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Columbia Double Eagle: The Bizarre Tandem BMX Few Have Ever Seen Before

So, you did it. You finally found a significant other who loves the hobby of BMX riding just as much as you do. You've carved trails together, raced each other, and helped each other up when you both inevitably eat dirt on occasion. First of all, good for you if that's you. But secondly, what if you wanted a more "intimate" BMX experience?
Columbia Double Eagle Bicycle Heaven 7 photos
Photo: Benny Kirk/ autoevolution
Columbia Double Eagle Bicycle HeavenColumbia Double Eagle Bicycle HeavenColumbia Double Eagle Bicycle HeavenColumbia Double Eagle Bicycle HeavenColumbia Double Eagle Bicycle HeavenColumbia Double Eagle Bicycle Heaven
Well, my friends, one can only assume whoever controls the front handlebars on a trail with this Columbia Double Eagle Tandem is the one wearing the pants in the relationship. At least that's a recurring joke among the banter at the Bicycle Heaven Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

It's where this ultra-rare tandem BMX calls home, among a collection of at minimum 6,000 other brethren of rare and interesting pedigrees. But the Double Eagle doesn't have to be just for couples, and this strange bike is a novelty unto itself. How someone decided in all their wisdom that a tandem BMX was a good idea, but lord bless them for having the cajones to make it a reality.

Columbia is one of America's very oldest bicycle manufacturers. Forged from the ashes of the Pope Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut. The moniker has been used by various companies through the years.

Independent companies through the ages have tried to replicate the Columbia brand, the most successful of these beginning operations in 1961. It was this second iteration of Columbia that fashioned a tandem bike quite unlike any we've seen before. If there were any time in the history of the bicycle to try your hand with something as bizarre as a tandem mountain bicycle, it was the 1980s.

Columbia Double Eagle Bicycle Heaven
Photo: Benny Kirk// autoevolution
A time when a whitewashed and sanitized western culture had a collective mask-off moment that facilitated the BMX movement to begin with. To heck with sticking to paved roads already traveled, the masses proclaimed. This was in this decade when cyclists the world over realized a bicycle was most exhilarating in wooded trails and steep mountain passes.

Production numbers are not as easy to come by for bicycles as the average road-legal passenger car staff at Bicycle Heaven peg it as in the ballpark of well under 500 units made between 1998 and 1999.

Of that paltry figure, whatever it may be, the chances of finding a Columbia Double Eagle BMX in even remotely this nice of condition is lower than the chances of finding the biblical holy grail in a Staten Island landfill. So to say, it's next to impossible.

The frame is essentially the very same setup one would find on a typical BMX bike. Where the connectors for the front wheels would sit mountain bike in a normal example is a welded extended sub-frame made of the same aluminum tube as the back half of the bike. Matching sprockets and handlebars are present for both the front and rear rider. Of course, only the front rider can steer.

Columbia Double Eagle Bicycle Heaven
Photo: Benny Kirk// autoevolution
A sister model to this BMX tandem called the Eagle five utilized the same frame, but this time was sporting wire wheels and on-road tires with brown seats and handlebars. On the Eagle BMX, the wheels appear to be some form of molded white plastic.

They fit the aggressive yet reserved aesthetic of this tandem bike just as well as its aggressively treaded tires dyed a striking bright white. Finding an OEM set of wheels and tires for a Columbia Double Eagle Tandem would be nearly rare and valuable as buying the entire bike.

They were made for an ever so brief time in the late 1980s and, as a result, are pretty much impossible to recreate 100 percent. Sadly, it became pretty obvious after only a short while that, while undoubtedly capable, a bike of this variety is liable to pretty darn dangerous down a steep woodland incline. Furthermore, the market of adventurer couples and good buddies willing to share the same mountain bike was a fair bit smaller than Columbia anticipated.

For months, dealerships failed to make sales, making the production run for this bizarre oddity all the more scarce. If you're wondering how much this item costs today, paper tags hanging off the handlebars clearly states, "original paint, $3,500." For just how quirky this bike is, it's worth that alone just to hang on a wall.

Columbia Double Eagle Bicycle Heaven
Photo: Benny Kirk// autoevolution
Check back for more from our trip to the world's largest bike museum here on autoevolution.
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