This is our review of the Eliminator tandem:
Riding the Eliminator we found:
Overall it is a very enjoyable ride, the seats aren’t as nice as the RANS seats but are pretty comfortable. Because they have an unpadded mesh base lighter riders may like them less and heavier riders should like them more. We are skinny and felt the comfort of the mesh seats is not up to the very high level of the rest of the bike.
Longbikes overbuilds their bikes. Their machining detail is excellent. An example of this is the seat struts. They are machined out of solid aluminum rods. This makes them a bit heavier that other struts, and I'd never seen a seat strut break till RANS came out with the cut away ends in 2003. The front USS handlebars are extremely adjustable, even the bar ends can even adjust in and out to your preference. These bar ends were improved in 2004 and once tightened will not move. The captain's hand position is excellent, better than on the old Vision USS recumbent tandems. The Eliminator uses 4 chains, an over complicated design, which works very well. Three of the four have tension adjustments, most tandems only have 2 chains and only one needs to have the tension adjusted. This setup shifts great, weighs a bit more and requires infrequent but careful adjustment.
The finish on Longbikes is excellent. Smooth welds, unique, replaceable, bombproof dropouts, flawless glossy paint, and finely detailed and finished machined parts combine to give an overall appearance that is beautiful. I have seen a lot of recumbents, few are finished this well.
As the tandem captain in our family I always preferred the Eliminator handling to the Vision tandem “double visions”. Now that Vision is out of business Longbikes stands alone as the USS recumbent tandem of choice.
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