Seems like a lot of trouble for a bicycle. What's the story?

There's probably a term for it but I'm calling it a sentimental restoration. Fixing up the tandem well beyond any kind of eventual resale value. Why bother?

There is the sentiment. Emily and I rode it a lot, spent a lot of important time on it in the early, formative part of our life together. I'm hoping we'll get back into riding it and maybe get a glimpse of that young love again. Also, it's actually a pretty decent tandem, I think. I'll explain, and it'll get very bike-geeky.

Em and I put the tandem together in 1996, but it was actually a 1994 frame set. Why does that matter? In '93, venerable Schwinn Bicycle Co. went bankrupt (for the first time). Schwinn was a multi-generational family controlled company that had gotten fat and complacent. They fought with their dealer network and with their own workers in Chicago and then turned to production in the far-east and apparently didn't endear themselves there either. The head of Schwinn at that time was Eddie Schwinn, a lecherous playboy, not a bike guy. There was a Schwinn there who did care about bikes, Richard. He went on to start his own company, Waterford Precision Cycles, with a partner he also brought over from the old Schwinn Bicycle Co. They make pretty fine bikes in Wisconsin, under their own name and for some other brands. 

In its heyday Schwinn had real factories churning out bikes in the US, and they built some iconic bikes from many of our childhoods. Newspaper boy bikes, 10-speeds, Sting-rays, tricycles for adults, expensive road and mountain bikes and tandems. There was an intension to satisfy every age and style of bike rider and they did it pretty well. But by the '80s things were going downhill. The labor troubles along with a lack of innovation were partly to blame and competition was increasing. And then there was Trek Bicycle.

Trek was another multi-generational family controlled company, though much newer than Schwinn, with factories and headquarters in the US. Dick Burke, not a bike guy but a CPA with curiosity, was introduced to some passionate bike guys who were making bikes in a barn in rural Wisconsin but who couldn't figure out how to make any money at it. Dick had a hand in other businesses dealing in appliances and heating and cooling equipment so he had some familiarity with manufacturing and distribution. He also had some kids and some cash and a desire to work with things a little bit more fun than washers and dryers and air conditioners. Not being a bike guy, he was able to take a step back and look at this little bike company and the industry it was in and be objective about what he saw. He saw Schwinn in decline, and he saw these guys building bikes in a barn making some pretty good bikes but doing a rotten job of selling them. And the bikes they were selling were aimed towards a fairly small group of folks - bicycle enthusiasts, especially those that liked to load up their bikes and head across the country. 

So Dick came in to Trek and started shaking things up. He also brought in his son John and a few other family members including his daughter Mary. You may remember Mary Burke as the person who unsuccessfully tried to save Wisconsin from Scott Walker by running against him for governor. The Burkes were hard workers and they turned things around at Trek. They noted that at one time Schwinn had a huge and devoted dealer network that were treated well and made money on the products, but that more recently had been taken for granted. With that in mind, the Burkes concentrated on building an extensive dealer network that they tried to make more attractive to consumers and more profitable for the dealers themselves. 

Keep in mind that the bicycle industry had (and still has) a lot of people in it who were passionate about bikes but weren't very interested in having nice stores or making any money, and most of those people owned and worked in bicycle stores. It wasn't easy to convince some of those bike dealers that they should be friendly to customers and have products the customers actually wanted. Eventually, Trek was selling all kinds of bikes for all types of people, including tandems, one of which is the one I'm working on and ostensibly writing about.

I've already told you a little about our tandem bike. How Em and I put it together together, and it was at our wedding. We just celebrated our 24th anniversary, so the tandem went together 25 years ago. For the first 5 years, before kids, we rode it a lot. I maintained it, for sure, but I've never done a full tear-down in that time. It's no lightweight, but we've dragged it to Vermont, Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina and of course Maryland, Virginia and DC. Some long drives with it bolted to the roof of the car. Some of them rainy. And lots of sweat.

Last year, with the kids grown and the pandemic and all we started riding it again. Not a lot, but probably more than the last 10 years combined. We still love being together on it, but we don't fit on it like we used to, and the heavy-duty but old drivetrain and brakes just aren't up to current standards and can be a little frustrating. So I decided to bring it up to date, with as little $ spent as possible.

It'll get a new fork, new wheels that I'm building, disc brakes front and rear, new cockpits, and a modern 10-speed drivetrain, though probably not new. With all that, I'm hoping it'll last us another 25 years, which I expect will be all we'll need.

To do all that work on a bicycle, however, first there is some disassembly required. And bikes of this age that have been ridden this much and worked on this little can sometimes not want to disassemble, especially if they were built in haste by a less than careful or skilled mechanic.

Luckily, I was the mechanic, assisted by Emily. And there in the basement of the house I lived in on Farragut St in DC, with Bob

Patten

getting to know

Lois Wessel

upstairs, I'm pretty sure I must have worked ultra carefully to impress my future wife. Because after 25 years, the bike came apart wonderfully, excepting the rear bottom bracket. Penetrating oil is doing its thing now, I'll get the rear bb out too.

Then I'll need to hunt down some more parts, build the wheels, clean and polish the frame and rust-protect the inside of it before I get to put all the modern stuff on it. Spring is coming! I'll keep you posted. 

 Here we are actually RIDING the tandem in June 2020.

 

In the first picture,

Emily North

and I are midway through the Seagull Century. We'd been married 8 months, almost to the day. Known each other less than 2 years. I was working for Trek Bicycle but I was too cheap to actually buy a tandem bike. Instead, possibly with some inside help from

Lester Binegar

, I found a bare frame in the Trek factory and picked all the parts from the closeout/discount parts list Trek had. Em and I built the beast together, in the basement of the place I was living in DC. Voila, less expensive tandem. Second picture shows it at our wedding, right at the front of the sanctuary. We even had waterbottles printed with a drawing of us riding it that everyone at our wedding got, third picture. Want a really good test of a young relationship? Ride 100 miles together on a tandem bicycle. Still have this bike, still ride it, still married!