Schwinn Twinn

I am an aircraft mechanic and have been comparing the quality and materials of bicycles for a while. This is a great bicycle and an excellent value for the price! Improved design over Schwinn's classic tandem bike. Aluminum alloy frame and disc brakes being two major features. Easy assembly. I chose the large frame because I am 6'2" but my wife is 5'4". The bike size works well for both of us. It has a comfortable ride and we are looking forward to many miles riding.

This tandem with Aluminum frame, modern mountain bike specs shipped for $400 is a STEAL. Period. Even if the price is just the frame I'd say it's still the most competitive, if not the only, mtb tandem out there. If you buy a bike online, you should be prepared to adjust brakes, shifters etc. yourself. Some knowledge on bike assembly and adjustment is required. That's how you save money compared to buying from a store. Frame: Has oversized tubes and welds are fine. This bike is from a well managed modern production line instead of some garage. Much lighter than any steel frame out there.Headset is old school EC34 (34mm diameter) that takes 1 1/8 straight fork. Be aware, this bike has low bottom brackets. Your pedals or crank arm will easily scratch the ground on uneven terrain or turning with inner foot down. Crankset: OK for the price. I use this to convert this bike to independent pedaling system (IPS). Search for Crankarm Set Ips Road Ftorrr Blk 170Mm Fork: Cheap fork that is OK for the price. One quirk is that if you open the cap on top, you can actually use it as storage space, since the fork has no damper whatsoever at all. The headtube only accept 1 1/8 threadless straight forks with more than about 8 inch steerer, minimum. I managed to find a Fox TALAS 36 straight fork (100-160 travel adjustable) and beefed up the front end. Swapped out wheels as well to install front thru axle and rear 10spd cassette. If you are not trying to do mtb on it like me, just leave the fork and wheels alone. The fork is a bit heavy, but he wheels are surprisingly lightweight. Just use them until you break them. I used a 30.0 seatpost for the front rider, sand papered down all parts a little bit for it to fit. The stock 29.8 mm seatpost seems a bit too loose in the seat tube. Of course you can add some shims to make it tighter. Tires are lightweight and good enough for cruising around. Kenda 2.0 with some tread for feather light offroad. Saddles are surprisingly well made compared to the price. They are wide, heavy, comfy for ordinary person. They even speced a wider saddle for the lady at back and a narrower saddle for the man at front. Very considerate. Would recommend to anyone who wants to try tandem. It is a great way to get your loved one or your friend out to do some exercise, or talk to a real person in 2018. Especially for the price, shipping such a thing alone is well over $100.

We decided to trade in our lower priced, heavier tandem for the Schwinn, and have not been disappointed. Our observations after riding for 3 months- nice bike, lots of compliments on the appearance. Quality is good for this price range, assembly was fairly easy (the Owner's manual attempts to be a "one size fits all" guide, which results in a lot of confusion for the reader). We have noticed the two minor shortcomings that are mentioned in many other reviews- the turn radius is very limited, and the foot pedals could be better. Overall, we are very satisfied with this purchase.

Pros: Weight, components, setup and design. Let me start off by saying that for this price, I am hugely impressed by what comes on this bike. For a mere 440 dollars you get basically everything on an entry level hybrid bike, but with a tandem frame and some extra finishing kit. Out of the box everything worked pretty well but needed a slight adjustment, especially the chain tension from the captain to the stoker. The quality of the Shimano shifters is great for being their entry level stuff. I have Shimano XT on my mountain bike and this is just as reliable. The shifting quality isn't perfect but it's good enough for most users. Let's face it, you aren't buying a tandem to win a Gran Prix. But, with the weight of this bike, you might be competitive! I estimated it to weigh around 40 to 45 lb which is quite good for a commuter. The disc brakes work phenomenally and really allow you to upgrade the bike in the future if need be. Overall really impressed with what you get for the price. Both of us love riding it and it was a fairly cheap way to try out the tandem lifestyle without committing to a 2 grand bike. Cons: finishing kit and fork Alright so this bike does have some flaws, mainly the finishing kit and the fork. Let's start with the finishing kit, aka the parts that no one really checks before purchasing. Both saddles are atrocious if you intend on riding anything but the beach, too squishy and wide. We changed these out immediately for our own preferred saddles. The pedals are decent, plastic platforms, pretty standard. The cranks are cast, and have riveted chainrings, not good for changing chainrings in the future and very heavy. The bars and seatposts are heavier than what they need to be but will probably last forever. The tires are Kenda, which is usually standard for bikes built on a budget. Not bad, but some faster rolling tires would bring this bike to life. Wheels are actually impressive. They're boat anchors but are 36h and true from the factory. I haven't had to true them yet and we've put maybe 100 miles on it. The fork is probably the heaviest single part of the bike and has the wrong weight spring in it. I weigh 170 ish lb and when I pedal alone in the front, the fork has used 50% of the travel. Normally you want to use about 20-30% of the travel with BOTH riders on the bike. I personally would have preferred a rigid fork but it is really comfortable. Having a heavier weight spring would make it steer better under braking among other reasons. Long story short, there's a lot of bike that you get for the money. Most serious riders will want to change the saddles and pedals immediately and potentially the tires. But, if you and your partner are more casual, this bike is perfect as is. Only thing I recommend is to have it assembled by a proper bicycle mechanic at your neighborhood bike shop. Thank you Schwinn for making a fun and affordable entry level tandem bike!!

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.

My wife and I cycle 2000+ miles per year, all of that within a 5-month window. Our bikes are relatively high-end ($3000+, Specialized Roubaix and Specialized Ruby). We have ridden 7 STPs (Seattle to Portland, 210 miles in two days). Now, during the winters, we live in a warmer climate where we can cycle year-round. However, our winter riding is not on the same types of roads because we are in a gated community where the roads are flat. I'm giving this information to put our review in perspective. We decided to try something different, so went for a tandem. However, because we weren't going to be doing the same type of cycling as we do during the summers, we went with a low end model, which this Schwinn is (really good tandems cost thousands!). This Schwinn tandem is the best value for the price we have ever seen. The good: Aluminum frame, Shimano components, disk brakes. In other words, all of the basics are excellent. Frame is built in such a way that it is easy to stand over the bike--which is really good when you learning to cycle on a tandem. The medium: Front shock (not needed for people who would own this bike), saddles are not great (but be aware that saddles on many bikes don't fit you--sometimes you have to search to find just the right one), assembly was not too difficult because of our experience with bikes, wide tires which would be good for people without a lot of recent experience cycling. One other "medium" is that you can't really "fit" the bike to you like you can do with higher end bikes. It would work for tall or short people, but good fit on a bike depends on more than that (including distance to handlebars, shape of handlebars, etc.). We could never take really long rides on this bike for this reason (i.e., 6-8 hour rides), but it is good enough for our one-hour rides that are taking on this bike. The bad: No instructions for assembly. The Schwinn website had instructions you could download, but they were for a different tandem. Some parts had to be reversed, but the factory torque used made the initial moving of the bolts difficult. So, what else do you need? HELMETS! Don't ever ride this or any bike, even to just ride around the block without a helmet. Front light that blinks, rear lights, bright clothing, and the assumption that every car driver is texting so you need to be alert. One other essential for this bike--rear view mirrors. This is especially the case because when the stoker (rear seat) checks for cars in back of you they have to twist their bodies which can throw off the balance. That's a learning process, but rear view mirrors make this part of cycling MUCH safer. We ordered 3 of them (one for the Captain's left and two for both sides for the Stoker). It's a lot of fun. The learning process is also a lot of fun, as we have had to learn different ways of communicating with each other about turns, stops, cars, etc. And riding a tandem requires good communication. We have named our bike "Daisy." So, we say to each other: "Let's go ride Daisy"

This bike is a death trap. The brake pads overheated and disinigrated the first and second time my partner and i rode down a steep hill, applying the brakes for 20 -40 seconds, I had to drag my feet on the ground desperately, nearly avoiding serious injury. This is a quality issue, putting delicate brake pads and small rotors that cannnot handle modest expect-able braking requirements on a bike meant to carry two people. The other major issue is that the bottom bracket height is not enough- meaning the pedals are too close to the ground. all bicycles are generally designed so that the pedals are a safe distance from the ground. its like this bike was meant for skinny 27.5 (650b) wheels and a taller fork, but then was equipped with some absolute junk fork and brakes, and too small of wheels. So when leaning & turning and even going in a driveway cuttout or other regularly menial surface deviation the cranks pedals toes are highly and dangerously prone to contacting the ground. The fork the bike came with is very cheap, and the springs are much to soft for even 170# rider on the front. this increases the danger of the low pedals the rear riders handlebar stem is too long, it clamps to front seatpost and projects rearward, with telescoping adjustment to make it longer (bringing it closer to rear riders hands) but it cannot be adjusted to a shorter length to make the rear riders position more roomy, it is already on the small but managable side for my 5' 7" partner with her seat all the way back on the rails. the rear gear cluster has a very limited range too, making it hard to get up hills. For this bike to be viable and safe for anyone to ride it would need a longer fork, bigger outer diameter tires or bigger wheels with under 2" tires and definatly some brand name brakes with brake pads that don't disintegrate upon use. The frame itself seems to be of pretty good quality, it is free of blemishes, stiff and wobble-less . it is made of tig welded aluminum, and it feels as though it is straight. aside from my complaints, the rest of the components worked fine. For reference, I have been cycling most days for 25 years. i have years of experience as an accredited bicycle mechanic, salesperson and fabricator, have raced mountain and road bikes, and owned over 30 bikes myself. I am 200# 5'9" and my partner is 5' 7" 135# This bikes dangerous component build aspects are beyond the scope of reason to an extent i have ever seen.

We have put about 100 miles on this bike over the past 8 weeks. As many other reviews have said, the price is excellent compared to other tandem bikes. Also, as said by others, there are some shortcomings. The 4-star rating is based solely on an entry-level bike at a reasonable price. If we thought this was a higher quality machine, would give it fewer stars. So you need to decide a few things before buying: 1. Where will you ride? We stick to a few local paved "rail trails" and the bike is well suited to this service and we have a huge variety in our area. There is no way we would take it off road though - it isn't made for that at all! 2. Can you live with a somewhat awkward seating arrangement for both front and back rider? There is absolutely no useful handlebar adjustment, so the forward rider is sort of hunched over, and the back rider has the handlebars in his/her knees until they get used to it. 3. Are you totally committed to tandem biking? If you are, consider a more $$$ bike - we are already discussing that option for ourselves now that we are doing longer rides, but the increase is substantial. Realize this is a $500-600 bike in a world where other MFRs are in the thousands. 4. Do you want to go fast? We don't and that is a good thing. Our typical pace is around 8-10 MPH so not much faster than a hard run. We do creep up into the teens downhill. The brakes are way too small to go faster than this. Some other posters have commented on this. 5. Are you the right size? The frame is very strong, but the components as mentioned by others are kind of low quality. We are about 180# front and 150# back and that is about the limit in our opinion. Maybe it could go as high as a combined 350# but that would be about it. One thing that nobody has mentioned (I don't think) is that there is really no need for the top 7 gears - if you rode that fast, you would burn the brakes off unless you are both around 100# As some other reviewers have said, fenders are a must for that day that it decides to rain. Hope this helps shed some light on this bike.

Excelente tándem bike!!!

I bought this and had it delivered to my temporary address while on a business assignment in Saskatoon, Canada. Item was delivered to me on time and despite the fact that I wasn't happy that I had to pay close to 10% of the cost of the item in addition for delivery I was happy that I got it on time. Trouble started as soon as I opened the box and started the assembly. The front tube was punctured and I had to go to Walmart and buy a spare tube. Didn't care about the $12 cost and wasted time, but wasn't happy with the quality control at this time. Since I was away had to also purchase a pump of course so another $25 here. Put air and went for the first rider, 30 minutes in the rider front tire went flat and had to walk to my hotel where I realized the issue is with the tire as it was very clumsy and low quality. So headed again to Walmart to buy another tube and a new tier which cost me another $40. So at this point I've paid around $80 (another 10% of the cost of the bike) on top of the $70 shipping cost. For the 3rd time I got the bike out for a spin and that's when the real issues showed up. 1) The pedals are too low and a real safety concern. When you're making a turn, not even a sharp turn if you're not careful the pedals (front ones) would touch the ground and you could lose control of the bike, really bad design. 2) The gears work and don't work. It definitely needs adjustment and tunning. Also they make noise that tells you the gears are having a hard time being adjusted to the chain. The front gears are useless for that reason, keep them to the highest and only use the rear one and hopefully you manage. 3) The chain constantly fall off and need to be fixed. Almost every time you use the front gear, a sometimes when you use the rear one. So I decided to return the item and remember, I'm in a hotel and it's almost a week after I opened the box and of course not having any intention to return the bike getting rid of the packaging. Now I'm asked to return the bike by first of all paying from my pocket to their location in Ontario, I looked and the cost is around $140. To be fare they reimbursed me for one of the tubes and the tire after days of going back and forth and asking for receipts and dates and being totally rude and unprofessional. But all and all I decided to keep the bike, sell it locally and cut my loses vs returning to seller as I've already paid 20% higher and paying another 15% and then not be sure if I get my full purchase price cause I didn't have the original packaging was a risk I didn't want to take. Stay away from this product and this seller and shame on Amazon for letting them be on this platform, go read other comments and you'll see lots of people have similar problem and issues. Hopefully this helps a few to avoid the headache,