Originally Posted by
mrdelurk
One of the things that got me to Ali is tandem bikes. Your experience on the Mainland might differ, but on my Hawaiian island, there are 2 major bike shops, and neither stocks tandems. I asked both for a quote repeatedly, that was 6 months ago, nothing ever came out of it. Next I went to the local WalMart's manager: "if you can get me 3 tandems, I'll prepay you right here and now. Just get them in and call me when they are ready for pickup." The answer? "Let me get back to you on this." (They never did either.) After this, whenever I tried to purchase a tandem online (on Ebay, Amazon, WalMart, you name it) at checkout I would be always told that this item does not ship to Hawaii. Period. So what else remains? Ali. I already exhausted every other alternative I could think of.
Have you tried reaching out to Co-Motion, they make some pretty nifty Tandems and would likely ship to your shop. Call up Ethan, he is a really nice guy and helped me with my single (a Cascadia I love dearly) and some other stuff. If you need any help navigating I am happy to help out as I can just PM me.
Tandems are an oddity for most shops so your experience isn't uncommon. Bike shops unless they are specialists in whatever genre generally will stick to what they know can sell. It is hard to buy odd items even if they are bicycles and even if to you they aren't odd. I am going to sell more mid priced hybrids then say tandems or downhill bikes or even my beloved touring bikes. Luckily though there are plenty of builders out there and some of them specialize in tandems like Co-Motion and you can order through them and if your shop has mechanics they should be able to help you get it assembled and maintained.