Huffy tandem fixie; building and riding

I've ridden fixed gear bikes (e.g. "fixies") for awhile. Unlike a normal bike, which can coast, a fixed gear bike has the rear sprocket attached to the hub without a freewheel, therefore you are pedalling all the time. I find this arrangement to feel more direct and "sporty". Sometime in college (~2008 or so), there became this trend to have loud, contrasting colors on fixed gears, often with the frame one color and the handlebar tape, rims, tires, and seats one or more colors (for reference: this, this, this, this, or this).  Thankfully, over the last half decade or so, the style of fixies seem to have gotten much more subdued. Nevertheless, in 2016 when I found an early 70's Huffy Daisy Daisy frame, I figured I ought to make it gaudy, just because.

Not sure why I felt the need to chain lock the $12 seats, but I did anyway. 

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the "build" - the frame needed straightening and the seatposts unseized, both of which I did at the Davis Bike Collective, which is where I also sourced wheels, bars, and much of the hardware. All the new stuff (tires, seats, pedals) were cheapos bought online. The frame was just rattlecanned white with rustoleum paint & primer; after some sanding and polishing it actually looked pretty good. I am a big fan of rustoleum, having also painted my old truck with it! After a few months of riding, the rear dropout had basically come off. I repaired this at the welding studio of the Davis Craft Center.

The dropout was originally slipped into the ends of the seat/chain stays, crimped, and then brazed in place. The brazes were clearly done poorly and one had failed which stressed the other; I removed the dropout, filed off the bronze, cleaned it up, and TIG-welded the dropout to the end of the stays. I'm certainly no pro at welding but was pretty proud of this weld, as it wasn't all that easy - the dropout was way thicker than the stays, the steel was old, and it had to be lined up pretty well (I lined it up with an axle during welding). 

As many of you know, riding a fixie is quite different than a "normal" bike; you have to worry about clipping pedals in turns, remembering you can't coast, etc. Riding a tandem is also different than riding a single bike. Naively, I thought that riding a tandem fixie would be another level of difficulty, but it really wasn't. 

You can't coast, but so long as both captain and stoker understand that, that part isn't difficult. Pedal braking with two people is also surprisingly effective; you can't do skid stops because unweighting the rear wheel with a person back there is impossible, but you can very effectively slow the bike. As for clipping pedals, we did it a few times, but you aren't inclined to lean a tandem quite as far as a single bike, so it was less of a concern than on a single bike. 

When riding without a stoker, you could do the easiest and most ridiculous skid stops; unweighting the rear wheel was easy and you could get the back end to slide around in whatever way you wanted it. Unfortunately, I don't have a video of it, but it was one of the most fun parts of the bike. I'm sure the cheap tires wouldn't have lasted long had I ridden it alone too much. I did commute on it alone for awhile, as it was one of those bikes that just put a smile on your face to ride, even at its maximum cruising speed of ~12 mph. 

I will note that over a year and probably a few hundred miles of riding, it seemed like this bike was a bit more prone to breaking chains (both front and rear) than other any other tandem I've dealt with. We also broke the rear hollow QR axle at one point. Initially, this made me think that the hollow QR axles were unsuited for tandem use, but given that we have one on our old Cannondale mountain tandem, which has gone over thousands of rocks, curbs, and other small drops, it seems more likely that the one salvaged for the fixie from the bike collective was just a cheap crumby one. I replaced it with a solid axle and never had problems with it again. 

I would not rank this anywhere near the top of beautiful bikes, but it turned out exactly how I planned it. 

Front bars were a "flop and chop" job; a set of cheap drop bars cut with a hacksaw and mounted upside down to make bullhorns. 

I didn't repaint the rear handlebar clip after stripping it because I liked that fillet braze so much. 

Before I left California, I gave it away to some friends who gave it to their friends in Arizona; hopefully it is still being ridden somewhere.