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.
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