I am a firm believer in having a quiver of bikes. If you ride enough in different terrains or for different purposes and you have the space, money and time, go for it. Having a purpose-built bike for what you are doing makes riding more fun. A one bike quiver isn’t needed.
Have a commuter bike that can stay locked up outside without stressing you out.
Have a burley enduro bike to point downhill and fly off drops.
Have a super light road bike to fly up hills and go far on.
Have a dirt jumper for the pump track or the skate park.
Have a rat bike to use those spare parts.
Have a gravel bike for endurance rides with no cars around.
Have two of every bike above in case a friend is in town.
There’s nothing a full quiver can’t do well.
A full quiver of bike does not travel well
Well almost nothing. The only thing your quiver can’t do well is travel. Believe me I’ve tried. For the past four summers we have spent 2-4 weeks in Seattle visiting friends and family. The first summer I brought my road bike and mountain bike. They were stolen in Portland off my car during a wedding. The second summer I learned my lesson and just brought a commuter bike with a bike seat and racks attached so I could take my son to the lake. I ended up renting an enduro bike and spent time removing racks and my son’s seat so I could go for a long ride around mercer island with some roadie friends. The third summer I brought my enduro bike and an all-road bike. I still had to install/uninstall my son’s bike seat when I wanted to go for a long road ride (The seat adds 9lbs). I had also brought my wife’s road bike. She didn’t really end up riding it at all. We also didn’t have a secure place to keep the bikes that summer so there was a lot of time spent moving and monitoring the quiver.
Three summers, no perfect solution. Year one, all bikes stolen. Year two, not enough bikes. Year three, too many bikes.
Year four needed to be different. This summer I brought my hardtail. I also brought some 48mm WTB Byway gravel/road tires and a Surly Corner Bar carbon knockoff. These bars allow you to have a drop bar handle bar while still being able to use the same brakes, shifters, and dropper post lever as you would on a flat bar. My plan was to ride the hard tail with my 2.3 inch tires on mountain bike trails and remove my son’s bike seat. For road rides, lockout the front fork and run the smooth tires and drop bars.
This seemed to check a lot of the boxes.
Only one bike to worry about? Check.
A mountain bike for a day of trail riding? Check.
A road bike for long rides? Check
A budget build that I could lock up on the street? Check.
Sounds perfect right? Well not exactly. It did take a bit of time to swap tires and handlebars. Maybe too much time. After my mountain bike ride I didn’t have time to swap out the tires and handlebars for a lunch meeting downtown. This wasn’t terrible but riding through traffic with 800mm wide bars isn’t great. Neither was climbing to the top of capitol hill with heavily treaded tires. Am I being too picky? Maybe, but this is the pursuit of the one bike quiver not an exercise in compromise.
Rejoining the quiver
After getting back home this bike doesn’t have to be as multi-purpose as it was on vacation. In fact, it has a very narrow purpose. This bike has been and always will be the bike I take out with my son. We traditionally have stuck to double track mtb rides. Nothing too rough and sometimes we end up on smooth cycle paths when connecting trails together. I’ve defaulted this bike to gravel mode, which means running the corner bars and the WTB Byway tires. I’ve taken it a step further and added a rigid carbon mtb fork as well.
One might ask why not just add a gravel bike to your quiver for this specific purpose? A great suggestion but personal preference and local trails have led me to the conclusion that a gravel bike isn’t really the best tool for the job in my neck of the woods. For starters there is no actual gravel. Just a lot of chunkier double track. There is also a bit more descending involved, so much so that I prefer to have a dropper post and mtb geometry. Even without the kid seat on the back I felt under biked riding off road on a gravel bike. I ended up always choosing the XC bike. The only drawback of the XC bike was that the flat bars and chunky tires weren’t as comfortable for riding on the road.
So, if I had to choose one bike to ride my choice is a monster cross bike with a spare set of wheels, tires, fork and handlebars. A bit of a cop out but that’s exactly what I’ve got.
How much did I spend?
So how much does this magical one bike quiver cost? Not that much actually. I built up the xc bike using a Brand X frame and dropper, 1×10 microshift Advent X drivetrain, Suntour Zeron crank and bottom bracket, and PNW grips. The tektro disc brakes, rotors, rockshox fork, flat bar, saddle, tires, and wheels were all take off parts after I upgraded my StumpJumper. I also had the Byway tires and spare 27.5 wheels lying around from a previous project. I only had to buy the carbon corner bars, bar tape, rotors and the rigid carbon fork. All purchased from Amazon or AliExpress for $350 in total. Even if you had to build this bike from scratch it would only cost you $2000 including shipping and tax. That’s a complete hard tail bike and a spare fork, wheels, tires, rotors, and handlebars. Not too bad.
I’m not saying this bike is the one bike quiver for everyone. It’s just the one for me. Don’t settle for the bike that’s right for someone else or the bike the industry tells you to ride. Go out there and make your perfect one bike quiver.
Already have a one bike quiver? Let me know in a comment!
Leave a Reply