Originally Posted by
NRissy
I am in the market for my first Tandem. I have found someone with a Santana Encore who is willing to sell it for $750. I want this bike for a mix of gravel and paved trail riding. It has 26 x1.5 tires on it and he says it worked perfectly for him for his gravel riding. Could I put a little bit wider tires on this if I find that 1.5 not wide enough?
The bike appears to be in good shape. Is this a good deal? The first owner put a disk break on the back and it had a full tune up in 2018 before the owner decided to get a different tandem. Do you think it will work for me to ride gravel with my son?
I remember the Encore. If my memory is correct, Santana had a line of road (really touring tandems), mountain tandems (which had suspension forks, flat bars, 26” tires), and a line of enduro bikes (which were pretty much the road tandems with 26” wheels). It should have Ultegra/XTR level components. If it’s in reasonably good shape, I wouldn’t hesitate to pay $750 for it. I don’t know how wide you can go on the tires, but we did plenty of packed trails with our 700x28 tires.