OP/Ottomata;

Re PWC price; There isn't a tagline on the webpage saying "Peter is Currently Giving Stuff Away Just For The Hell of It". Basic he and other shop owners sell things based on their cost plus a bit of profit plus a bit for labor. And generally good quality bike parts are not what you would call cheap. I have went through the work and materials needed to make a hub from scratch for a customer application and it is a lot more than $300. When it comes to tandem specific strength stuff, the wholesale cost to the dealer is higher due to the far lower volume (like 1-2% of the volume for single bike stuffs). It is what it is. These shop owners are offering their product for a fair market price and they will build you a wheel-to-die-for; not a wheel-to-die-on! There is a difference. And it is not Walmart!

- To extend that discussion: If one is wanting or needing to buy something like the above said item, but wants or needs to pay only a forth as much, then he has to look at other outlets.

-- Ebay is a big one but it is an acquired taste so to speak. If you login to ebay and search on tandem +bike (not in quotes) then you will find tandem bikes and tandem parts and pieces. Likely quite a few pages. So search again using tandem +bike +wheel and you will still get some bikes but the results will have a higher ratio of tandem wheels. Look within all those to find what you want. I normally sort the listing by "those expiring first" so if the auction for the exact thing you are looking for is ending in 10 minutes, then you will have 10 minutes to look at it before the auction is over and you miss out on it because you couldn't convince youself to pull the trigger soon enough...

-- Craigslist is usually a decent place to buy a used name brand bike (magic spot for a used Trek) and somethings a used tandem. To my experience it isn't of much use to buy just bike parts or tandem parts. However you can sometimes snag a nice Tandem at a good price; the same as on ebay. The downside of craigs is that you typically have to actually deal with actual people and you have little structured protections. If I am buying a bike, then I ask the seller where the nearest Walgreens or nearest police station is to there location and then agree to meet the seller only at those types of locations. Even more so if I am the seller...I never allow anyone to visit my residence as getting mugged/robbed/killed is not my idea of a good day.

-- Now to close; Your inference to parts verses an entire bike. Yes, to a degree. If you have a tandem frame already and want to build it as an example. This is going to cost you a lot if you buy all the pieces from retail stores and websites. Maybe $2.500 or so more or less. However If you buy a complete Cannondale/Commotion/ Santana/Burley/etc, off ebay or craigs then you will probably have from $700 to $1,800 invested in that effort. Then it is your choice whether to swap the components over to your existing frame or just sell it and ride the new one as is. However if you are not fully up on the idiosyncrocies of bottom bracket spindle lengths, stem fitting, OLNs, seat post diameters, Cantilevers vs Rim vs Disk and all that that entails, then keep the new bike together and ride it unless you just have lots of extra money and time to burn... In many cases when one finds oneselve in a deep hole and having only the shovel in your hand, then the best use of that shovel is not to dig further, but to lean it against the wall of the hole to support your foot in leveraging yourself out of the hole.

Hope that helps
K