The Annual Tandem Cyclists Survey
TheTandemLink.com


It's once again winter in North American and time for my annual, highly unscientific survey of tandem owners. This year's survey looks at tandem owner demographics, experience, riding style, and new tandem acquisition as a relative gauge of the market.

You will find a variety of different questions below that ask for different types of responses. Please be sure to read each question carefully, noting that some questions will only allow you to submit one answer where others allow you to check multiple responses.

Please Note: This is a blind survey in that it does not ask you for any personal information that can be used to identify you with your responses; therefore, please be candid, honest, and limit your responses to one survey per household.


1.  When did you first purchase and/or begin to ride a tandem on a regular basis?

 


2.  What is your combined Team Age as of today? Example: If today the Captain is 52 years old and the Stoker is 35 years old their combined age would be 87 years. Note: If you ride with multiple partners use the data that best represents your most frequent adult riding partner.

 


3.  When you and your primary tandem partner first began to ride tandems how would you describe yourselves?

 


4.  How would you describe yourselves as a tandem team relative to skill / experience?

 


5.  Where do you do most of your riding? (Check all that apply)

Exclusively on dedicated bicycle facilities, e.g., MUPs & bike paths
Bike paths, bike trails, MUPs, and rails to trails projects
Lightly traveled rural roads
Public highways and thoroughfares
Urban and suburban roads with moderate traffic
Large city roads with heavy congestion
Off-road bike trails and fire roads
Off-road single track and technical terrain
Velodrome (high banked bicycle track)
Closed road racing courses  


6.  With whom do you ride your tandem? (Check all that apply)

Spouse
Children
Spouse or children
Spouse + child or multiple children (Triplet Quad, etc)
With single bike rider friends
With the racer boys on training rides
With many other cyclists at organized rides / centuries
With other local tandem teams
With many other tandems at rallies and such
Other tandem teams who compete at sanctioned events  


7.  Approximately how many total miles did you and your partner(s) ride on your tandem this past year (2007), on road, off-road, or otherwise. Single-bike mileage doesn’t count.

 


8.  Which of the following describe your typical tandem rides (Check all that apply)

Basic transportation
An easy social ride of 20 miles or less
Fitness or social rides of 20-35 miles
Fitness or social rides of greater than 35 miles
A hard/fast training ride of 25-50 miles
A hard/fast training rides of greater than 50 miles
Banging elbows with the racer boys on club training rides
Organized fund-raisers, metric or full centuries, and tandem rallies
Centuries, double centuries, and brevets
Time trials, Criteriums, Omniums, or off-road races  


9.  Do you think of yourselves as an Elite, A, B, or C Team or perhaps just Civilian Cyclists? A complete description of my unofficial hierarchy of tandem teams can be found at this URL: http://www.thetandemlink.com/heirarchy.html. In short, Elite = licensed racers, A = very fast teams, B = faster than the average teams, C = your average team, and Civilian Cyclists are just folks who enjoy riding tandems but who don’t fancy themselves as the ubiquitous lycra-clad cycling team.

 


10.  When did you purchase your last BRAND NEW tandem?

 



Helping you improve your world - OpinionPower.com