OUR COLUMBIA TANDEM

About a week ago, I decided that we needed a project for the summer. The kids will be spending a significant amount of time at our new house 'Casa' this summer and I wanted them to have something interesting to do. This whole month I had been visiting garage sales and watching Craigslist for used bikes for the kids to ride this summer AND a friendly person in the town north of us said they had an old Tandem bike that they would like to get rid of and asked if we would be interested. I talked to the kids and told them this could be our summer project if they were interested. They all thought the idea was great so I picked it up on Tuesday and spent that evening doing some research online and found out that it is probably a Columbia Twosome Bike built between 1960-1975. Because the color behind the Columbia script is faded we cannot tell if it was originally orange or red. Orange was used from 1961 until 1975 and the badge does say Columbia Mfg. so we think the date range is on target. IF we could find a serial number we may be able to get a more detailed date of manufacture but even after cleaning gunk from rear drops we still can not find a serial number on the bike ... hmmmmm did these '73-'75 bikes not have stamped serial numbers?

The bike had been white and was now painted lime green but all the pieces seemed to be there :) I called the kids that night and told them of our acquisition and judging by the response I received - THIS IS OUR SUMMER PROJECT!

At first review we identified the following issues that we needed to resolve. The rear axle was bent, the chains master link was missing the clip, the front handle bars may be stripped, the rear seat post was missing and of course, this was besides no tires or tubes. So, the first thing we did was 'divvy' up parts of the bike. I got the wheels (Thanks Kids!), J got the drive train, C gets the seats and handle bars and G will figure out colors and painting requirements.

I spent a couple of hours on google getting a basic understanding of what was required to rebuild the rear hub. Seems shimano is fairly popular setup and the axel from an old kids size rear wheel was the perfect match for our bent one. I watched the various YouTube videos on tearing down the hub and started the greasy, messy job of taking ours apart. The best advice I received during the "training" was to lay out the parts EXACTLY as they are removed on the ground or a table to facilitate putting them back together. This all worked great except for the two little metal bits (Brake Shoes?) which promptly fell out of the hub as soon as the dust cap was removed - I would have a 50/50 chance to replace them correctly.

The next day I stopped by the local used bike charity house and talked to the mechanics and people hanging around about what the various pieces of what I found inside the hub did (quite an engineering marvel!); while there I picked up a couple of 26 x 1.75 tires and tubes very cheap. These may not be the final set for our Columbia but will get us rolling ...  

While researching the web for information on our bike, we found an encouraging article on tandems at the NY TIMES which reminded me of the old song “Daisy Bell,” written by Harry Dacre in 1892:

     Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do,
     I’m half crazy all for the love of you.
     It won’t be a stylish marriage -
     I can’t afford a carriage,
     But you’d look sweet upon the seat
     Of a bicycle built for two.

     We will go tandem as man and wife,
     Daisy, Daisy,
     Wheeling away down the road of life,
     I and my Daisy Bell.

In 1961, the IBM 7094 became the first computer to sing, singing the song Daisy Bell. Vocals were programmed by John Kelly and Carol Lockbaum and the accompaniment was programmed by Max Mathews. This performance was the inspiration for a similar scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

From The Milwaukee Journal Oct 21, 1971