Originally Posted by Fenlason
One thing I have have found disapointing is the Santana bashing. I myself find it rather unprofessional, unnessisary and at times somewhat juvenile. For example in my recent thread on zero gravity brakes... tandemgeek starts going off on Santana sales "stuff". How was that relevant to my question?... I like Santana but obviously am not a blind follower. while I find openly discussing the pros and cons of different "way" to me the needless bashing is a turn off.
I responded to YOUR question in my first paragraph, to wit: "Don't waste your money; DuraAce is about as good as it gets for calipers on tandems."
My second paragraph responded to "t4mv" who appeared to be citing chapter and verse from Santana's marketing literature.
As noted in my follow-up post to t4mv...
Originally Posted by TandemGeek
Just to be clear, had the poster's original comments not so closely parroted what is likely in the '07 Santana Tandems & Tandeming catazine (received mine yesterday but haven't read it yet) and/or what Bill has previously posted to Hobbes over the past year, they would not have caught my attention.
Here's the deal: Santana is a fine company that makes fine bikes. Bill McCready is an industry icon, someone I admire and consider as a friend (not a foe). However, the marketing literature which flows from Bill's hand has been called out for being over the top, questionable, and devisive on the internet since 1993 when the Hobbes list was born. I suspect that the 2007 Tandems & Tandeming that I just received continues that tradition and embodies many of the "trial balloons" and comments that Bill has shared with the Hobbes list over the past year on the subject of brakes, wheels, disc brakes, and frame design. Tandem design and equipment is NOT a zero-sum game where there is only one correct approach and all of the others are therefore wrong.
If you'd really like to get a feel for what high-grade Santana bashing is all about I'd invite you to visit the archives at Tandem@Hobbes. A simple search on "Santana AND Bashing" will yield 173 postings, the first from 1994. There are earlier criticisms, but they don't invoke the now ubiquitous "Santana Bashing" label.
Bikeforums.net's tandem forums, on the other hand, occasionally "drifts" into commentary on Santana and even then it is comparatively warm and fuzzy vs. past threads at Hobbes. In fact, a similar seach on "Santana bashing" at Bikeforums.net yields only five threads, two of which are the ones you started today. I would note of the other three, one has nothing to do with tandems or criticism.