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At A Recent Tandem Rally I Mentioned To A Tandem Bike Dealer That I Had Ordered A Burley
Rivassa. He Suggested That I Cancel The Order. When I Inquired Why, He Stated That None Of His Customers Were Satisfied With The High End Burley Bikes. He Also Said That The Low End Burleys Are A Great Value.
I Currently Ride A 1983 Santana Arriva And Choose The Rivassa On What Appears To Be A Good Value For The Money Play.
Any Feed Back From Aluminum Burley Owners?
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Did the dealer elaborate on or quantify:
- just how many high-end Burley tandems / customers constituted his population?
- what brand & model of tandem his customers were comparing the high-end Burley tandems to?
- what aspect of the Burley they were dissatisfied with, i.e., performance, quality, finish, value?
The Rivazza at just under $4k MSRP -- a 7000 series aluminum frame fitted with Rolf wheels, True Temper Alpha Q fork, FSA carbon cranks and Ultegra components -- is pretty darn price competitive. Moreover, the TT fork provides for more aggressive handling vs. Burley's standard "sport" geometry which is also a plus. Trek's T2000 is the only other aluminum frame, Ultegra-equipped, carbon fork & aero wheel package that comes in a few hundred bucks under the Burley. So, from a pure "bang-for-your-buck" perspective, I'm not sure what the Burley would be compared to and come up lacking.... unless it was simply the handling compared to something like an aluminum Co-Motion Robusta which, similarly equipped, is in an entirely different league at $7,400... or the base model aluminum Roadster with yeoman's components at $5k.
Any Feed Back From Aluminum Burley Owners?
It must be Burley bashing month!
Just a quick note to say that we bought a new Rivazza this year and love it dearly after only 2000 miles. I've been riding bikes seriously for 40 years +/- and this ride is an excellent one. The bike "disappears" under me when we get zoned in and pumping and I have been able to truthfully say that for only about 2 in 10 frames I have ever tried. My singles of choice have been top-end Kleins, so I guess one could say I have a "thing" for aluminum.
My stoker-wife is as comfortable on it as she is on her single, albeit she would care for a scosh more top tube length. If your stoker is long-waisted, then you should pay attention to the stoker's top tube length and perhaps look at other brands.
I have personally not cared for any of the FSA or SRAM stuff on it, but that has nothing to do with Burley or the ride quality. I am an unashamed fan of top-end Shimano or Campy hardware and always will be until others can get their QA/QC stuff together.
The Burley boys (apparently) have a curious practice of filing one of the rear dropouts for final rear wheel alignment which broke my cajones for a while until I determined that my (bike) rear end was indeed stable under load. I will be micro-checking the frame alignment this winter on a table somewhere, somehow, but we can ride this baby no-handed and play cards if we want to -- for miles -- and that flat out cannot be done on a seriously mis-aligned frame.
I would recommend this ride to a good friend in a heartbeat. Make sure there are no other motives for this dealer to make such a sweeping statement.
MGOBEL- Run, run very far away from that dealer. He must have a bad relationship with Burley.
I am a proud owner of a 05 Rivazza and could not be happier. It is just as good as or not better then the treks, the Litespeed, and the Giant bikes I have owned in the past. I would highly recommend Burley. They make in my opinion the best bang for your buck tandem on the market. I have ridden bikes (road, mtb) for over 16 yerars and my wife is a total bicycling newbie. I do my own wrenching so I now a bit about bikes (not tring to toot my own horn but to make a point). Both of us love the bike. We just had a baby and I told my wife we should sell the bike for extra money and she literally almost cried so we kept it. Lucky me.
Opinions will vary.
We've ridden/owned brands of tandems from A (Assenmacher) to Z (Zona).
Burley is right up in the top for quality/value, in our humble opinion.
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem
We received our 2006 Rivazza in May. We are pleased with
all aspects.
See if you can get a list of his customers who are actually dissatisfied and get their individual opinions. Also get a list of his customers who are thrilled with their Burley. Opinion is just that opinion. As was stated, how many customers make up this the "None", if one high-end Burley was bought and that one customer was dissatisfied, then none of his customers were satisfied.
Although we are both hard to please customers who ride and race high-end single bikes, we have been extremely happy with our Rivazza. We've been riding it on a weekly basis for over a year and a half now (including quite a few double centuries) and we would buy it again in a heartbeat. We have met several other Rivazza owners as we've travelled around and they all love their bikes too. If there's another tandem anywhere near as great for anywhere near as good a price, we haven't seen it. Rivazza's have been discussed many times on this forum and I don't ever remember an owner expressing any dissatisfaction.
Like the others, we'd be interested in hearing what the complaints are supposed to be about ....
I really like my '04 Tosa. I upgraded to the fork to the TT carbon. No complaints so far. I feel it was a very good value. We are happy with our purchase.
The dealer that was giving feedback on purchasing a tandem was probably also thinking about the current financial situation at Burley in making some of his comments. Just saw this newspaper article / thread on T@H:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/08/05/a1.burley.0805.p1.php?section=cityregion
Very interesting story on Burley and the hard times they're going through. It appears that everything that the marketing department was saying about no new buyer, etc. was just smoke up you know where! Sounds like the cooperative no longer is ... too bad the current work environment isn't worker-owned anymore (really feel bad for the production people in general).
Ron
Just saw this newspaper article / thread on T@H:
http://www.registerguard.com/news/2006/08/05/a1.burley.0805.p1.php?section=cityregion
Interesting, I haven't seen it at Hobbes... In fact, the last post I saw was my own from just a few hours ago. No, wait, there's another one there from Sheila.
Regardless, there are several other threads on the subject of Burley's financial troubles here at BikeForums.net, included one in the tandem list that I believe you were the last one to post to. You might want to add this "new information" to that thread so that the information stream is more complete.
However, that said, it's very plausible to assume that the dealer was trying to find a way to "protect" the buyer by offering up an alternative excuse to move away from Burley in light of their troubles.
First, let me thank all of the responders for taking the time to share their insights. " In the counsel of many are wise decisions made".
Second let me tell you that our Rivazza arrived and we have a 50 mile " get acquaintented ride" logged.
It will be very difficult to wipe the grins from our faces. It is a sweeeeet ride. My stoker is contemplating
stoking this bike without a suspension seatpost because it offers up such a smooth ride, yet it is extremely stiff/rigid while we are climbing out of the saddle. How do they make such extremes fit together like that? So cool!!!
Thanks for the advice; I'm new to this forum, and how to find/track particular threads. I'll get it right as I become more experienced with how things work here!
Ron
We do some pretty long miles on some pretty rough roads, but my stoker has also found the Rivazza to be plenty comfortable without a suspension seatpost. After trying the type of saddle she uses on her single bike, she decided the saddle that came with the Rivazza was more comfortable and went back to it (probably because the reach is shorter than on her single giving her a slightly more upright position). I've asked her several times if she'd like to try a suspension seat post, but she doesn't see the need. I like to think the reason is that she's putting her weight on the pedals instead of the seat :).
At A Recent Tandem Rally I Mentioned To A Tandem Bike Dealer That I Had Ordered A Burley
Rivassa. He Suggested That I Cancel The Order. When I Inquired Why, He Stated That None Of His Customers Were Satisfied With The High End Burley Bikes. He Also Said That The Low End Burleys Are A Great Value.
I Currently Ride A 1983 Santana Arriva And Choose The Rivassa On What Appears To Be A Good Value For The Money Play.
Any Feed Back From Aluminum Burley Owners?
Please take your caps lock off.
Thanks.
What is the name of the dealer that you went to?
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