Originally Posted by
Robvolz
As to Ritchey, those tandems are simply art. I have another buddy with one and it is gorgeous. But what year did Specialized buy Ritchie? It was roughly from around '97/98 to maybe 1999/2000. Specialized and Ritchey had come to some sort of agreement to be business partners around that time, this was before Specialized morphed into the super-giant it is today.
I think Markeologist was referring to Specialized having purchased a Ritchey Mountainbike which they copied when designing the Stumpjumper.
I am looking forward to your revelation, but Sinyard would have known that the best tandems were being made on the West Coast of the USA at the time.