Comment: My apartment.

My apartment looks like a bike shop. I’m sure there are some out there who’d love to be able to say that, so let me explain:

I live in a moderate size 1 bedroom apartment, I have 2 cats, 3 couches (1 is a sofa bed if you ever need a place to crash), 2 widescreen TV’s & 5 bikes. As you probably know - it’s never JUST the bikes, I’ve got three helmets, countless jerseys, windproofs, showerproofs, shorts, socks, an organizer filled with shoes, tools (more than your average well equipped bike shop), spares… You get the idea.

Now don’t get me wrong - I’m not complaining! Today, however, I got to thinking; is all this gear really necessary? Back when I started Mountain Biking in 1988 I had one bike that did everything, 1 helmet, a single pair of shorts, shoes that I also ran in and my top was whatever T-shirt came to hand. So, when did things change, at what point did it become desireable to have 5 different types of bikes, and do we really need them to enjoy our sport?

Back in the early days our rides included all ‘disciplines’ - there was no heading out to ride Downhill for a few hours. Our regular ride included an 8 mile road ride, 5 mile off road doubletrack with some serious short climbs and descents, a 2 mile downhill on loose limestone gravel and sand with tight turns and some really fun jumps, a 2 mile singletrack following the river that was heavily rutted by the horses who used it as well, a 1 mile ‘gonzo’ downhill with 3ft steps, slippery limestone bedrock, loose stones and some nasty pedal traps, a 3 mile highly technical singletrack loop with all sorts of trail obstacles (and a nasty fall in a couple of places if you got it wrong) then some big drops & jumps in the ‘playground’, (an abandoned claypit with 60ft high walls on 3 sides and some near vertical shoots, drops & a 12 ft vertical drop to flat). All this before an 8 mile singletrack & road ride to get home.

Keep in mind that all this was done on a steel framed, unsuspended 15 geared mountain bike, yet we’d head out every day after class to ride the same loop, Saturday we’d incorporate it into a bigger ride and Sunday we’d normally drive to other trails further away than we could reasonably ride. And we loved doing it. Now, I have a tricked out lightweight XC bike, a trail bike with 6″ of travel both ends, a 4X / jump bike, a Freeride / DH bike and an Aluminium & Carbon road bike. Has my riding changed? Well, aside from a move to a warmer climate - no. The trails I ride now aren’t that different to what we were riding 20 years ago.

So why all these bikes? After a lot of thought, I think I’ve got it figured out: There isn’t a ‘One Bike’ being made today. Take a look at any manufacturers brochure & you’ll see a dizzying range of bikes for all disciplines - 4X, DH, Freeride, All Mountain, Trail, XC, Marathon, Trials - this is ignoring the ‘niche’ disciplines like Singlespeed, 29er etc. That’s a lot of bikes for what we used to be able to do with just one.

So I’ve decided that I’m going to start looking for my ‘One Bike’. I’m not about to replace my entire stable with just one machine, there are too many memories associated with the bikes I have now to let them all go, but I want to find the one bike out there that I feel happy & confident to do all the things I used to do without wishing I’d picked one of my other bikes. So this is where my search begins and it’s going to mean riding a lot of bikes so I’d best get started. Now, where did I put my gray helmet…

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