This article first appeared in issue 55 of Singletrack Magazine. Subscribers have full access to all Singletrack articles past and present. Learn more from about our subscriptions offers:
Subscribe To Singletrack Magazine For More Amazing Content!
Got too many bikes to actually ride? Gazing all the way back to issue 55, Geoff Johnson reckons that less is more. And we know that you’ll agree with him. We also know you’ll then completely ignore him and carry on as before.
How many bikes do you need? The stock answer is usually presented in the pseudo-mathematical formula: x = n+1 where the ideal number of bikes is x, and the current tally is n. At least that is what the bike manufacturers marketers, and bike shop owners alike, love to hear being spouted on Internet forums. Of course, we all need a hardtail, a 4in trail bike, a ‘play’ bike, then perhaps a singlespeed for when the weather is grotty (most of the time then) and a ‘cross bike because you want the speed of a road bike, but we are a bit special and so have to have something with knobbly tyres. Then, for those that really try hard there are, 29ers, softtails, tandems, unicycles…
This is all good as long as you have the time, space and organisational acumen to care for the extended family. If you are lucky, you have a garage, shed, basement or spare room with custom racking to store them so you can grab and go in the time it takes to decide which Buff and helmet combo goes with which waterproof shorts and merino underpants. It’s an organisational utopia of bikes on hooks, tools on boards, and neatly lined up pairs of shoes. In this apparition, getting your bike out probably involves wheeling it through the gate in a white picket fence.
For most of us, our bike and gear storage facilities are as far removed from this velo-esque idyll as Tom Waits is from producing a melodic sing-a-long anthem. In my garage, bikes are mated together in a tangle of tubes, bars wheels and cranks. The population of part-worn, wrong size and failed ghetto tubeless project tyres hang from every available protrusion, intent on snagging you, and anything you attempt to extract from the treasure trove. The once carefully populated tool board looks like the set of a Snap-On snuff movie murder scene, with vacant outlines of the victims reinforcing the itinerant tendencies of my hex keys and cone spanners.
You would think that at the very least, the Scandinavian furniture gods had provided us with enough inspiration for the effective storage and retrieval of clothing, be it bicycle-related or otherwise. Yet it can still take some of us longer than a Colonel Gaddafi UN address, to unearth a serviceable collection of shoes, shorts, gloves and helmet.
So what is this all about? Choice, or rather an equation including choice, disposable income and available bike time, the formulation of which is too complex for my tiny GT85-addled mind to construct. When did bike selection become a ‘wetted finger in the air’-influenced decision; based on what your mates might be riding, how hard it’s raining/sunning/winding and the type and elevation of terrain you will be pushing/carrying/riding like a cross country god over? Will it be the titanium softtail or the short travel full suspension? Or maybe one of your riding buddies will want to session that gnarly downhill wooded section with the stupid name you can never remember, in which case you’ll definitely need the 6in bouncer… or, maybe the long-travel hardtail? And once the decision is made, can you actually remove it from the copulating interweave of titanium, steel and carbon? And does it have a functional complement of wheels, brakes and transmission? Bugger, no, because you forgot to put back the front brake/shifters/pedals that you have loaned to your budget 4X play bike build.
In a recent garage clearout, I counted 11 bikes. Not bad for a family of four with two children under five and a wife that will only ride one of those! This morning, I spent as long choosing, extracting and rebuilding the bike, as I did riding it. It shouldn’t be like this. The psychological weight of the value of bikes, tools and spares coupled with the mental gymnastics required to remember where we left our 2nd favourite helmet with the light mount on, is enough to give us a breakdown. At least until Apple build an iPhone app to help. Surely our working and family lives are complicated enough, without raising the bar with our so-called leisure activity?
Adding that jump bike isn’t going to turn you into the next Danny MacAskill in the same way that buying a ‘one size smaller than the road bike you don’t have enough time to ride’ cross bike isn’t going to result in you leading Rob Jebb up Ingleborough next September. So stop! Stop planning your next cycle to work purchase, stop buying those white floating rotors and stop trying to colour coordinate your spring riding wardrobe using next seasons Raphowies catalogue.
Slim down, cut back and drop out. Alight the Upgrades Express and de-stuff your bike and cycling paraphernalia collection. Just ride that one usable bike more. With luck, you might be able to haul yourself out from the bike-stuff-alanche before it squeezes the cycling fun out of you.
I’ve recently dropped from 9 to 4 bikes and organised the garage properly to aid using and maintaining them. It makes the word of difference just being able to open the garage and ride out, grabbing my helmet (so to speak) and gloves as I leave the door.