Hi Joe.
Where are you based?
Quite happy to let you and your wife use ours for a couple of days. Buying a Pino is not a step to take lightly!
We are in south Essex.
What size are you? I am quite a broad chap, so the width of the bars suits me, but the (small) distance between the saddle and the handlebars, and the (raked) angle of the seat tube made things difficult to get a really good fit for me. We have had the bike a year and are still trying to get it right for both of us.
I resorted to buying some 22.2mm aluminium tube and some tube benders, to make bar ends, that give the angle that is correct for my fussy wrists. When I did the first set of bespoke angled bar ends for it, it became apparent that the original lower part of the bars, which I still had to use is not accurately manufactured, so the bar end angles need to correct that misalignment too.
We have done 1380miles on it during the 12 months that we have owned it, and have done some amazing rides, but 40 miles is a long day of riding for both of us on "Pinocchio", whereas we were doing 70 mile rides on the conventional tandem, the previous year.
One of the issues we had with the bike, which must have been an issue for the previous owner too, the rear brake calliper mounting was very badly misaligned. This was so bad, I had to manufacture a 10 degree wedge to fit between the frame and the calliper mounting bracket, to get the pads somewhere near parallel with the disc, then finally facing the mount to finish the job.
A couple have done LEJOG on theirs, and they have a nose fairing which gives them a 2mph aerodynamic advantage. These fairings are not readily available, and they got theirs from the states, made to measure.
They are a handful, but they are a great concept.
Good luck.
Jef