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?

72andsunny

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.

NRissy

Thank you for the reply; I thought it is a great option; I just wasn't for sure.

obrentharris 

I would be somewhat concerned about the after market disc brake if the rear triangle was not originally designed for the forces put on it by a disc brake. Hard to tell from the one photo how the disc caliper is mounted but it appears to be attached only to the chain stay. In the case of a retrofit disc brake the frame builder usually adds a piece of tubing between the chain stay and the seat stay to help distribute the load.
Brent

NRissy

New development.... I have a friend from college selling a trek T100 he beleives it is a 1994. It has 700x32 and he feels I could put larger tires on if I wanted. It also has a kid back that they would throw in for $700.


So Santana Encore for $750 or Trek T100 for $700?

act0fgod

Which one is the right size?

Santana has indexed/sti shifters, a third brake with the disc, v-brakes, front and rear rack, fenders, bottle cages which all are what I see as improvements over the Trek and would definitely be worth more than $50 to me.

72andsunny

I’ll echo the fit being the most important thing. And 32 mm is only 1.25”. That would be narrower than 1.5”...

Also, I’ll throw in: your friend is not giving you the friend prices. The Trek was a decent entry level tandem (entry level for the premium crowd). It sold new for a little over $1000. I’d guess someone spent on the way to $4000 for the Santana.

An aside: this is the second Santana I’ve seen on the forum in a week that had a disc added as a third brake. This one looks like the Santana branded (winzip?) with a 10” disc. Santana recommended using it instead of the rear v-brake, which is what we did to ours. I’m not sure it was necessary for our 300ish pound team, but I never had a problem with it.

NRissy

I asked the person selling it about the disk break he said "And, yes, there are front and rear rim brakes plus a rear disc brake. The couple we bought it from did a lot of cross country touring and had the factory add an aftermarket rear disc brake because of the mountain descents they rode.That brake is controlled by the stoker. " I think I will have the brake lever moved up front with me. I don't want my six year old grabbing on to it without a heads up.

I thought the Trek was kind of high priced. But I don't know a lot about tandems. So I just wanted to make sure before I went with the Santana.
Do you own a Santana? Anything special I should know?

NRissy

I think both bikes should be a good fit. The problem is both bikes are located 3+ hours from me and 4 fours away from each other. I can't test drive the two bikes in a weekend and if I am going to to drive 3 hours I am probably coming home with it.

xlbs

The Santana is definitely the better bike, as long as it fits.

The factory installed brake will be properly installed; it looks like the 203 mm rotor too.

And, those racks are worth much more than the 50 dollar difference.

Our old Santana will take more than 1.5 inch width tires, and I expect that this one will too.

Good luck.

socalrider

Not even close - SANTANA

The santana has modern shifters vs bar cons. It's a big deal. The Samtana has a 10" disc / coaster brake - big difference.

I would add a suspension seatpost for the stoker. Most Santana's use a 29.8 seatpost size. Get a 27.2 seatpost and add a 27.2 to 29.8 sleeve

socalrider

My Noventa had the 10" disc added by Santana - they added a braze on and color matched the paint. My tandem - right lever controls the rear disc brake. The left lever will deploy front / rear V brakes simultaneously.
Photo below. You would be foolish not to be running over there and giving him the money for the Santana. Unless it is really beat up - it's worth double asking price.

NRissy

How hard is it to service those breaks being tied together? I think setting them would be a nightmare! I am grad to hear more about this factory brake.
I am counting down the days until I can meet the guy with the Santana! Hopefully my kiddy back gets here before then and I can have the bike entirely ready to ride for my son and I by mid April!

socalrider

I do not know if the disc on yours is a bolt on or connected via a braze on. The cables for the V brakes run through a unique adapter that is connected by the handlebars. It works pretty flawlessly and with the disc brake - if you pull on both levers - you stop FAST.

I hope you are at the ATM ready to run down and buy it - because it could slip through your fingers quite easily.

Find out what wheels it has on it and you can look up specs and see how wide you can go with tires.

act0fgod

Santana rear spacing is 160mm. So fewer options if it needs to be replaced. That being said the thought is the 160 spacing is stronger., so hopefully you won't have to replace it.

socalrider

Yes the 160mm spacing for the rear wheel is a tough one to find. With my previous tandem I found it easiest to get a wheel direct from Santana. It was 4 years back and cost 200.00.. The seatpost is a strange size as well at 29.8 and the headset is 1.25 1-1/4. A tough find but there are a number of them on ebay.

The stem size is 25.4 but if you can find 1-1/4 stems that support 31.8 handlebars if you want more variety..

NRissy

New development. I purchased the Santana yesterday! I am super excited and as soon as the extended family left for Easter, I started fiddling with it. I got part of a child's stoker kit to use with the bike and here is where I have the problem. It doesn't fit on the Santana Encore's rear seat . (see photo) It would bolt onto the actual seat post but the seat tube is too big. I don't really want to buy a whole new stoker kit *those cost $200+ but I don't know what my options are.

mibike

Depending on how far you son is from fitting you could look at crank shortners. They also have the advantage of being fast to take off and put back on if you ride with an adult. If this gets you close you can also look at a different set post and or saddle. When my youngest grandson was just a little short I got the thinnest saddle I could find and a straight seat post like you would find on a cheap bike. I flipped the clamp upside down so it was above the saddle rails. This got me about an additional inch and a half which was enough. I could remove the shortners and change the seat post with the saddle already on it or go back the other way in 2 or 3 minutes.