Mel and Barbara, owners of Tandems East have cycled “twogether” more than 200,000+ miles since 1973 when they bought their first tandem from Mike Petchey, a British man they met while crossing the English Channel. Since then:

• Tandems East started out in Mel and Barbara’s garage a little more than thirty years ago in Vineland, New Jersey where Mel repaired his friend’s single racing bikes and eventually sold his first tandem to family members.
• Mel taught their children Natalie and Jed to ride at very young ages and designed ways to take them on family rides with each child and parent on their own tandem bike.
• By the age of ten both children had pedaled thousands of miles with their parents sharing an adventure filled childhood which included Eastern Tandem Rallies, co-founding the Family Cycling Tour and yearly cycling family vacations.
• Mel invented crank shortners for Jed allowing him to pedal on the back of either parent’s tandem as he grew.
• Now in business for over 30 years, Tandems East has prospered into an international company selling thousands of tandems.
• Today Tandems East has their own American made tandem brand, the Hokitika with three models, several tandem friendly inventions and the U.S. Patent rights to Ride 2 crank shortners.
• Natalie designed the Tandems East logo which is still used today. She and her husband Roy also created the Hokitika logo.
• Tandems East carries a full line of more than 80 in-stock tandems, an extensive parts inventory, performs custom wheel building and shares decades of tandem experience and knowledge.