Tandem Cycling - Economic Impact on Tandem Cycling

Given all of the turmoil and uncertainty with the economy and as everyone tries to second guess what a new administration will mean, how if at all has any of this affected your discretionary spending plans for the rest of 2008 and looking ahead, 2009? Will you travel less or more? Will you put off that new tandem or go ahead and buy?

We've scaled back spending in other areas so we have adequate money for our bicycles and cycling-related trips. Instead of buying new shoes over the summer I bought tubes.

No new bikes for us in the near future. We have all we need right now.

i justify the same/more on the bike as it saves us in other areas. Plus - the health benefits.

Now, if I could only get her to understand that $800 on PeterWhite wheels really does save us money.... lol

This is really a two part answer for us as retirees. Since our Tandem cycling gives us our highest return of fun to dollars spent (we don't run much any more)...we will not be cutting back on cycling and most likely will do even more of it (and modest traveling to cycle) in '09 at the expense of something else. I'm always looking to buy another Tandem so if the right combination of product/price presents itself, we'll still buy it regardless of the economic environment.

However, regarding major purchases and more expensive recreational activities, we will be holding tight or cutting back for sure until the markets show some significant signs of recovery.
Bill J.

I answered no impact, since we made our major expenditure earlier this year. Almost all of the components have been purchased with the exception of saddles. So the original plan was for the rest of 2008-2009 only looking at maintenance items for the new tandem. That plan has not changed so he answer no impact was the most accurate. Now compared to early 2008, if I had to make our new tandem decision now, I would have answered differently. For the single bikes the only planned purchase for 2009 is a PowerTap, that plan is still in place.

We scaled back because we have a wedding to pay for in June. :)

A Quarq for the single, and belt drive for the Tandem have bit the dust.

I'm glad we did two major upgrades last and early this year- wheels and fork. Now with the exchange rate it won't mean we will be looking at upgrading the tandem (however the upgrades will do for now). We are also at the stage naturally that we have done quite a few events and have already weeded out the ones that we only want to do once and which ones we will keep going back to, so that is also factoring in as well as if we can get free entries via our jobs or other means.
Most our spending now will be on disposables such as tubes and tyres and maintainence. Thankfully we are a position to do that now.

Just to weigh in....

Most discretionary spending is definitely in the rear view mirror for the foreseeable future as we work to rebuild the next egg. Tubes, tires, and other wear & tear items will be addressed but definitely no major equipment or travel-related plans are on the immediate horizon.

I voted cut back a bit but that likely means no expensive trips away.

The great thing about cycling is that once you have the bike, the ongoing costs can be very low (as long as you don't incur lodging expenses or get "upgrade" fever).

We scaled back because we have a wedding to pay for in June. :)

Feel lucky- I had two this year and that has just about depleted the funds.

Looks like we are in for a couple of years of problems over here so the decision has been made to cut back on everything. Still have the bikes so riding will not be curtailled and they will be maintained to keep them running. However- I will not be spending out on any major new purchases. The Tandem was stripped and rebuilt in March so hopefully the maintenance costs have been made. :innocent:

I'm thinking that in the overall costs of living bicycles aren't all that expensive.

I checked no impact. I didn't have any discretionary income to start with, so what's a little less? :)

In our house, we have set immediate priorities. Our recent big things were to get into tandems, yes there are still single bikes in our house but the focus is now tandem based.

It took me a while to have the wife agree to the tandem this spring, and now we have two. One off road and one road. As much as we would love a new one, second hand gave us good value so far and is proving a good bet.

Our plans and spending for cycling events is similar to when times were better, we just plan to ride the tandem instead. As for the bikes, I'm fortunate in being mechanical enough to maintain them, and at the moment, any more money spent is for replacement parts or getting the stoker more comfy. My old late 90's vintage box of stuff has also kept both bikes somewhat period correct, while upgrading with these vintage parts.

Thanks for having this great forum, it's been a huge information source.

PK

We purchased our new Burley early this year berfore all the turmoils started. We found sales on pedals and shoes and a couple of biking shorts.. padded for Arlene(stoker) and regular compression shorts for me. With the way things are going we will not be spending any more. We used to ride our Goldwing MC every chance we got, we are now opting for the tandem more often than not. I would like to get more clothes and perhaps a Thudbuster for stoker Arlene but we will put that on hold till at least spring 2009.

I'm thinking that in the overall costs of living bicycles aren't all that expensive.

They don't have to be, but they easily can be a lot of money, more than many spend on cars for example.

Buy a new high end tandem, various miscellaneous accessories/ go fast stuff. Travel to rides, races, and it can get in 5 figures very quickly.

Little or no impact on tandem cycling as our primary hobby as long as we're both employed. We bought a custom S&S equipped tandem about a year and a half ago and expect it will last a long time. Our previous hobbies / passions before we got hooked on tandem riding were offshore sport fishing & scuba diving. Trust me, bikes are much cheaper than boats. There will probably be some cut backs on other travel and discretionary spending, but as long as we're still employed, we'll still do as many ride events, including charity rides, as we can fit in our schedule.

No impact. We have our priorities straight. Cycling (tandems) would be one of the last things we would cut... just before food.

Seriously, we live way below our means. We do not anticipate any impact... things may change down the road.

I’m in the process of ordering a custom S&S coupled Calfee Tetra, have a 5 week cycling holiday planned for next July; so I had to check NO Impact.

We had already ordered, and set aside funds for the tandem when the market's downturn turned into a crash. (It has been going down for over a year by now, but the last six months were worse.)

We're living pretty frugal right now, and the $700 we paid for a used Burley back in March was a major expenditure. Anything to keep it on the road is not discretionary spending, it is legitimate expense. We were considering some rather lavish upgrades, but since I ended up replacing a lot of wear items the impetus is just not there at the moment.

I voted no impact since the economic downturn has little to do with the decision to forgo or delay significant upgrades, and we'll spend on wear items or upgrades as parts fail pretty much regardless of the economy.

Put it on the credit card, pay it off when bill comes in. Just as cheap as the old cash and carry + we get a percentage kickback.
While spending 3 months in northern Utah this summer we filled up the gas tank twice, but did put 1,400 miles on our tandem. More fun/healthier and a not $4.25 a gallon!
Have never been rich in $$ but we do what we want/like to do. We do not believe in paying someone interest and never even had a car loan.
If we can't afford it, we don't buy it. If we need to cut back, we can.
Life's too short to not enjoy it.
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

No difference. We've got everything we need cycling wise - except the usual maintenance items like tubes and tires etc.

I'm in the process of building up an old 10-speed Schwinn tandem (updating and upgrading components). I will be painting the frame (it's in primer now) and was wanting to use automotive paint applied with a touch-up gun and small air compressor but now I'm rethinking that idea. The materials are so expensive and I really don't want to have a gazillion dollars in it at this time and end up depleting my savings.

I got laid off my job last summer after twenty years. I'm working now but after an almost four dollar an hour pay cut I have to watch every penny but never the less this project is still moving foreward. Luckily I have all the parts I need minus stuff like cables, h/bar tape, etc.

This project also includes modifying my old minivan (racks, seat removal, new carpeting, etc.) to haul the tandem around to various venues.

I'm planning to do club rides and some overnight tours with it next year but nothing longer than that or anything real far away.

I called Santana last week to order some bottom brackets. While I had them on the line I asked what impact the economy was having on their sales. The answer was none at all and the high end Beyond was exceeding their expectations.

^It will be interesting to see how that hold up into the Winter and early Spring. Lot's of purchases like that are funded with bonus compensation. When Bonuses are smaller or non-existent it's going to have an impact on luxury purchases.

While some may consider purchase of a quality tandem a luxury, we consider it an investment in our continued good health.

When doing the Cherohala last June, I was not surprised to see the dropoff in car
traffic, but the number of cars was astonishing. Used to have to brake for cars on
the downhill regularly, altho the downhill on a singleton on the Cherohala doesn't get
much over 40mph, on the tandem we hit 54 when we had to brake for a somewhat
tight turn. Never had to brake for a car, as there essentially weren't any. Motor
cycle travel was way down as well, still there but down about 60% from what I
remember 5-6yrs ago. Although gas is down, so is the willingness to spend money
for a large percentage of people at least for the next 4-6months.

Another indicater is century attendance which for major centuries in Alabama in Sept/Oct was down 15-30% depending on the century.

Buy good used or new upgrade parts at a fair price instead of new from individuals, ebay, craigslist and the bike classifieds. Sell what's in the 'extras box' for buying. Wish for 2009: Keep my job. :twitchy:

My wife and I decided about two months ago to sell our only vehicle, not because we needed to, but due to the current state of the environment, gas prices, health benefits...yada yada. In any case...our tandem is now my families "limo" :) The money we save monthly more than pays for any upgrades/repairs that may come along to any of our bikes.

So how has the economy affected our tandem cycling? It's helped us to enjoy our cycling even more! That being said there needs to be another option in the poll for others like us :)

A similar poll on a snowboarding forum I often visit asked "Do you spend more on equipment or on using your equipment (travel, tickets, gas, etc)?

Since it costs almost nothing to ride a bike one would think that most spend more on equipment. However, if you factor in the cost of bicycle specific travel, we spend much more on using our equipment. We've spent very little on our bike since aquiring it about 7 years ago.

I called Santana last week to order some bottom brackets. While I had them on the line I asked what impact the economy was having on their sales. The answer was none at all and the high end Beyond was exceeding their expectations.

I'm curious if their tandem vacation business has been affected. We've heard nothing from them about February's New Zealand trip, and our phone calls to them have gone unreturned.

I have a feeling they are going to cancel it, but are waiting for me to cancel first to avoid returning a rather large (non-refundable) deposit.