Tandem Cycling - Trek road tandem - not in 2009?

I was perusing the trek website www.trekbikes.com and could not find a 2009 model road tandem. They do have the 'Cruiser', but not the typical T1000 or T2000 as in the past. Is it possible Trek is slowly getting out of the tandem market?

D

It's not only possible, it's a done deal. The T1000 and T2000 have been dropped from Trek's product line as of 2009.

Apparently the question has been asked already...I didn't mean to re-ask it.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=460173

Now we have an answer. Thank you TandemGeek.

Very sad to see Trek droping their Tandems. While I never owned one, I thought they were a nice bike, widely available through the many Trek dealers and in a price window I thought was needed...obviously I'm very wrong on that....Regardless, one less major builder of tandems is not so good in my view. Not criticizing Trek, because is business is business, but it's disappointing to have one less broad based group of cycling showroom floors with out a good tandem on display for the masses to easily purchase.

Bill J.

I'm not surprised the '08 was pushing $4000, and 2009 prices are way up across the board, I wouldn't have been shocked if an '09 was over $4,500. We love ours, but that is getting steep. With Cannondale's under $2,000, $4,500 gets you closer to a Co-motion or Santana.

Perhaps Trek dropped the road tandems because of the new design of the bottom bracket on their higher-end single bikes, and it was too costly to adapt that technology for a tandem.

This is not the first time that Trek has dropped in/out of the tandem market.
Tandem sales also have been down in general, so it it is no surpise that they are sticking with their imported/cheaper tandems only.

In fact, the T1000/2000 frame was far superior to the Cannondale. Essentially on par with Santana Sovereign and Comotion Roadster, the latest iteration had some unique -- but under-appreciated -- features including a conical captain's seat tube, mildly elliptical top and lateral tubes, and a rectangular boom tube. Those details added up to a great riding, competitively light frame. With a few component upgrades, the T2000 was/is one heck of a bike at a very reasonable cost. We love ours and plan to hang on to it.

Tandem sales also have been down in general, so it it is no surpise that they are sticking with their imported/cheaper tandems only.

Are "Trek and above" tandem sales really down, or does the above stat include Wal-Mart tandems? I've seen more tandems riding around SoCal this summer than ever before. It seems like many builders have huge backlogs on custom bikes...I was recently scolded by Bill McCready when I leaned our bike against a bike rack using only the stoker bars: "Normally, a dent in your top tube [from when the bike falls against the rack] is an easy fix, and I would be glad to take your $200...but we're too busy to do it right now"...or something like that.

In fact, the T1000/2000 frame was far superior to the Cannondale. Essentially on par with Santana Sovereign and Comotion Roadster...

Superior is a bit too subjective for my tastes; Santana-esqe, if you will. However, that said, the T1000/2000 frame design is certainly far more refined than a Cannondale frame which is also true of Santana and Co-Motion aluminum frames.

Cannondale simply seems to use brute force and big tubes to achieve its objectives for the RT and MT frames with only two redesigns since 1998, whereas the Trek design team and the folks at Co-Motion and Santana have worn down a few pencils over the years as they have tweaked their materials, tube designs and frame geometry.

Who knows, perhaps Trek's leadership has decided to take a hiatus from the tandem market as they did in the 90's and will come back in a few year with another fresh design. As noted in another thread regarding Cannondale's '09 offerings, all one need to is look at just how many models Trek is offering to realize their focus is, well, rather scattered. So, it's not hard to imagine that Trek's tandems didn't just loose out in a product strategy meeting to the need to service the design needs of the growing commuter, cruiser, bike trail, and bifercated off-road models.

Are "Trek and above" tandem sales really down, or does the above stat include Wal-Mart tandems?

I did some poking around on this earlier in the year and was of the opinion that what was purportedly a major drop in tandem sales was, in fact, more reflective of the tandem-shaped-object market vs. the premium tandems. These were the two articles that I wrote, the first of which reported the claimed drop in sales and then what I subsequently learned:


11 Dec - Tandem Sales in Decline?. Apparently the December hard copy edition of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News (BRAIN) included some information pertaining to trends in bicycle sales. It was reported that tandem sales were purportedly down some 24% this year. Having been in contact with some of the major US builders who are reporting strong sales volume, I'm not sure what to believe. Is this simply the by-product of inflated sales numbers for the various "Tandem Shaped Objects" sold on Ebay and the like falling off, or are even the premium US builders struggling behind optimistic production bravado? If you have some hard data on the subject we'd love to hear from you.

18 Dec - Tandem Sales in Decline - Follow-up. Having poked on this a bit , interestingly enough it turns out none of the US tandem speciality builders like Santana, Co-Motion, Rodriguez, Bilenky, or builders like Calfee, Ventana, etc... belong to the Bicycle Products Suppliers Association. Therefore, it is unlikely that their production numbers have been taken into consideration in the BPSA's reports: I'd ask to confirm but I'm not a member either and BPSA appears to exist to generate revenue from members and non-members alike. In checking their membership rolls, Cannondale and Trek belong, as does KHS and Pacific. For a complete list go here (http://bpsa.org/page.cfm?pageID=54). Ignoring BPSA's reported state of the market, feedback from various sources suggests that premium / enthusiast-level tandem production is at least stable on units, in some cases growing on a dollar basis, and growing in volume + dollars in a few others. There is also a very strong secondary / used market being fueled by existing owners who sell and/or trade-up to S&S or higher-end models that is off-setting some of the entry-level new market. There are only a few reports of fall-offs in tandem sales from economically, very-hard hit regions.


Some other trends were discussed in my 2008 Tandem Owner's Winter Survey analysis:
http://www.thetandemlink.com/surveys/survey_winter08_analysis.html

At present, I firmly believe the premium tandem market is still very flush as order books remain full. Moreover, a lot of the new sales are from existing tandem owners who are upgrading to newer and far more expensive models which has also been a boon to the second-hand tandem markets as newbies have been able to find some nicely maintained, older tandems. At the same time, new lower-cost models like Co-Motion's Periscope and even daVinci's imported Grand Junction have been selling well too.

If history is any indicator, the current focus on energy and scaling back on spending could spawn a windfall for the bike industry as it did in the 70's... and it was in the late 70's that you'll find what was probably the start of a tandem cycling renaissance with Santana's arrival and the birth of regional tandem rallies here in the US.

In fact, the T1000/2000 frame was far superior to the Cannondale. Essentially on par with Santana Sovereign and Comotion Roadster, the latest iteration had some unique -- but under-appreciated -- features including a conical captain's seat tube, mildly elliptical top and lateral tubes, and a rectangular boom tube. Those details added up to a great riding, competitively light frame. With a few component upgrades, the T2000 was/is one heck of a bike at a very reasonable cost. We love ours and plan to hang on to it.


The 2 most crooked frames I've ever owned were Trek products, and I suspect good tandem alignment is quite difficult to achieve.

Tube shapes are also debatable, as many fine bikes are made from round (infinite sided) tubimg. Calfee and Pegoretti among others make quite great bikes with round tubes.

In fact, the T1000/2000 frame was far superior to the Cannondale. Essentially on par with Santana Sovereign and Comotion Roadster, the latest iteration had some unique -- but under-appreciated -- features including a conical captain's seat tube, mildly elliptical top and lateral tubes, and a rectangular boom tube. Those details added up to a great riding, competitively light frame. With a few component upgrades, the T2000 was/is one heck of a bike at a very reasonable cost. We love ours and plan to hang on to it.

When we bought our T2000, we road a Cannondale and Santana, the Trek was clearly the best for us. That said, we ride it a fraction of our single bikes. While we enjoy it very much, our yearly mileage varies greatly, and I would have a difficult time justifying a costlier tandem. Just makes more sense to put money in road bikes.

"They don't make them like the used to!" My wife & I just completed a 7,000 km ride from Victoria BC to Halifax NS on our 15-year-old Trek T100 hybrid (that's: tee-one hundred). It is one of Trek's early production models; it has a four-digit serial number.

Wheels, running-gear, and saddles have all been upgraded, but the frame is still in great condition.

Sad to hear it - I can only hope Trek's designers are saving up for a few very long moulds to give us a 2 seat version of their carbon road frame. I like my T2000 - could be a bit longer for the stoker, but overall we think it's a great bike.