Ask any cycling addict what the right number of bikes to own is, and we will cite the N + 1 rule. In this law of nature, N represents the number of bikes you currently own. That is to say, you always need another bike. There is also an addendum to this rule if you’re married: the right number of bikes is N + 1 up to S — 1, where S is the maximum number of bikes you can own before you spouse decides enough is enough and leaves you.
In all seriousness though, how many bikes you have in your quiver (or stable) all depends on the type of cycling you do. If your only form of cycling is to commute to work and an occasional day in the park, then yes, it is totally acceptable to just own one hybrid bike and nothing more. But if you find yourself being smitten with cycling and you consistently hop on some sort of bike a few days each week, then get ready for it to snowball and for you to be broke. There have been attempts to create the all-round bike in the past; the quiver-killer, as some manufacturers call them. But as you’d expect, they end up being tolerable on all types of terrain, but not being good at any of them. The variety of cycling disciplines and terrain is just too wide for a one-bike quiver approach to be taken seriously.
I have a 4-bike quiver at the moment even though I’m still a relatively new cyclist. This may change at any moment depending on my mood or if my fingers slip while I’m using my phone and I accidentally order another bike. “Oh no, I’ve ordered another bike?! Oh well, guess I better get some new pedals too.”
Justification for each bike…
I frequently go road cycling and casually race (anything from crits to gran fondos). By casually compete, I mean when I do race I consistently get my butt kicked. My race goal is usually just to have a good race and have fun. So, of course I own a road bike.
But even though I started out as a roadie, I’ve also gotten hooked on mountain biking. I primarily just play around on single track trails in a local trail park once or twice a week. So I also have a mountain bike too.
Sometimes my wife wants to go ride around the park together or my nephews want to go to the park to ride bikes and play at the playground. It might be a little weird for me to go walk my bike in the park on a performance road bike. So I have a gravel bike too. I could have used my mountain bike for this purpose, but the gravel bike also serves as option to explore some local trails on, and I use it for some casual gravel grinders and cyclocross events anyways (where I can get my butt kicked some more).
Lastly, being in the northeast US, we do have winter seasons. Although I still love winter sports, there are times where I might just prefer the comfort of the indoors when it’s subfreezing outside, or because the hours of daylight are so limited. So, I also have a bike that I keep on the indoor trainer, but also serves as a backup road bike.
The quiver:
- Road Bike: I use a Trek Madone SLR 6 Disc. This is my bike that gets the most mileage. I do group rides on this, train on this, and I race on this. I was riding a Specialized Tarmac SL6 in the past, but recently decided to go aero, so I sold the Tarmac.
- Mountain Bike: I ride an Orbea Occam H30, which has 140mm of travel on both front and rear suspensions. Being more focused on having a fun time through a variety of terrains, and not on being a competitive racer, a trail bike was more suited for me than an enduro or XC mountain bike. I started out on a hardtail MTB (Specialized Rockhopper 29), but after a season of learning how to pick my lines and bouncing around on all the rock and root gardens in the east coast trails, I decided it was worth going for a full suspension trail.
- Gravel Bike: I ride a Cannondale Topstone 4. Similar to my MTB, it’s not a performance level gravel bike nor a cyclocross bike. But this 1x set up has been my entry into gravel riding and cyclocross, but still suitable for casual days in the park. It’s not as quick as a true cyclocross bike, but again, I’m not a competitive racer.
- Road bike on my indoor smart trainer (I use a Tacx Flow). I have a Serotta Custom Road bike. It’s an endurance geometry, and nothing super fancy. This was my first road bike when I started cycling. So, when I knew for sure that I was hooked on cycling and decided to get a more serious carbon fiber setup, I just kept this and use it on the trainer and as a backup road. It’s definitely feasible to just hook up one of my other bikes to the smart trainer, but I guess I’m just lazy and don’t want the inconvenience of having to swap the bike and change the wheel to an indoor tire every time.
Four bikes seems to be where I’m settling. Or at least what my bank account can handle. Cost is, of course, the main barrier, cause every cyclist always wants more bikes. Unless… you can help me come up with a justification to keep them. I do hear that riding a fat bike on snowy trails is incredibly fun. Maybe I’ll have to try it out.