Originally Posted by
Fantasminha
By all means, you are doing right by trying to find someone who actually owns one of these tandems. Having looked at those "reviews" I find them to be dubious at best given: a) the similar writing style and "talking points" that appear in most of them, and b) the timing / intervals between posts.
Anymore, you have to really be on guard for folks who have a financial stake in products that post bogus reviews to sites like Total Bike, MTBR, or RoadBikeReviews and who otherwise join forums to simply pimp those products and the bogus reviews. We've had a couple folks attempt that here but their posting history gave them away.
Anyway, be sure to give your local Craigslist a check. You can usually find some pretty good second hand, premium quality tandems for under $1,200 that will serve you well for a long time. KHS also makes some pretty good entry level tandems for under $1000 and you can often times find those on close-out around this time of year.
Then again, if your riding goals are modest and you or your spouse can work on your own bikes then even these department store bikes can be made to work for family rides on bike paths and the like.