Hiya
I went to the lbs the other day to talk to the owner about three
problems i am having with the tailwind, he has a custom frame shop. the 3
problems are: braking, flat handlebar - which bothers my wrist, and low
speed instability.
I asked about getting a disk brake for the rear. He said it wouldn't work on
a tailwind. He suggested a brake that he uses on a bent he recently built
for himself. The nexus roller brake. He is looking into getting a freehub
version but according to shimano's site they don't sell that one anymore.
So I may have to go with the internal gear 7 speed. I didn't like the sach
3x7 that came with a rans wave about 7 years ago. I am hoping there have
been improvments to the technology. I found the 3x7 to have a hugh amount of
drag - it felt like i was towing someone around all day. and the high gear
was even worse.
I don't like the limited gear range, according to shimano it is the equivant
of 32-13 tooth cogs. But I can use any size chainrings I want. For awhile I
had 24,42,62 on the tailwind with a modified front derailleur. The shifting
on the front was pretty good but there was a problem with chain wrap on
granny gear. Should be fine with only one cog to deal with on the rear.
The gear range with a 20t cog and 24,42,62 rings will be 15 to 95 gear
inches. But the cog can be changed to something smaller, I think 16t is the
smallest.
I also asked him about trail then I found excellent advice on this group.
His answer was to contact rans and maybe they have a fork that could solve
the problem. But recently, after switching the bars to a wider curved bar
and using one hand on the slow uphills there is an increase in low speed
stability.
Now the handlebars, i replicated rans new curved b-36 bars with off the
shelf parts. a mtb stem and aluminum retro crusier bars. $46 cdn versus
$56us plus shipping and duty. and it has helped my fingers from going numb.