Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Excellent, EXCELLENT Tandem bike for the $$$ -- as echoed by many other Amazon purchasers. I have been riding and building bikes for over 40 years, so I know what I am talking about. I purchased this one because in our advancing years my wife no longer felt comfortable straddling our trusty ole Burley 'Rock & Roll' tandem of 20+ years. Yes, yes, the components on the Schwinn Twinn are low-end economy (e.g. steel cogs vs exotic forged and machined alloys chain rings etc) -- but they WORK! ...and work WELL -- as long as you are not riding it in the Tour de Peking or other grand toure. Which reminds me -- Whatever Chinese company built this in the name of Schwinn (?) did a very credible job IMHO. (Odd you cant find it in the Schwinn product line up?!?) What most impressed me MOST was the quality of the aluminum frame, which alone is worth the cost of the entire bike -- based on other brand name bikes I have purchased over the years. The frame is light weight, stiff, and strong., Sure the welds aren't ground down to an airplane finish, but again this isnt a racing maacheeen. Assembly and adjustment was 'normal' for a new bike -- which means, one needs to pay attention to the details to tune things, or find a competent bike mechanic who can do this level of work in his/her sleep. I was able to tune the bike and eliminate any unwanted noises, squeaks, scrapes and it runs like a top -- flawless. But what REALLY impressed me was the quality, detail and easy read of the included owners manual. READ it FIRST. Great detail and easy to understand, including how to adjust and includes tricks of the trade that many bike riders dont know. If you or your favorite bike repair guy read the book it will answer all your set up questions. As with any bike of mine, I will eventually upgrade some of the components, like pedals, seats, handle bars, maybe others. But NOT because they dont work, but because I like to personalize the 'ride'. But I could not/would not do that if the frame was flawed. Speaking of ride, we live in relatively flat terrain so the 21 gears work just fine for us -- dont need 30+ gears for mountain climbing. And the wider tires with an inflation limit of 40 lbs give it a 'cruiser' kinda ride, vs a commuter bike, or racing bike feel. You can always get narrower, higher pressure tires/tubes but this is a 'pleasure' ride for us so the lower pressure takes the shock out of the road for the stoker without any fancy seat-stay shock aborbers. The assembled tandem weighs 47 pounds out of the box and my wife and i easily maintain 15 MPH on the flats (Could go much faster if my stoker would 'kick-in' and pedal for heavens sake. LoL Cause the bike is well balanced and stiff. CAUTION: Cant power through a tight turn (e.g. pedal through the turn) as many here have commented. I proved thqt myself LoL. But, BUT, that very point is addressed in the owners manual., as well as other good tips (e.g. like to avoid cross-gearing which especially applies to any 3-chainring bike but is often missed by casual riders. Finally, I rarely write product reviews but this was an exception. I took the risk to purchase this bike only because of the very helpful responses from other Amazon customers to questions I had -- for which I am very grateful to each of you who provided an answer to my questions. My wife LOVES this tandem which makes me extremely happy. I recommend it highly for 'reliable' casual recreational riding (Which at our age constitutes 'exercise') LoL.