frameteam2003

His head barly visible,Eddy rolls his euro-rent-to-own tire/spinning hub cab thing into the drive"Hi Uncle Sam,Sue would like to take a spin on your tandem"Sure it's right over leaning on the fence(https://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2....prod2281492)-- they wobble down the road--his hub caps are still spinning!
Countless reasons to buy a cheep tandem--hang on on the back of the RV.Ride a few bocks to the show and just lean it against a wall while your inside two hours.Or Nephews---sam

EricD

What?

NewbieIATandem

I think the OP wants to say there are many reasons to buy a cheap tandem. If it is for using twice a year on a charity ride of 5 miles, why spend $1000+. If for tooling around the campground at 5mph in 1/4 mile stretches is why you want a tandem, $300 sounds doable, as opposed to no tandem at all.

If you want a Ferrari, expect a Ferrari, and can afford a Ferrari, buy a Ferrari.
If you want a Ford, expect a Ford, and can afford a Ford, buy a Ford.
If you want a car, expect only a car, and can't afford or don't want to afford more than $300, get what you can afford and justify.

We love our tandem, paid $700-800 for it, don't even remember (it got hidden in the $1300+ bill including helmets, riding gear, rack, bells, whistles and the portable kitchen sink; hey we weren't cyclists, we had nothing...) But at the time we wanted more than the Kent DualDrive, but didn't see the need for a carbon fiber tandem that weighed less than a Happy Meal at McDonalds but cost about as much as a car. We don't expect to ride from coast to coast on it, but wanted good reliable fun tandem adventures TWOGether.

The second paragraph was the main thrust of the original post. Gotta admit though, the OP has an "interesting" way with words.

Fenlason

I do not think any of us were overlooking that there are those, that do not need an expensive bike.

More of what some of us, were debating... How inexpensive,,, should one go. How expensive can you go, and still have a safe useful product. I will acknowledge that ones use, even dictates, what one considers safe and useful. How well something has to work ... when it is used mimimally, twice a year at a campground, vs on a touring trip through the Rockies.

If the bike is made so inexpensively... it does not work at all, then regardless... the money was thrown away.

If you find a deal on light bulbs... they are real cheap. If when you get them home, and screw them in, and they do not work... or stay lit for only 60 seconds... then was the purchase worth it?

glenn

NewbieIATandem

What we need then are reviews of all the cheap tandems... Maybe we can convince Tandem and Recumbent Magazine to have a series of reviews of the really cheap tandems. Would be interesting to see a review of a $10k carbon fiber bike and a $300 bike in the same issue.

bmonnig

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=kent

gregm

$10k carbon vs. $300 steel? So this would be the dirt-cheap tandem review issue?

-Greg

cornucopia72

Call us elitist or snobs but we figure that if in this day an age our level of interest on a tandem only allowed us to spend $200.... then we would not be that interested on wasting our time in this forum... would we?

NewbieIATandem

There is a use for $12,000 cars and $120,000 cars. If I am driving 10 miles to and from work do I need a $120,000 car? Would I LIKE to have a $120,000 car, of course, but if the choice is to have no car until I can afford a $120,000 car that will be much more than I need, or buy a $12,000 car now that will do the job, I'll buy the $12,000 car.

If someone spends $300 on a tandem, and discovers they love to ride with their significant other, and that they would much prefer a $3000 tandem, they have something to ride while they save their nickels and dimes and folding money.

If they scrimp and save to buy a $3000 tandem, and discover they just don't get along as well as they hoped they would. They might have had to save for 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, hoping and dreaming and then having the dream crushed. Now they have a $3000 tandem that because it is not new is no longer worth $3000. In some parts of the country they might have a very difficult time selling it (market for tandems is not strong everywhere).

I guess I just fall on the side of, if you keep in mind your needs / use of a product, your perfect product may not be mine. In other words, why are there so many brands of toilet paper? A balance of price, expectations, comfort, scent, size of roll, etc. etc. Charmain vs. Northern vs. ... Same thing with tandems, if we all had the same needs there would be exactly one choice, maybe different manufacturers, but all the tandems would be produced exactly the same size, color, number of gears, seats, etc. But I blather.

It is not about how much $ we have invested in an activity that determines if we are passionate about it enough to participate in this forum. It is about is tandem cycling important to us for whatever our own personal reasons. AND... enough of an interest that we want to share our experiences with other tandemists.

As long as the bike is not putting my butt to sleep and I am riding with my wife (hence enjoying the ride), it is suiting its intended purpose. If it will safely go 10-15 miles at a stretch, I'm fine with that. Maybe someday when we have the time (when the kids are out of the house) we will want more, but our $800 tandem is just fine for us right now.

cornucopia72

+1 yet, the pertinent question in this tread is: How many of us, participants in this forum, would or have spent $200 on a new tandem in 2007 dollars? (defense of the CHEEP TANDEM)

NewbieIATandem

Conceded. This forum (or any club etc.) is going to primarily focus on people who are more "intense" into an activity. However, a certain level of monetary involvement is not required to have a passion for an activity. As has been mentioned in this and other forums I've seen stories like...

"I was pounding up this hill at near warp speed in my tight cycling shorts, unobtanium frame, etc. when this ****er on a rusty old yellow scwhinn banana seat with tassles on the bars wearing flip flops blew by me like I was standing still..."

We just have to accept, the majority of forum members here are more "dedicated". So, the majority of people here probably have much more time, money, dedicated to tandeming. It is not a requirement. If you have, want, a cheap tandem and are happy with it, we would welcome you here.

Knubby

NewbieIA, you've made great valid points in which I totally agree.

Cornucopia, I've have given some thought in buying a rock bottom tandem for our camping trips in Yosemite and other places. Ride it on the bike paths to the trailheads and chain the darn thing up with nothing to worry about. If it's there when I get back , great, if not no big deal!

zonatandem

Whatever you enjoy/want/can afford . . .
Have ridden CHEEP +/- $300 tandems and up to $13,000 (PRICEY) tandems. Any difference? You bet!
But why max out a credit card? Buy the best you can afford.
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem

Leigh_caines

Start your good lady on a $300 one
She loves it
Buy a $1000 one
She loves it
Buy a $10,000
And so on

sean3089

I have an $800 KHS tandem. What a tank.

wahoonc

IMHO excellent advice! Which is what I have done/am doing. We just picked up a gently used 200? Raleigh Companion for $300 I figure another $100 or so in minor upgrades will make it much more user friendly for us. I am not a big fan of Walmart and have seen some serious quality control issues with what comes from their manufacturers. I have looked at several entry level tandems but the price point was still a bit much. This one hit it right on the money. Used bikes in my market are a crap shoot, usually it is an Xmart special being sold at a thrift shop or yard sale for 80% the price of new, or a good quality at a similar price point. People are real proud of their stuff around here...

Aaron

Retro Grouch 

Our first tandem.

Back in 1976 we had a lot of kids and not much money. Basically my only recreation was bicycling with a neighbor but my wife was just a step up from a non-rider and that didn't work very well for her.

A friend who was moving asked if I wanted a tandem that her kids didn't use anymore. It was a Schwinn Twinn coaster brake bike that had been left out in the rain too many times. The only useable part was the frame. The very first person who I talked to was a 20 something bike mechanic at my LBS. He said his dad had taken all of the components off of a Schwinn Twinn 5-speed and replaced them with various aluminum parts. He sold me seats, handlebars, wheels, cranks, derailleur everything for $30.00 which, at the time, was absolutely all that I could afford. After spreading the rear triangle and figuring out how to run the cable routing I had a 60 pound tandem for around a $50.00 investment.

Over the next 8 years my wife and I rode that bike a lot. We took it to MTR. We rode the Grand Tour of Hermann, a local Hilly Hundred type of ride. While some riders openly scoffed, we were together and we were on the road having fun and it was the best bike that we could afford at the time so we didn't care.

In about 1984 we ended up with a car that we didn't need so we sold it and used the proceeds to buy our first Santana. Our parents thought we were crazy and one of my kids told me that I had done it backwards - I was supposed to sell my bikes to buy a car.

There have been some other, progressively nicer, tandems since then. We've made some close bicycling friends whom we've known for over 25 years. We even operated our own bike shop for a while until we ran out of money. None of that would have ever happened had we not been given that first Schwinn tandem frame.

The Schwinn Twinn was eventually sold to a family who had a totally blind teen aged daughter. She loved it and they were greatful for the opportunity to buy a cheap tandem.

Cheap tandems can be a very good thing.

blamp28

Cool story Retro!!

oldacura

I know several new posters have queried here about new, cheap (e.g. Walmart) tandems.

I'm certain that most tandem enthusiasts here would be disappointed by one of these. However, for a couple who 1) Aren't even certain that they will enjoy bike riding and 2) Don't know if they will like tandeming, trying to test the waters with a several hundred dollar tandem might be a pretty inexpensive way to try it out.

wahoonc

I still would search for a NAME BRAND used tandem rather than risk spending money on a questionable quality one from WM. FWIW a local company I am contracting for purchased 7 bicycles from WM (the Next Cruisers) of the 7, 3 had major issues in the first week, frame crack on one, defective bottom bracket on another and the third had a wheel collapse. You are also taking a chance on the assembly. FWIW the $300 tandem that I was referring to in the earlier post was originally a $750+ tandem and has been gone through by my LBS and comes with a 1 year warranty and free service. IIRC Walmart has a 90 or 120 day return policy.

Aaron

cornucopia72

We do not see how someone can recommend buying a CHEAP tandem. No way! No how! Renting or buying an inexpensive used bike is completely different ...."harina de otro costal"