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Standard Disclaimer: These
are highly unscientific surveys developed using a free survey
tool that has a number of technical limitations and constraints
that tend to influence the scope and content of the survey. However,
the most important thing to keep in mind is that these types
of surveys are on par with the Iowa Caucasus in terms of representing
anything more than views of an incredibly skewed population.
After all, to be a participant someone must: a) have a computer
with internet access, b) belong to either the Tandem@Hobbes
listserver, BikeForums.net
tandem sub forum, the PEACHES mailing list, or the Double
Forte mailing list, c) have seen the poll announcements,
d) be willing to invest the time and energy to take the poll,
e) be completely honest and candid in their replies, and f) understand
what the questions were actually looking for.... which can sometimes
be the biggest barrier given that I usually know what I meant,
but may not have clearly conveyed that to others. The first few
items are always the biggest problem with Internet surveys, i.e.,
let's face it, people who hang-out in internet forums are different
from folks who don't. However, that all said, big number theories
sometimes play out in interesting ways and I'd say that the results
I've seen in these surveys do seem to represent what I see in
the real world.
In closing, please remember
that these surveys are intended for entertainment purposes only
and responses are not collected for commercial purposes. Additionally,
no names or identifies are collected or associated with the completion
of the surveys.
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1. How long have you
been tandeming? While not intended to preclude that one time
you and a friend hopped on a rickety old tandem and went cruising
around the boardwalk, this is really looking back to when you
decided that you were serious about riding tandems.
It appears to be a pretty flat
distribution if you assume the values for the five-year spans
are evenly distributed, which is similar to what we say back
in the 2007 survey.
In fact, the new-to-tandeming
values are exactly the same at 11% and the total number of more
seasoned respondents (over 20 years) is also fairly consistent.
This is actually a good thing, as it seems to indicate the "population"
that I survey hasn't fallen-off significantly.
However, the distribution does
appear to suggest the population is getting older as many of
the mid-years values are shifting to the left.
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2. Down economy impact:
It's been a tough couple years for a lot of folks, and certain
industries and areas have been hit a lot harder than others.
How would you characterize your situation?
Ouch. Even in our small community
of tandem enthusiasts we can see the recent economic down-turn
(interesting that no one calls it a 'correction' as they do
the stock market when it tanks) has left it's mark.
Down: About 18% of our respondents
reporting a negative employment impact, of whom 4% are still
not working. Interestingly enough, 17% of the respondents who
are doing OK indicated family or friends were negatively impacted
by the economy.
Neutral: About 62% of our respondents
were not negatively or positively impacted, but about 23% of
those feel like they're on the bubble in terms of the future
outlook.
Up: Per the law of averages, 8%
of our respondents report a positive change in their personal
situation.
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3. Spending on cycling:
Somewhat hand-in-glove with the previous question is the following
that takes a look at how the current economic conditions may
have influenced your spending habits on cycling and tandeming:
Down: About 20% of our respondents
reporting some type of scaling back or recessionary change in
their cycling consumption, somewhat in line with the 18% who
reported a negative employment impact.
Neutral: About 56% have not changed
their spending habits when it comes to cycling. However, what
I find fascinating is exactly 1/2 of this status-quo group characterized
themselves as frugal. It's not that being frugal is of interest,
it's just the statistical probability that the split in these
two similar questions was right down the middle: 99 to 99.
Up: Interestingly, 20% of our
respondents are leaning forward in their cycling-related spending
with 15% buying new tandems and another 5% throttling up on leisure
travel.
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4. Aches and pains:
It's not all that unusual for tandem teams to experience various
aches and pains associated with cycling. Without getting into
when they occur (e.g., after being off the bike for the winter),
which of the following have plagued your team?
I'm Good: About 31% of the respondents
reported no issues.
Butt...: and this will make the 'bent riders
smirk a bit, 105 (30%) of the respondents reported
both saddle-interface and handlebar-interface related issues:
that in and of itself is interesting. Butt... it gets better.
Excluding respondents with
chronic pain issues in these same areas unrelated to cycling,
respondents also experienced feet (15%), lower-back (16%),
neck/shoulder (23%) and knee (26%) issues.
Many aches and pains in these
areas suggest our respondents may not be properly fitted, positioned
or be using good technique. I'd venture a guess that more than
half of these issues could be corrected by a professional bicycle
fitter or cycling coach. Just something to think about.
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5. Tires - Part 1:
What size tires do you use on your road tandem? Please indicate
which of the following tire sizes are the ones that you use most
often.
This is not going to make the
large-volume / lower rolling resistance tire crowd happy...
Narrow: More than 1/4 (28%) of respondents
reporting running narrow tires on their tandems, which even surprised
me... noting that we've been in that camp since we started riding
tandems.
OEM Spec: Not surprising was seeing nearly
2/3ds of respondents (65%) are still running what has
become the ubiquitous OEM-spec tire size for most road tandems
that are not marketed as racing or touring specific models.
Touring & Wide: Given the number of multi seat tandems,
larger teams and some of the less than ideal road conditions
that exist in many locales, I was surprised that only 17%
of the respondents are running larger volume tires, e.g., 32mm
(14%) or the 35mm and up (3%) size tires.
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6. Tires - Part 2:
What's your favored brand of road tire? Please indicate which
of the following brands of road tires are what you'd call your
"favorite"... or "favorites" if you use different
brands for different purposes.
OK, now this one will make
the folks at Continental smile... 62%, which probably
says more about achieving OEM spec for the 3 largest-volume tandem
builders than anything else.
However, what I didn't expect
to see was Schwalbe coming in 2nd with a 16% market share of our population, with
the once mighty Michelin falling in at 3rd with a 12% market share.
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7. Tires - Part 3:
Tires are a constant discussion subject among cyclists and tandem
teams and, frankly, much of what you'll hear is pretty subjective...
even some of the purportedly objective stuff. So, what we're
looking for here is just some basic feedback based on your experiences
with road tires on your tandems.
Now, I'm not sure there's a
direct connection here or not (probably not), but it's interesting to see that 215 respondents
(62%) reported no real problems with their tires.
Now, where did I just see 62%?? Oh, that's right... the 211 folks
(62%) who use Continental tire.
In the tire fitment and quality
department, just under 10% of respondents reported problems.
Tread life is such a wild card
due to the different compounds, loading and road conditions --
much like measures of rolling resistance -- that I view these
results as interesting, but not all that useful. To be fair,
you'd have to survey a select set of the most popular brands
and models of tires to see what's really going on here. Being
someone who uses racing tires on our road tandems, 1,500 miles
out of rear tire is only something we could dream of and even
1,000 miles given all of our hills is a stretch.
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Apparently
the disclaimer that preceeded the
statistical coincidence I pointed out in my comments on Question
#7, above, didn't prevent a few folks from reading too much into
my not-so-serious comparison of data points to similar counts
in Question #6.
Therefore,
since I was at home with the 24-hour flu today I killed an hour
by going through the 350 or so survey responses (they come to
me in indivual emails, not a database) to see what I could parse
out of the inputs. As is typical when you allow folks to make
multiple responses on a given questions, the survey tallies hide
a lot of the details, such as respondents who listed several
brands of tires instead of just one (which was absolutely
what they should have done, per the instructions). However,
when multiple tire brands were listed an a problem with "casing
deformation or sidewall failures" was reported it would
have been way too presumptious to assume all of the tire brands
listed had that problem so none were counted. When the reverse
was reported on multiple tire listing, e.g., no real problems
to report all of the tire brands were credited with the positive
feedback. It's also important to point out that there was not
a one-for-one relationship between question #6 & #7 where
either a positive or negative comment was reported and, in many
cases, tread life was only reported. Therefore, rather than assuming
tread-life only reports or damaged before worn-out were positive
or negative I just didn't count them at all.
So, what you'll
find below is a summary of the individual brands of tires that
were specifically mentioned in Question #6 where a discrete 'No
real problems to report" or discrete problem (negative)
reply was recorded in Question #7. Note that there were very
few negatives reported and that 40% of those (18) were in the
"Difficult to Mount" category, with 10 of the 18 reported
against Continental tires.
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8. Component Reliability:
Tandems can be tough on parts, that's pretty well understood.
What we're looking for here is your feedback on which of the
following components have given you problems where the components
needed to be repaired or replaced to correct the problem:
How about that: fully 66%
of the respondents have had no problems with their
tandem components. That's a good news story, although 80% would
be a better target and 90% would be ideal.
Interestingly, chain breakage
for 35 respondents (10%) garnered only about 1/2 as many
responses this year as it did in last year's survey, where 60
folks (21%) reported drive chain breaks.
Also of some interest is that
Bottom Brackets (10%) out paced integrated shifters
as a problem-plagued component for respondents.
In the high-tech component
segment, only one carbon fork failure (.3%) and
the integrated wheels held their own against conventional wheels
once you factor in the market penetration / percent of integrated
wheelset ownership.
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9. Overall Bike Performance
/ Tweaking: Coming short of a component failure are finicky components
that always seem to require adjustment more often than they seemingly
should. Which of the following have you experienced:
First off, let me thank the
19 respondents (5%) who appreciated my weak attempt at levity
and humored me with a positive response to the 'whiney' captain
/ stoker question. Frankly, I believe that number may be way
understated... but only from observations not personal experience.
;^)
Anyway, again... a respectable
number of respondents reported no unusual maintenance
requirements (44%) for their tandems as compared to their
single bikes.
Rear derailleurs (24%), not surprisingly, led
the pack followed shortly behind by front derailleurs
(23%) as being more needful than single bike adjustments.
For the rear derailluer, it's simply the length of the cable
and cable stretch that compounds the issue. For front derailleurs,
I fault the STI mechanism which is probably the most common type
of system found on tandems sold since the late 90's.
Everything else as reported
sounds about right. Some can be corrected but take more experience
and time to troubleshoot than you'll find your average bike shop
mechanic has or is willing to invest.
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10. Tandem activity
up or down? So, how much tandem riding is going on in your area
and household?
Again, the numbers here are
fascinating from a statistical standpoint. Exactly the same number
of respondents in two big categories with 143 each (41%)
reporting the same or more mileage than last year.
The number of folks who reported
they'll attend rallies and tour this year is also quite
healthy and well-up from previous years at 43%.
As for tandem sightings,
again... about 42% reported seeing the same or more tandems
on the roads in the past year.
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