brilliantly simple tandem bike

Step 6 Gearses and brakeses

I figured I'd give the stoker something to do, (okay, realistically, gear cables don't run this long!), so I installed a shifter on the rear bike's set of handlebars which control the gears for the bike, though I found out that they honestly don't help so much anyway. ha haa.

and as far as brakes: if you want, you can install two, but they have to be controlled by the captain, because you don't want the stoker doing anything stupid. I highly recommend a front brake, and on the middle wheel, you can install a back brake for the front bike, or a front brake for the back bike.

bottom line is, even as heavy as the thing is, it works fine for me with just one brake.

and no bike shop would ever condone this, but if you, like myself, have a nicer deraileur and are lacking horizontal dropouts, get a cheap deraileur hanger and stick it in between the hardware and tighten the hell out of that wheel! it's proven to work fine, but looks pretty bad in my opinion.