Bike simplification
I own too many bikes, and I’m finally trying to do something about it (or get Zen about it as my friend John would say). Of course this does involve building some new bikes (ah, the irony!)
This is a couple of month project and started in January when I built up my Kogswell Porteur:
The Kogswell has quickly become my around town, commuter, and probably touring bike. It rides nicely with or without a load, fits good sized tires, and basically does everything that I need for this sort of riding. As a result of building it up I sold my Heron Touringlast weekend.
The next bike project is to Rohloff my Rivendell Quickbeam. I love the Quickbeam, but my knees no longer love singlespeed riding. The Quickbeam is unique among the frames that I own in that it’ll fit 45mm tires. That covers all of the mountain biking that I ever do, allowing me to use the Quickbeam to replace my mountain bike. With the Rohloff it can also replace my Bridgestone RB-Tas my primary bike and cyclocross bike. I’ll just need to change the tires to go mountain biking, not a big deal at all considering how infrequently I do this.
One of the really cool aspects of the Rohloff is having a wide gear range without having to worry about chainring shifts vs rear derailleur shifts. I’ve tried to build “do it all” bikes before but they’ve usually failed due to gearing issues. A set of chainrings that works well for me on the road (such as 48/38/24) has the range that I need for riding offroad, but the shifts are all in the wrong places. The right gearing for offroad for me (xx/34/22) is geared too low on the middle ring for me to use it on the road. The Rohloff gives me lots of range without having to worry about chainring shifts and removes this concern.
So one Rohloff hub on a bike that I already own (the Quickbeam) removes two other bikes from my stable (a mountain bike and the RB-T). The RB-T has been one of my favorite bikes, so I’m going to disassemble it,but not sell the frame. The mountain bike frame is going back to it’s original owner,John Speare. I’ll probably have a lot of parts to sell from these two bikes.
Finally it’s time to go from a recumbent tandem back to an upright one. Our RANS Screamer has been a great bike, but we really don’t put many miles on it. I bought the Screamer hoping that a more comfortable bike would make Christine more interested in longer rides, but she still prefers shorter ones. The Screamer is big enough and hard enough to get out of our basement that we never use it on shorter rides, and this results in not really using it at all.
My friend Larry and I have used it on a few bicycle tours and he and his partner have been trying to buy one for years. So I’m going to sell the Screamer to him (and thus can still use it on bicycle tours) and go back to an upright tandem. Larry’s house is much better setup for a recumbent tandem. Rather carrying it up the basement stairs and rolling it through the maze of a backyard he can just roll it out of the garage and onto the road.
It looks like we’re probably going to buy a Burley Rock and Road. This is their “mountain bike” tandem and it’s a hell of a nice deal for the price. I’ll put drop bars on the front of course. I’m looking forward to many nice miles on that bike.
So here is what bikes I had in December:
- 1994 Bridgestone RB-T
- Heron Touring
- 1983 Trek 520
- Rivendell Quickbeam
- Paramount Mountain Bike
- Bike Friday New World Tourist
- RANS Screamer
Here is what the list should look like by June:
- Kogswell Porteur – commuting, touring
- Rivendell Quickbeam with Rohloff – day rides, mountain biking, commuting, touring
- 1983 Trek 520 – day rides, commuting, beater
- Bike Friday New World Tourist – folding bike
- Burley Rock and Roll – tandem
4 bikes would be a better goal, but I’m not ready to get rid of the Trek 520 quite yet. I don’t think I could go to less than four bikes (need two bikes that I can commute on in case one is out of service, need a folder for trips, and need the tandem).
alex
keep them all and enjoy
Is your screamer still for sale?
Larry bought the Screamer as reported in this article.