TANDEM Diversity
2025
The Tandem Year in Review
The year was momentous for our tandem retail business (we closed at the end of October), but was a fairly quiet year in terms of our own tandem riding and touring. First, a few non-tandem fun things we did this year:
In the Spring we visited Victoria, BC with family. The visit included among many things, a day at the beautiful Butchard Gardens, always a treat.
In the summer we enjoyed a 3 week visit to Greenland and Iceland. For the first 2 weeks in Greenland we saw no evidence whatsoever of other humans. What a beautiful, quiet, rich, diverse place! And the people, when we finally did meet them, are so very gracious and kind. This was truly a trip of a lifetime.
Prior to heading out to Greenland, we relaxed into a 3 day tour on the Trail of the Couer d'Alenes in northern Idaho. Another very beautiful, quiet area, rich in variety of flora and fauna.
Most of our day rides near home were pretty routine, but we did toss in something special from time to time.
One of our favorite local roads to ride is Chuckanut Drive, and we like to make rides there even more special by bringing along homemade scones and a thermos of coffee, to be enjoyed at one of the many scenic pullouts along the way south.
In the Spring we rode to Peace Arch Park at the Canadian border near Blaine, to participate in one of the Hands Across The Border events, aimed at assuring our Canadian neighbors and friends we still value them as, well, neighbors and friends, no matter what the US government might say or do.
Finally, we were honored by the San Diego Stokers Union and the Blind Stokers Club, the two organizations making it possible for us to donate tandems from our personal collection and from our unsold inventory at the time of the close of our retail shop. All told we donated 6 tandems to blind stokers and facilitated the donation of a seventh. This has been a most fitting, rewarding, and gratifying way to bring the life of our business to an end.
We are uncertain as to the future of this website. Our plan is to continue it as a blog of sorts for the next year and to then re-evaluate its potential usefulness to readers.
We wish all of you a very Happy New Year and we wish for you to have many unique, safe, and enjoyable tandem experiences in 2026. May you never stop learning!