The Tandem Club of America was founded in 1976 by two teams of tandem enthusiasts on opposite coasts – California and Delaware – who wanted to provide a means to exchange information with other tandem owners throughout the country, find other tandemists, and share their enthusiasm with the uninitiated. Back in the 70’s there were not many tandems out there, and even less information about them! And since tandems were much less mechanically reliable then they are now, and true tandem mechanics few and literally far-between, a means of communicating amongst this diffuse group – in the pre-Internet era – was needed. A newsletter seemed like the best way, and costs needed to be covered in order to support the venture. Hence the TCA and its hard-copy newsletter, DoubleTalk, roughly modeled on the UK’s Tandem Club and its newsletter, were born.
We had a couple of complementary goals in creating the TCA. The primary goal was to provide a means of communication – not just from a few, but hopefully to create a dialog where many people were sharing their ideas and experiences. We wanted information about tandems and tandemists to be as widely available as we could, consistent with not losing money on the deal. Another was to create a sense of community among tandemists. We had initially thought about creating a couple of regional tandem clubs on each coast, but we thought that we could aim a little higher, at a nominally national level, and if we were successful there, the regional tandem clubs would follow naturally. And they did. A third goal was to create the Club and DoubleTalk altruistically, without an overt profit motive, and at the lowest cost consistent with a quality product. So the initial 1976 annual subscription rate was set at $4.50, and all the work over the decades to maintain the club and publish DoubleTalk has been done by volunteer tandemists, except for the professional off-set printing services that we hired out.
Through the years, TCA has been instrumental in communicating the existence of regional tandem clubs, and the rallies the regional clubs have organized for owners of long bikes. Building from the original Eastern Tandem Rally held in 1973, there are now numerous regional rallies and many more state and local events for tandemists to choose from. While financially independent of the TCA, these rallies are heavily promoted and supported by TCA members. For a list of scheduled tandem rallies and other rides be sure to check out our calendar.
DoubleTalk – A second life – 2013-2023
In 2013, in the face of a continuing decline in membership and a turnover in volunteers, we decided that we were no more immune to the rise of the internet, and changes in technology than the newspaper industry as a whole. One option available was to transform DoubleTalk into a professional niche magazine, raise prices, and go to slick paper, like the (now defunct) Tandem Magazine . But we are not professional writers or publishers, and frankly, none of us aspire to become a magazine owner. We’d rather ride our tandems! A second, even more radical change in course was to transform the organization from its 37 year old business model, premised on the organization as a Club and subscription-driven membership that fueled the paper newsletter. The transformation would result in an advertising-driven business model, dominated by a blog-and-website profile. And that is what we have done, while striving to retain the parts of the TCA Club organization that still make sense. That is why in September 2013 we stopped accepting TCA dues and membership renewals. From this point forward, most of the content of the blog and website would be distributed free to all, fueled instead by advertising.
Ultimately, this model did not really work out as we could not really find a enough people to write for it or market it to companies that would advertise on it. It has mostly languished as a resource for links to other tandem website.
Tandem Club Of America – A Third Life – 2023
In 2023, the website was rebuilt specifically with being a central place to gather links to all of the tandem resources available on the web. If you know of any other tandem related web info that you think this site should link to, let us know.