# An off-road tandem festival.



## Team Fubar Rider (Sep 3, 2003)

Is there enough demand for a tandem exclusive mountian bike festival? I know that Santana puts on rallys, but those are road based events. I think it would be AWESOME to get a couple hundred tandem teams together, tell tall tales about your tandem adventures, do some great riding, have a tandem expo, have live music and entertainment in the evenings, you know, a Fat Tire Festival...only for tandems.


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## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

I'd be in, but considering how light the activity is on this board (being less than a month in existance), I'm not sure how much interest you'll generate. Maybe post on Double Forte?

And I would be geographically biased. It seems as though there are a greater number of east coast tandem riders posting. How many want to drag their tandems out to Sea Otter in April?


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## Team Fubar Rider (Sep 3, 2003)

I am not necessarily going to start a festival, but just seeing how much interest there would be in one. I think there are plenty of tandem riders around the country, they just don't speak up. When we lived in South Dakota, we would have to add 1/2 hour to any ride just to answer people's questions ("Do you put your feet up while she pedals? Do you have to pedal together? You can ride that thing on trails?"). But in Colorado, we see a lot of people on tandems, so I think they are well dispersed.

I know you can ride a tandem in regular festivals, but I am talking a tandem only festival.


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## Speedub.Nate (Dec 31, 2003)

Team Fubar Rider said:


> I know you can ride a tandem in regular festivals, but I am talking a tandem only festival.


I think a dedicated festival is a great idea. Don't get me wrong. But I'm suggesting it'd be cool to have a mini-gathering within a larger event that already draw passionite riders from all over. Not only might it draw a larger tandem crowd initially, but maybe hook some new suckers.

I hear what you're saying on the 30-minute delay thing. It seems unavoidable.


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## TandemNut (Mar 12, 2004)

Brain Managan over on DF does the FART festival each fall. It's for off-road tandems, and is held in upstate NY. Been going on for several years. http://homepage.mac.com/bmanagan/fart/
It's a bit far for us southern teams, but appears to be a pretty good event.

We'd like to help put something together somewhere reasonably centrally-located to the east and midwest teams, somewhere like NC, KY, TN, etc. that's within a day's drive from the majority of eastern US teams. As much as we'd like to do Sea Otter, I haven't been able to put together a trip yet.

The venue needs to have lodging of some sort, near to (or preferably at) trails, so there's as little shuttling as possible.
We'll sponsor an eastern event, if that helps get it going.


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## sparrow (Dec 30, 2003)

www.blackhillsfattirefestival.com had tandem rides each day, and had 7 (?) tandems on one ride. Feel welcome any one within a drive.


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