Ventana ECDM – 1st ride report

We have been out for two rides on our new Ventana  El Conquistador de Montañas S&S MTB tandem already and it is fantastic on the single track. We have had a couple of small falls whilst getting used to off road riding and figuring out what we can and can’t do on the bike – but nothing to put us off!

First trip was a proving trip to get the bike suspension pressures set up correctly for us and to make sure everything was working and adjusted correctly.  The sag on the rear suspension was set to low (we bottomed out cycling slowly off a kerb).  Our local bike shop bikehub  helped out with setting this correctly for us.  I also purchased a shock pump to let us fine tune the rear shock.  The front suspension is very stiff at the moment but I am going to let it bed in a bit before trying to adjust anything as suggested in the manual.

Ride 1 – Saturday
Cycled along one of our local rivers called the Sihl – route was mainly open riverside trails with a little bit of singletrack.

Ride 2 – Sunday
Second trip was to a place called Stein am Rhein on the Swiss & German border next to the Rhine river. A fantastic flowing single track route with the bonus of being able to swim in the Rhine at the end.  A tour I would recommend to any tandem MTB riders. We had a friend who guided us round the route and he was impressed with what the bike could do.  The tour is in the “Singletrails in den Schweizer Alpen” book as the “Stein am Rhein” tour but we did it the opposite way round to the book route.

Next steps are to try and get into the Alps for some more tours. I have also bought a thule pack n pedal tour rack (was previously called the freeload rack) to go on the back as we hope to do some multi day tours. I have not mounted it yet though.