I purchased this Ibis tandem yesterday from a lady who coverted it to a road tandem. It's frame it different from the Uncle Fester or Cousin It. I was wondering if anyone out there know what it was and what year it was manufactured. I am going to convert it back to the mountain bike it was. There were two brakes on the rear. The lady said the upper one was a "drag brake" and too heavy so she had it removed.
Ibis Tandem: Year? Model?
1 - 20 of 23 Posts
Joined
·
246 Posts
That is totally *****in'!! Nice find
I see a familiar sticker on the stoker's seat tube - I could have originally built it 
Ibis tandems were so totally cool. They worked incredibly well as either a road or off-road bike. For off-road duty, you can add that second rear brake and run a brake lever that pulls two cables. Magura made a double pull lever years ago. Or like Rumpfy said, connect it to a friction shift lever that the stoker controls bringing back the drag brake.
By converting it back to a mountain tandem, I would assume you mean putting flat bars on it? If so, try using something like the original WTB bars or On-One Midge bars - a drop bar with a lot of flare. These would be a great bar that would be good for using the bike both on and off-road.
The bike looks like it probably was a Cousin It. The Uncle Fester was the base Cousin It frame that was only available in one of two powder coated colors - an aqua or a red. Your bike has several options - like the second rear brake (which doesn't look like it was stoker operated like other drag brakes as I see an unused cable stop on the top tube near the head tube which meant that it may have been connected to a dual cable pull brake lever. The Fester was also available only with canti brake posts, not U/Roller like yours. Yours is also a smaller frame so it didn't have the full-length direct-lateral tube that ran from the head tube to the stoker's bb area.
Year? Is that a 1" or 1 1/8" headset? It kinda looks 1 inchy to me so that, and the decal style would make it something like a 91??? What is the serial number? You can get a better idea of the year based on the decal if you go here and scope out the decal pages. That site wasn't working for me this morning, though.
Ibis tandems were so totally cool. They worked incredibly well as either a road or off-road bike. For off-road duty, you can add that second rear brake and run a brake lever that pulls two cables. Magura made a double pull lever years ago. Or like Rumpfy said, connect it to a friction shift lever that the stoker controls bringing back the drag brake.
By converting it back to a mountain tandem, I would assume you mean putting flat bars on it? If so, try using something like the original WTB bars or On-One Midge bars - a drop bar with a lot of flare. These would be a great bar that would be good for using the bike both on and off-road.
The bike looks like it probably was a Cousin It. The Uncle Fester was the base Cousin It frame that was only available in one of two powder coated colors - an aqua or a red. Your bike has several options - like the second rear brake (which doesn't look like it was stoker operated like other drag brakes as I see an unused cable stop on the top tube near the head tube which meant that it may have been connected to a dual cable pull brake lever. The Fester was also available only with canti brake posts, not U/Roller like yours. Yours is also a smaller frame so it didn't have the full-length direct-lateral tube that ran from the head tube to the stoker's bb area.
Year? Is that a 1" or 1 1/8" headset? It kinda looks 1 inchy to me so that, and the decal style would make it something like a 91??? What is the serial number? You can get a better idea of the year based on the decal if you go here and scope out the decal pages. That site wasn't working for me this morning, though.
Thanks
Thanks for the great information. Of course, I have more question. Attached are some more photos. The first is the stoker decal of the bike store that sold the bike.
I was wondering what that braket was for on the chainstay? Did it have something to do with the threads on the left side of the rear wheel? There is one cable stop above a unused wheel on the stoker's seat post. Maybe there was also a drag brake operated by the stoker??
What I would like to do is to make it look like the "Killer Ibis Tandem"(from a previous thread) you are converting in your shop. That is, what is was before. Straight mtb bars. Maybe, bull horns for the stoker. I don't know yet. First, I want to fix the brakes!
Thanks again.
Thanks for the great information. Of course, I have more question. Attached are some more photos. The first is the stoker decal of the bike store that sold the bike.
I was wondering what that braket was for on the chainstay? Did it have something to do with the threads on the left side of the rear wheel? There is one cable stop above a unused wheel on the stoker's seat post. Maybe there was also a drag brake operated by the stoker??
What I would like to do is to make it look like the "Killer Ibis Tandem"(from a previous thread) you are converting in your shop. That is, what is was before. Straight mtb bars. Maybe, bull horns for the stoker. I don't know yet. First, I want to fix the brakes!
Thanks again.
Attachments
Yes, a drum brake. That roller is to run the cable from the stoker's handlebars where a shifter would be used to operate the drum brake as a drag brake. It looks like that bike has just about every brake mount option possible for the era.Lutarious said:
What I would like to do is to make it look like the "Killer Ibis Tandem" - The cool thing about Ibis tandems is that they look killer dressed in whatever clothing you put them in - road or mountain, flat or drop bars. Post pics of the progress.
Joined
·
72 Posts
Congrats
Nice job on the tandem. Looks very well built. I say before you pull the roadie tires off, take it out for a spin and get some speed.
We got a tandem at the beginning of the year and love it. The bittersweet thing is we don't ride our other bikes as much, because we always want to ride the tandem.
Any ideas on the head tube angle?
Nice job on the tandem. Looks very well built. I say before you pull the roadie tires off, take it out for a spin and get some speed.
We got a tandem at the beginning of the year and love it. The bittersweet thing is we don't ride our other bikes as much, because we always want to ride the tandem.
Any ideas on the head tube angle?
Good call, but I think that you're thinking of an Arai drum brake. By the way, drum brakes for tandems have the best heat dissepating ability for long downhills.Lutarious said:
Rim brakes will overheat and cause tubes to pop and discs will overheat and fade or warp.
I think Maxicar used to make decent drum brakes also.
Oh, and also there are BMX levers with 2 cable connections.
Hey SSMike,
We bought our IBIS Cousin IT last year. It had the hydraulic rim breaks on it.
After a few downhills where they got hot and faded we took it to the bike shop and had them replaced them with cantilever breaks with the travel agent so that we could use the road levers. It made a huge difference in the stopping power. I believe ours to be a 96 model but would like to hear your thoughts. Here are some pics from when we first bought it.
We bought our IBIS Cousin IT last year. It had the hydraulic rim breaks on it.
After a few downhills where they got hot and faded we took it to the bike shop and had them replaced them with cantilever breaks with the travel agent so that we could use the road levers. It made a huge difference in the stopping power. I believe ours to be a 96 model but would like to hear your thoughts. Here are some pics from when we first bought it.
Attachments
Nice looking bike. 96 sounds like it's about right. That banner style decal appeared in '93. It's got a handjob cable stop and toe jam pump peg. The only way to really know for sure (if you need to know for sure), is to e-mail the serial number to Chuck Ibis. He has a database of serial numbers for all the bikes made in Sebastopol.Audax356 said:
1 - 20 of 23 Posts
