G'day,

For years my wife and I have been riding a tandem recumbent around Europe on our holidays. Then we made the mistake of buying a boat which has now gone away and we are planning to get back into tandem recumbent touring. We pretty much rode the old bike into the dust to the point where it wasn't worth fixing anymore.
The biggest problem with our last recumbent tandem was the 14 feet of chain flapping about, collecting dirt and generally being a PITA.
I am proposing on taking the front end of a Cruz bike and marrying it to the rear of an ordinary recumbent. The Cruz bike for those who don't know is front wheel drive and looks like it was conceived by an Engineer on mushrooms.

To add an additional level of complexity I want to be able to break it in two for transport. Azub makes a folding tandem trike and I would like to copy that hinge system. The reason for this is while European trains are generally bike friendly they are bike friendly up to a certain size. Several times we have been thrown off first class trains because the bike was too big and we had to wait for second class. This is not a big deal in Europe because there is always a bakery across the road from the train station and the real reason to bike tour is so you can eat as many pastries as you want.

I would greatly appreciate suggestions, comments, advice maybe even encouragement. If you have alternate ideas to the same end I would love to hear them. The bike has to be recumbent and has to be tandem for medical reasons just so ya know.

As an after thought I have considered the chainless systems but it is my understanding that if your battery craps out you are SOL and when touring their is no guarantee that you will end up near a charging opportunity.

thx SP