I thought I’d piggyback on the theme of the last post about getting a new bike by asking the question, How Many Bikes? That is, how many bikes do you think you need, and how do you use them?
Now, I’m well acquainted with the old joke about the number of bikes you need equalling n + 1, where n is the number of bikes you already have. But seriously, how many do you need?
I’ll start. I have three bikes, my Allez, which I use for 95 percent of my riding. It’s a road bike, and goes on road rides. I do not use it for grocery runs or other utility types of riding. Then there’s the mountain bike, an old Trek hardtail. Since I am not a mountain biker, I tend to use this for errands and shopping, if I use it at all. Mostly, it just hangs in the garage. My third bike is the old steel Raleigh 10-speed, which I had long thought about upgrading, just to do it.
Lately though, I’ve come to the conclusion that the Trek isn’t being used much for errands and shopping. I’d just as soon be rid of it. And the Raleigh — I doubt I’ll even get around to fixing it up. Vintage bike collectors tell me it’s not worth much anyway, and one has tried to dissuade me from putting money into it.
So that leaves me with one bike — the Allez. And that’s fine with me. It does what I need it to do, and does it acceptably well. As I alluded to in my last post, I’d be happy with something better, but there’s really nothing to dislike about the Allez. As the song says, I think I’ll keep her.
How about you? Do you find a need for more than one bike? How do you use yours? Or do you find that your bike collection is missing one, because there’s a certain biking role that’s not being filled by any of the ones you currently have? Given the kinds of riding you do, what would be the optimum number of bikes to own?