There's always room for one more bike, goes the theor y (n+1), and the Doc agrees, but it 's a position he's finding harder to justify
Afew years ago, I learned to ride a penny-farthing. I was, in fact, briefly in love with penny-farthings.
The view was good, the big wheel rolled effortlessly over anything from a pothole to a golden retriever, and there was a feeling of accomplishment at having mastered something that was simultaneously like riding a bike, and also not quite like riding a bike.
I made plans to buy one from a guy in the Czech Republic who makes bespoke penny-farthings, and a hipster beard sprang unbidden straight out of my face. But then I realised there would never be an afternoon when I walked to my bike store to select something to ride and thought, “Yep. Today is a penny-farthing day. A couple of hours on the big wheel is what I want.” It would only ever be a novelty.
It would also have been another bike to look after. And at the moment, cycling is heading in the very sensible direction of fewer bikes, not more. Witness the quiet fading away of the winter bike as a concept. Disc brakes mean that you don’t wreck the braking surfaces of your good wheels on wet mucky rides, increased clearances mean nice big tyres and space for decent mudguards. There’s no good reason to have a winter hack any more. You can save space and save money. All you need to do is wash the bike you have at intervals a bit less shameful than once a season.
You can swap bet ween road and gravel modes on a lot of bikes, you can go bikepack ing on the same bike you race. It ’s like the 1930s all over again. (A nd if you think bikepack ing is different from touring, or gravel is different from what your great-grandfather knew as roughstuff, you’re wrong.)
But I still like the idea of having different bikes. I enjoy my winter bike – I like that it ’s different from my summer bike, and that my summer bike is different from my other summer bike. They ’re all good, but they ’re not the same. For many years my favourite bike was my winter TT bike – aero bars and frame, race position, and a big pair of mudguards. It was fantastic, and no one else had one. I even raced it a few times in early season events.
I acquired the multiple bike enthusiasm early. At my university club the dream bike collection was a regular pub debate.
I remember the club secretary explaining he’d have a road training bike, road race bike, “a time trial bike, a hilly time trial bike…”
We asked about the difference bet ween the last two.
“I never said they ’d be different,” he said. W hen pressed he said the difference would be he would use one of them in flat time trials and the other in hilly ones. Maybe they ’d be in contrasting co
