Mark,
My current road bike is a 2001 Look KG 241 frame with a mix of Campy Centaur and Record components and a brand spankin new set of Mavic Ksyrum Elite wheels. But, for years I rode Bianchi and Gatane steel frames. I still have my first racing bike, a 1986 Gatane that I paid $450 for. I raced on an used Bianchi frame I paid $200 for and rode it untill I cracked the bottom bracket shell in 2 places. I actually came in 4th in the eastern masters sectional race riding that cracked frame in 1993. In fact, I went strait from 7 speed downtube shifting to 10 speed ergo. But here is the best part! I paid $376 for the Look frame and fork, brand new, delivered to my door from and Ebay seller in England. If it was not so cheap, I never would have purchased it.
The fact is, with bikes or any other product there is a point of deminishing returns, where one pays more but receives less in terms of performance increase for the money spent. A $500 road bike from a bike shop may be twice as good as a $250 bike from a toy store. But, a $1,000 bike is not twice as good as a $500 bike. I can assure you a $2000 bike is not twice as good as a $1,000 bike. Does a set of Campy Record ergo shifters perform better than a set of Volice? Are they twice as good? They cost twice as much so they should work twice as good...guess what, they both work the same. The Record has an insignifacant weight savings. The market responds to what people will buy. If people stopped buying Record, Campy would stop making it. If nobody would pay $5,000 for a tandem, Santana would make $2,000 tandems if they wanted to stay in business. People buy Hummers for God's sakes so that prooves that money and sense do not go hand-in-hand.
When I buy a tandem, I would hope to do 2 rides a week, totaling 100-150 miles. I now ride 4-5 days a week totaling 200-250 miles. I rode 90 miles Saturday with my fastest bud and averaged 19.8 MPH I rode 85 very hilly miles Sunday with the Co-Ed club and averaged about 16 MPH.
I put a premium on reliablity. I don't really care who makes what and my politics are such that I don't feel I have to support US made products just because they are US made (people in other countrys have to eat too). Considering the components on your tandem were made in Japan, I don't see how you can have and issue with the frame being from Asia. We live in a market economy. If KHS, Raleigh or whoever can slap their name on a product and undersell the competition, good for them.
I will buy to meet my needs. But, the fact is nobody 'needs' a $5,000 tandem anymore than the local racers 'need' a set of $3,000 wheels. They buy them because they want them, and they can (maybe) afford them....does not make them any faster...
The fact is, when it comes to bikes, as always, the performace is in the rider, not the bike. We all have our snobbyness. You sound like a tandem snob. I am a Campy snob. I look down on Shimano. Why? who knows! Most likely because it looks like ****. Lance won on Shimano...if he was riding Campy, he still would have won. Back when I was rumaging through bike shop dumpsters for tires to race on, I did not care who's components I used. Now that I have a little disposable income... I am a snob!!!
Funny how money corrupts...
Originally Posted by livngood
So, do you regularly ride a KHS, Raliegh or any other less-than-$800 bike as your primary road bike? If not, what brand and model of personal bike do you ride and why did you select it and the components that it has?
The reason I ask gets back to the basic questions that anyone needs to answer for themselves when shopping for anything:
1. What are you buying?
2. Why are you buying it?
3. What's your budget?
4. What else could you do with the money you're considering to use for the purchase?
If all you want is a tandem for leisurely rides and what not and your budget is under $2000 there are many models to choose from. The frames used by Burley on it's entry level model tandems are the same frames used on it's intermediate models. They are made here it the US and they are less expensive than the intermediate and high-end models because less expensive components are fitted to them.
Cannondale and Trek both offer value-packed tandems because of the economies of scale involved. They tell tens of thousands of bicycles each year and offer tandems because they want to offer their brand-loyal buyers a tandem model and they can do it for far less than than speciality tandem builders who produce something close to 1k tandems per year and, thus, who don't have the economies of scale when it comes to components, etc...
KHS, Raliegh, Roland, and now Schwinn are marketing/distribution firms, not bicycle manufacturers in the traditional sense, who provide entry level bicycles to consumers via mass retailers and a few bicycle shops. The frames are mass produced in Asia and sold under various different brand names, e.g., a Kent tandem frame sold by Walmart is the same as a DiamondBack/Raleigh frame sold elsewhere. They have different paint and components, but are otherwise the same chomo steel frames. I'm not sure who Roland is, but I would be interested to do a frame comparison with the KHS tandems as I suspect there may be a connection.
So, in the end, you buy to meet your needs or -- perhaps in the case of high-end sporting goods and bicycles -- your desires. Tandem "enthusiasts" are just that, enthusiasts. They don't just happen to own a tandem and, instead, in many cases ride it exclusively to the tune of 5k - 10k miles per year. Thus, they -- myself included -- appreciate the subtle differences that differentiate the high-end from the various different levels of tandem offerings and don't mind paying for it. In our case, our tandems are our RVs; we don't have boats, vacation homes, motor homes, or ATVs that compete for our recreational time.
So, by all means, buy within your budget and to meet your needs. But, don't kid yourself into thinking that there's no difference between a $1600 KHS and a $5400 high-end aluminum racing tandem. You may not appreciate the differences or place a value on them, but the differences are the same as you'll find between an $1k entry level racing bike and a $2,600 model.