Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
This week’s Reader’s Rig comes from Naomi and Matt in England, who share the custom Clandestine Companion tandem that has taken them on various adventures together throughout the past four years. Meet Matt and Naomi and see their bike configured for a 40-day journey across Norway here…
Words and photos by Naomi Wilcock
Hello, we’re Naomi and Matt. We live in Devon, England, and this is our custom Clandestine Companion. We’ve been together for nearly 18 years, and Matt has mountain biked since his early days. One of our first dates was naturally a trip to Glyncorrwg in South Wales to ride the Whites Level, and here we still are 18 years later! The tandem has only come into our lives in the past few years, having previously discovered the bikepacking way of life, first on our mountain bikes and then dabbling in the world of fat bikes.
As PE teachers and people who desire to spend as much time in the outdoors as possible, our jobs lend themselves to always having the next adventure on the horizon and never being more than six or seven weeks away—perks of the job! When lockdown fully kicked in during the early stages of 2020, our adventures came to a temporary halt, but our adventure planning went into full swing. With the discussion of a tandem always having been in the background, with more time to think and research, this was something that kept popping up in conversation more and more. We started to put together some plans to do an off-road-ish, version of John O’Groats to Land’s End, and the more we spoke about it, the more a tandem seemed like the obvious choice of bike to do it on, of course!
Off-the-shelf tandems didn’t quite seem to cut it in terms of what we wanted and what it needed to be able to handle. Luckily for us, the marvellous human Pi Manson, from Clandestine, is one of our oldest friends. And, being the incredible bike builder that he is, he was more than happy to build us a tandem. Having been on plenty of adventures with Pi, he knew exactly what we would demand from the bike and what it would need to handle. Taking great inspiration from his Clandestine Carrier, Pi went on to create what has now become our favourite bike and, with it, the birth of the Clandestine Companion, or Conker, as it’s more affectionately known to us. Together, we Combine and Conker. Too much?!
With our mountain bike background, we wanted a tandem that could handle anything we threw at it, within reason, fully loaded, just to make things more interesting, and Pi did not disappoint. Collecting the tandem just a week before setting off on our John O’Groats to Land’s End adventure, and I should probably add at this point, having never ridden a tandem before (it just seemed like a good idea!), we loaded it up and headed out into the wild gravel tracks of Scotland to begin the journey south. There was a quick learning curve for Matt in handling a heavily loaded-up tandem, but we were soon in our groove and operating as a slick duo. Searching out gravel far and wide, a month later, we rolled into Land’s End, having covered 2,579 kilometres—not bad for our first long-distance bikepacking adventure.
By this point, the bug had well and truly bit, which became the start of many more tandem trips. This can only be a testament to just how well the Clandestine tandem was built and what a dream it was to ride. Pi built the tandem with more standover than most, which makes an incredible difference on more technical terrain, as well as the inevitable stop/start at gates. He left enough clearance for chunky 2.4″ tyres, which upped our comfort game and ate up the terrain like a dream. The custom racks were solid. Secure, rattle/wobble free luggage was a game changer. Everyone has their own opinions on what wheels a tandem should have, but Ryan Builds Wheels built us a great pair of 36h wheels, which are still running true after taking everything that we’ve thrown at them over the past four years. When fully loaded, the tandem packs some weight, and with the Hope Tech V4 brakes and huge floating rotors, it was reassuring to know that we would always stop at the end of those long, rough, loose descents. Time and time again. And there have been plenty of them.
- Frame/Fork: Clandestine
- Rims: Ryde Andra 36h
- Hubs: Bitex Touring
- Tires: Schwalbe G-one 27.5 x 2.4″
- Handlebars: Surly Terminal Bar
- Headset: Hope
- Crankset: Truvativ Tandem Triple 22/32/38
- Pedals: OneUp or Shimano XT SPD
- Cassette: Shimano 12-42
- Derailleur(s): Shimano Deore
- Brakes: Hope V4, braided hoses, 220mm floating rotors
- Shifter(s): Shimano XT 10 speed, SunRace friction shifter for the front
- Saddle: Brooks C17 Carved / Brooks C19 Carved
- Seatpost: Gusset front, USE Vybe suspension post on the rear
- Stem: Custom Clandestine
- Front bags: Wizard works custom
- Frame bags: Wizard works custom
- Accessory bags: Wizard Works Lil Presto Barrel, Voila Stem, Go-Go Top Tube
- Panniers: North Street Bags Adventure Micro
- Other accessories: SimWorks by Honjo mud guards
Wanting to up the ante of what we could ride on the tandem, we started to hunt out routes that would test both ourselves and the bike, and have since completed tough routes in Snowdonia (where we learnt it is indeed possible to crash and go over the bars of a tandem!), the Isle of Wight, and the Cairngorms, as well as closer to home on the delights of Dartmoor and Exmoor, with our most recent being the fantastic East Devon Trail created by Katherine Moore.
Always trying to consider the best ways of carrying our luggage and spreading the load, we treated the tandem (and ourselves) to an array of custom Wizard Works bags. I think we weren’t far off buying every bag going, and this feels like it has now taken the tandem to the next level in terms of what it is capable of. With this newfound space that the frame bags gave us, alongside our panniers, we soon discovered that we now had enough room to carry our wetsuits and body surfing kit, and wasted no time in heading to the Hebrides in Scotland for a body surfing/bikepacking extravaganza. An absolute joy of a trip.
It’s clear that the tandem has changed our bikepacking experience. We find it so social and rewarding and love functioning as a solid team and everything that it brings. As I type, we are on our way north to begin our next trip: 40 days in the wilds of Norway. We’ll pedal a loop of over 2,700 kilometres of mostly gravel. No problem for the tandem, let’s just hope we don’t hold it back!
You can follow Naomi on Instagram.
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