Should I get a second bike?

[Randomnerd]

To see if I can manage to maintain the argument to a sensible conclusion in my mind, I will disagree with everyone who said “yes”.

No, OP, do not get another bike. Here are there reasons:

• Consuming more goods wastes finite resources, so you should ride your current bike until it falls to pieces, and only then buy one bike to replace the ruined one.
• You are being led by the danglies into a capitalist‘s wet dream by accepting consumerism into your life. You will never be satisfied, and always want more and better and shinier. Once the thrill of the new is gone, The Man will bludgeon you with advertising to make you see how useless your bike is, and force you to go buy bidons and wheels and headsets and pedals, all with money you can ill afford, or could be put to better use helping starving children or digging wells in deserts for thirsty nomads.
• Jan Heine (Bicycle Quarterly and the Rene Herse bike brand inheritor and dude of all things bike imho) recently wrote a brilliant piece about the all-road bike. The bike, in history, has always been able to go anywhere and serve all manner of uses. One old bike. Of course he is swimming against the tide. And of course he is banging his own commercial gong, since people like me like his philosophy and buy his gear. Any one of us who lives and breathes cannot escape being some kind of consumer, unless you are a freegan cat burglar ( I tried it, but the skintight body stocking didn’t suit my complexion).

Spend more. Find one bike you really think fits the bill. Save some cash for a year or so till the pandemic effect on the market has quietened.

Pick, say, for instance a £2500 Alpkit Sonder Camino Titanium with Shimano GRX. An off the peg frame with a great reputation and a decent firm offering after sales service and bikes to try for a weekend. I don’t have one, but I know a few folk who have been very happy with the company.

Or a Shand Stoater for a little bit more would give you everything you would ever need: a bike for life. Their Leveret is a fine all-road commuter bike that would last and last for under two grand.

Or spend yet a bit more and go to a local framebuilder and get a forever bike built. Exactly what you want, will last you a lifetime if you don’t crash it or have it nicked, and will free you, in theory, from ever wanting to buy another bike. All in three grand, and never need to think about this question again.

In my case, I saved for twenty years for one bike, and got round to it five years ago. I won’t ever need another bike. This is the only one I need.

(And anyway, I have a shed full of folders, mtbs, tandems, steel frames, unicycles, skateboards, roller skates, scooters, longboards, land kites, tractors, ride on mowers, motorised timber bogies, skid steer woodland trolleys and other stuff out in the yard with engines all collected over three decades of being a greedy, acquisitive, dissatisfied, needy, tinkering, repairing, bodging and repurposing / wombling member of society, chained to commerce and willing but unable yet to escape.

If affirmation is what you need, you didn’t need me to chime in. Cyclechat will always tell you what you want to hear, unless you raise your brow above the NACA parapet...

 

[battered]

The "anti consumer" voice would have us spending £2-3000 on a bike? Really? I have a pile of bikes I use regularly (4, to be precise) and a couple of spares that need work. I'm currently working on a working bike that cost me £30, I rode it to Otley and back a couple of weeks ago. So I don't really buy that more bikes = more consumerism. In a lot of cases people like me save old bikes from being thrown away. I have 2 bikes in the stable that I bought new, one in 2005, one in 1995. Both still work, they have some way to go before being worn out.

 

[Scotty55]

The bike I’m looking at, plus the add-ons I want, plus my existing bike with her add-ons, still comes in at under £2,500.

I’ve pretty well made my mind up to get it - my Current bike needs to get some repairs as I’ve ridden it a lot over the last year, and I really don’t want to be without another. I like the idea of having a bike I can use for commuting and distance, and one that I can use for trails and what-not.

 

[Illaveago]

You're asking on a cycling forum whether you should have an additional bike . Can I suggest your decision's already been made

Currently I've got:

1. Raleigh SP Race 'best' road bike. This will become my commuter bike shortly when my son's team Ridley arrives and I get his current Cervelo S3 as a replacement 'best' bike
2. Holdsworth Roi de Velo track bike. Used for indoor/outdoor velodrome activities.
3. Principia TT Light time trial bike. Time trial use.
4. Ridgeback Platinum audax bike for any event 400km+.
5. Avanti Circa cyclocross bike and winter commuter.
6. Raleigh Pioneer Trail hybrid/town/do-it-all.
7. NeilPryde Nazare aero race bike - currently sat on a smart turbo for Zwift as we're not sure what else to do with it. It's also the only one that fits both myself and my son without any seatpost height changes.
8. Fuji Track Pro - currently being used for grasstrack racing and I use it as a fixie on rollers. I'm not using my Holdsworth as I've a tendency to fall off the rollers occasionally, much to the delight of my neighbours who sit on their balcony and laugh at me .
9. Dawes Kingpin x 2 in bits. One mine, one my son's. Both being restored.
10. Wilier Montegrappa commuter - now that is likely to be sold. My Raleigh SP Race will replace it for commuter duties post-Covid.

I could multi-use bikes and the Wilier's done a lot of miles in commuting and winter club rides, plus some audaxes. But over 200km something softer would be helpful as it's fairly hardcore, as is the Raleigh SP Race.

That's a good start !

 

[battered]

The bike I’m looking at, plus the add-ons I want, plus my existing bike with her add-ons, still comes in at under £2,500.

I’ve pretty well made my mind up to get it - my Current bike needs to get some repairs as I’ve ridden it a lot over the last year, and I really don’t want to be without another. I like the idea of having a bike I can use for commuting and distance, and one that I can use for trails and what-not.

2 bikes, 2 jobs, is a great scheme. It also means that if you have one in for repair you'll still have wheels. In addition a spare bike means that you can do your own repairs in your own time, if you want to.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

my experience of Apollo bikes is that they are BSOs and good for 2 weeks or 20 miles, after which they are sources of spares. I did manage to rebuild a free broken one using bits from a truly horrible BSO, a pal now has it in his shed and I think it last saw daylight about 5 years ago. It's, hmm, *all right* as a bike to take to the pub or the shops.

I would regard the suspension ones as BSO's but the older simpler rigids are perfectly good basic bikes. Mine is about 25 years old and I've had it 3 years since salvaged. I must have done at least a thousand miles on it mostly utility use plus the odd day where I've gone 25 or 30 miles. What mileage the previous owners covered is anyone's guess, but it was well used. It's cheap and basic and relatively heavy, but it isn't a BSO.
It's had a couple of secondhand inner tubes and tyres swapped on to it, and a bit of oil and grease as required and nothing more.

 

[AuroraSaab]

I logged in just to say - 3,000 miles in a year, from previously doing nothing, is amazing! Well done. That is fricking awesome.

I have 3 bikes. A £200 carbon Giant I bought on Sphock. Great bike but I'm scared on those skinny tyres in the wet, so I bought a £30 Dawes mtb on ebay, which is first choice now because it's better on the crap roads. I also have my 30 year old Raleigh Pursuit which I hardly rode and am now trying to make roadworthy.

If you feel there is an actual need for a different bike, go for it. As long as you can afford it and can store it. If you are doing 3k miles a year, you've earned it.

My only reservation would be that supply still seems limited atm, and prices are high - very few good deals on new stuff, and used prices high too. But if you're riding so much you might as well buy now and get the enjoyment out of the bike over the summer rather than waiting in the hope that prices drop.

 

[Randomnerd]

The "anti consumer" voice would have us spending £2-3000 on a bike? Really? I have a pile of bikes I use regularly (4, to be precise) and a couple of spares that need work. I'm currently working on a working bike that cost me £30, I rode it to Otley and back a couple of weeks ago. So I don't really buy that more bikes = more consumerism. In a lot of cases people like me save old bikes from being thrown away. I have 2 bikes in the stable that I bought new, one in 2005, one in 1995. Both still work, they have some way to go before being worn out.

Not saying I'm right. I'm arguing through the point to see where it gets us. These threads pop up like mushrooms in the rain in this place. It has all been said before.

Twenty years' saving for a three grand bike is three quid a week. I would challenge you to describe that as rampant consumerism. Savouring the moments of design, build, test and tweak and ride was pretty sweet consumption. No impulse but, that's for certain. It suits me. Won't suit everyone.

We are none of us Zen masters on here. We are just doing our own thing. The OP has no doubt already committed his wedge. I'm just wondering how long he will last before he wants feeding again.

Recycled bikes are cool if you have the skills and workshop and tools to fettle them and keep them rolling. You're obviously not buying into the ad mans con trick, so that's good. Many cyclists want or need a ride they can just ride, and limit their interest to cleaning the chain and inflating the tyres. I'm not sure when a thread asks "what new bike should I get - I'm scared of secondhand gear the answer should be "you're asking the wrong question. Fish an old bike out of the canal and give it a once over."

We all know there's too much of everything in the world. Looking at the new bike world, there seems a lot of room still for the big firms to do more in making bike manufacture more sustainable - easier repairs, more durable componentry, use of recycled rather than raw materials. And loads more room on the high street for small businesses repairing old bikes and selling them with warranty, so that everyone could enjoy riding a safe, decent bike.

 

[Scotty55]

Not saying I'm right. I'm arguing through the point to see where it gets us. These threads pop up like mushrooms in the rain in this place. It has all been said before.

Twenty years' saving for a three grand bike is three quid a week. I would challenge you to describe that as rampant consumerism. Savouring the moments of design, build, test and tweak and ride was pretty sweet consumption. No impulse but, that's for certain. It suits me. Won't suit everyone.

We are none of us Zen masters on here. We are just doing our own thing. The OP has no doubt already committed his wedge. I'm just wondering how long he will last before he wants feeding again.

Recycled bikes are cool if you have the skills and workshop and tools to fettle them and keep them rolling. You're obviously not buying into the ad mans con trick, so that's good. Many cyclists want or need a ride they can just ride, and limit their interest to cleaning the chain and inflating the tyres. I'm not sure when a thread asks "what new bike should I get - I'm scared of secondhand gear the answer should be "you're asking the wrong question. Fish an old bike out of the canal and give it a once over."

We all know there's too much of everything in the world. Looking at the new bike world, there seems a lot of room still for the big firms to do more in making bike manufacture more sustainable - easier repairs, more durable componentry, use of recycled rather than raw materials. And loads more room on the high street for small businesses repairing old bikes and selling them with warranty, so that everyone could enjoy riding a safe, decent bike.

Appreciate your comments and thoughts. My reluctance to consider secondhand is that my maintenance skills are extremely rudimentary and I really would have no idea if what I was looking at was OK or a disaster-in-waiting. This would be my third bike in about 25 years, so not exactly profligate on the cycle front, and I'm getting far more use out of the new bike than I've ever had on any bike since I learned how not to fall off about 50 years ago.

I've got the space to store another bike and I can (just about) justify the decision - just need a window of opportunity when SWMBO has gone back to the flat in Liverpool for the week and the children are wrapped up in their XBoxes so I can smuggle it home...

 

[Lovacott]

Appreciate your comments and thoughts. My reluctance to consider secondhand is that my maintenance skills are extremely rudimentary and I really would have no idea if what I was looking at was OK or a disaster-in-waiting.

2nd hand is OK as long as you can test ride it properly.

You'd need to take it out for an hour or so, go up some proper hills, go though all of the gear changes, really load up the drivetrain looking for things like chain slip or chain suck. Check that the wheels run true, check that they don't have any side to side play, check that the pedal cranks don't rattle. Look at the cables, make sure they are not frayed in the clamping points. Look for any rust (rust is a sign of either poor maintenance or outside storage). Make sure the brakes stop the bike quickly, quietly and smoothly. Try and rattle the headset by yanking on the handlebars. Take your chain checking tool with you as well (if you haven't got one yet, why not?).

If you are considering 2nd hand, look up the spec of the bike and then research part replacement costs on Amazon or another vendor.

If anything is wrong, knock the cost of fixing it off your offer price for the bike.

Maintenance is not that hard as long as you invest in some proper tools. You can kit yourself out with most things you'd need for about £150. Access to a bench vice is also quite handy (I use one at work for freewheel removal).

Spend a couple of hours watching tube "how to" videos. There are tons out there and some are very specific to a particular groupset and go into a lot of detail in a simple step by step way. It's not like the old days when you had to try and work out how to do things yourself. Take it from me, never be tempted to fiddle with anything until you know exactly what it does. Five minutes spent online watching a video will save you a lot of grief.

Buy spares in advance of needing them. I have spare disc pads, disc caliper, freewheel, crankset, brake and gear cables, tyres, inner tubes, bearings, chains and pedals. Some things can fail at short notice and you don't want to have to wait days or weeks for parts. Try and replace like for like and only consider changing the spec or brand if you are 100% certain of what it is you are doing.

Buy the spares when they are on offer (the winter seems like a good time to me).

Once you get to know your bike through doing your own work, you can spot issues before they become failures.

You will also save yourself a fair bit of money because you won't be paying someone else's labour costs.

 

[Randomnerd]

Broadly speaking I'm with you @Randomnerd in that I'm not an N+1 adherent. But then I also have more than one bike which makes me a bit of a hypocrite. I have one bike on which I lavish great expenditure and care. I don't ride the others much. I don't foresee ever buying another bike, but I do foresee spending many bikes worth's of ££ on fripperies and pointless gizmos for my bike. Still, never say never.

As to my other bikes, one is a Brompton, which I ride when the ability to fold up is at a premium. The other is junk (sorry ... classic) that I've not ridden for years. It may get pressed into commuting duties post covid, as I'm not looking forward to resuming the train commute.

But I'd never say my way is right. You want another bike, you get one. Not really my business.

Exactly, it's all just talk isn't it. We do our own thing and hope we are doing what's best at the time.

I have a love of decent lightweight steel frames - oddball lo pros, Elsegoods, Shrubbs etc. Only a few, but all ready to ride and all had from off men who had ridden them into the ground, got old and given up or bought a trike or something modern. I'm not really owning them, I'm curating them and keeping them alive by taking them out for a gentle twenty now and then, on dry days and holidays.

The ideal for me is a do-all go anywhere best friend kinda bike. But, as are many men it seems, I'm welded to these other old pals that others had as their best friend. Welded to the notion of keeping that history on motion. It's pure sentiment.

My Brompton is an L2. I wish I could sell it, and let her go. She doesn't even want me any more. She never lets me near her, and I've not felt that awful saddle for months. We stay together for not many reasons. There was love I think, but it has dwindled. She has her eye on my Surly Pacer.

[wrote this, parked it, went off to work for a few days, and up pops @Dogtrousers when I log back in with his excellent new index! Just what I had been starting to get to but couldn’t think to the end. We should definitely have a thread on this @Dogtrousers. Or better still a whole sub forum with agony aunts and tips on reviving your relationships, or how-tos for learner lovers. I’m seeing new genders here too: the index spawns genders: “steelists” - only rides steel, never carbon; “plasisteelists” - swings both ways, or has steel but carbon forks; “foldists” love it hinged, in a bag; “aeros” - anything slippery, like wearing knee socks; “heterocranials” - wear helmets doing it; “homocranials” - wear jaunty caps doing it]

 

[Randomnerd]

There could be an interesting metric we could invent. I know how much cyclists like numbers, like Eddington and so on.

The Cycling Promiscuity Index. It would be the smallest number N, such that you have done 90% of your total lifetime cycling on N bikes.

So you take all of the bikes you have ever ridden in order of total distance ridden (most used first) and successively add their distances until you get to 90% of your total riding. The number of bikes it took to get to 90% is your Cycling Promiscuity Index.

Eliminating 10% of distance ridden on infrequently used bikes filters out use of borrowed bikes, hire bikes, and so forth.

I'm pretty sure mine would be 2. I've been very loyal to two bikes throughout my entire life. I have played the field a little, but not enough to tot up 10% of total riding.

Of course unless you have detailed records for your entire life then it would be pretty much impossible to be sure.

And when we start dealing with Trigger's Broom bikes there is the question of identity. When does one bike become another? One of my two bikes underwent a frame transplant during its life.

Better definitions invited. I chose 90% pretty much arbitrarily. If the Pareto principle applies, people will have done 80% of their riding on 20% of their bikes. I wanted to filter out bikes that were used only once or twice, but not bikes owned and infrequently ridden so I pushed it up to 90%. Perhaps I should have gone to 95%

Also you might want some way to factor in number of rides. For instance a bike used very frequently for shopping could get eliminated due to the low mileage, but would have been much used.

Thoroughly brilliant. I await the sub forum.
New thread please, with a proper spreadsheet, so you can start harvesting data. We need graphs, some geeks to sift the data, and probably a website, with a Kickstarter fund so people can donate to help those with index problems, or to help riders improve or worsen their index.
id be happy to work pro bono in a corner, helping hopeful monogamists pair up with all-road loves. A kind of matchmaking service, with a help desk and 24 hr call-back, if you’re ever thinking of straying or you ever Google the words Ribble or Decathlon.
Just let me know and I’ll fetch my diary 😀

 

[Randomnerd]

Appreciate your comments and thoughts. My reluctance to consider secondhand is that my maintenance skills are extremely rudimentary and I really would have no idea if what I was looking at was OK or a disaster-in-waiting. This would be my third bike in about 25 years, so not exactly profligate on the cycle front, and I'm getting far more use out of the new bike than I've ever had on any bike since I learned how not to fall off about 50 years ago.

I've got the space to store another bike and I can (just about) justify the decision - just need a window of opportunity when SWMBO has gone back to the flat in Liverpool for the week and the children are wrapped up in their XBoxes so I can smuggle it home...

Yes, your stats are impressive. And I reckon your Dogtrouser Index is pretty good. The two usually match up.

Please reconsider being stealthy with your N plus one though.

You have a fine annual mileage (F.A.M.). Your lifetime Dogtrouser Index (D.I.) is within the European Mean (E.M.), (soon to be replaced with the Little England Euro-free Velocipeed Ownership Facts and Figures (L.E.E.V.O.F.F.)).

Buy another bike in plain sight. Tell everyone your intentions, and wheel it in at breakfast time on a Sunday, and be proud you bought a Sonder Camino Ti or a Shand Stoater in the flaming red paint of your choice. To hell with the old gas boiler, the holiday and the kids’ new shoes. What’s a bit of carbon monoxide poisoning and a limp ever done to anyone but make them stronger? And what’s wrong with a long weekend in a caravan in Mablethorpe in June? You deserve a bike. Stand up and fight for your rights.

Pictures, or we will be very disappointed.

 

[Lovacott]

So you take all of the bikes you have ever ridden in order of total distance ridden (most used first) and successively add their distances until you get to 90% of your total riding. The number of bikes it took to get to 90% is your Cycling Promiscuity Index.

Over fifty years, I've only ever owned one bike at a time until the last year. Now I own three.

My bike total is nine. Two I literally grew out of, one was stolen, one was crushed by a bread van, one I sold before moving overseas, one was sold when I moved back and then there's the three I have now.

Three were "racing" bikes (drop bars), three were hard tail MTB's, one was a Chopper and another was a kids single speed bike with back pedal braking. My latest is a hybrid which I use for fine weather commuting with an MTB for the crap weather (most of the time at the moment). I have a CF road bike for buzzing around at weekends at breakneck speed.

The bike I did the most on was a Raleigh steel framed five speed racer which I used to commute on in Bristol and then London for about 8 years total until it got crushed by a bread van. I bought a hard tail MTB to replace it (that was a mistake) which I used to commute on for a further five years.

The bike I bought overseas got used about a dozen times in seven years for little jollies out with the kids. I doubt I did more than 100 miles on it altogether.

Now that I'm a bit more into biking, I intend to make what I have now, last me for good.

Although nine bikes seems a lot, with the exception of one of them, I've made full use of them when I've had them and I haven't treated any of them as little flings or one night stands.

I'm not sure how that stacks up in your index?

 

[Randomnerd]

Over fifty years, I've only ever owned one bike at a time until the last year. Now I own three.

My bike total is nine. Two I literally grew out of, one was stolen, one was crushed by a bread van, one I sold before moving overseas, one was sold when I moved back and then there's the three I have now.

Three were "racing" bikes (drop bars), three were hard tail MTB's, one was a Chopper and another was a kids single speed bike with back pedal braking. My latest is a hybrid which I use for fine weather commuting with an MTB for the crap weather (most of the time at the moment). I have a CF road bike for buzzing around at weekends at breakneck speed.

The bike I did the most on was a Raleigh steel framed five speed racer which I used to commute on in Bristol and then London for about 8 years total until it got crushed by a bread van. I bought a hard tail MTB to replace it (that was a mistake) which I used to commute on for a further five years.

The bike I bought overseas got used about a dozen times in seven years for little jollies out with the kids. I doubt I did more than 100 miles on it altogether.

Now that I'm a bit more into biking, I intend to make what I have now, last me for good.

Although nine bikes seems a lot, with the exception of one of them, I've made full use of them when I've had them and I haven't treated any of them as little flings or one night stands.

I'm not sure how that stacks up in your index?

@Lovacott, @Dogtrousers will be working on an equation you can use in due course. For now, I think you have enough data to work out your own D.I. on the back of an old envelope. Just wait for the thread to be opened, I think.. If you would like help with improving your D.I., I’m working on some self-help cards. Watch this space.