This is an unrestored Jack Taylor Touring Tandem, built for 650b wheels. I had it shipped from England several years ago, but haven’t started work on it yet.
Even in its present state, it’s quite a pretty bike. The frame color is silver, but with plenty of bright highlights that include red, yellow, green, blue and white.
The frame is built with Reynolds 531 tubing, and is fillet brazed. It features a sloping top tube, giving 23″ and 21″ seat tube lengths for the front and rear positions. Components include Maxi-car hubs, Campagnolo shifters and derailleurs, Weinmann 650b rims, Taylor Bros hammered fenders, front and rear constructeur racks, Mafac cantilever brakes, plus a front Maxi-car drum brake.
Double front brakes – cantilevers + drum; Mafac levers and hoods in great shape.
Jack Taylor transfers in really nice condition
Smooth brazing and a U.K. touring club sticker
Simple cable stop,, elegantly brazed seat stays
Reynolds transfers in great shape
Pin striping is still in really nice shape
Maxi Car hubs, Campagnolo dropouts – with SN 7183
TA crankset – there are two cranksets and each has at least one chain ring mounted on each side
A type of presta valve I hadn’t seen before – there’s nothing under this cap – just an open valve – but I popped my presta fitting on anyway and pumped air into the tube.
TA triple crankset with 50/40/28 rings
Eccentric bottom bracket plus internal routing for the dynamo wiring
Redundant chainring on the drive side front crank
Campagnolo front derailleur
Very cool Zefal pump
Mafac cantilevers
Campagnolo Rally rear derailleur, with Suntour Perfect 14/24 freewheel
Color matched Milremo stem, Stronglight headset
Dynamo and wiring
Brooks saddles – a B-72 in the back and a B-17 in front
Some pitting in the top tube’s stoker section.
Fork blades feature brazeons for the drum cable routing.
One of the things that surprised me about this bike was how similar it is in many ways to my 1973 Jack Taylor. That bike is is also fillet brazed, and sports the exact same lighting system and rack design as this tandem. In fact, its rear reflector is also broken, just like this.
Another broken reflector
However, this reflector got broken in the shipping process. One thing that I did was to have the bike shipped intact from England. It boarded the Rio Mediera in Southampton, but was detained when it reached port in New York as suspected contraband. The large container, built by Sheffpack, bore a suspicious resemblance to an arms shipment, and so it had to be x-rayed before it could continue its journey to the Port of Portland. Consequently, the bike spent many weeks inside its shipping container, before it was finally literally broken open by port workers using hammers and tire irons.
However, it is safe and sound now, and with the fall and winter months looming ahead, this might be the perfect project to occupy the colder and wetter days ahead.