I think we’ll just go with black and see how it looks.  I may come back later and see if I can get the fork painted to match the blue on the frame
• front brake hanger – to mount the cantis we’ll need a hanger…
• chain – I couldn’t tell if the quote included a new chain but the one that’s on there now is 10-speed Campy and after the conversion we’ll need an 11-speed Shimano
• FSA belt drive – still unclear if I need to replace all or part of the old drive
• collect old parts – I want to make sure I come away with the parts that get removed: Bontrager fork, FSA chain rings,  Campy  levers, Shimano front deraileur, Campy Ti rear derailer,  Campy Ti cassette, Campy free-hub body, Campy 10-speed chain, Campy caliper front brake, Shimano XTR rear canti, outriggers,

Craigslist photos: