How many bikes do you have

As unbelievable as it may sound, in the cycling world, I am as normal as pumpkin pie. Most Roadies have different types of bikes to suit the many different styles of riding. They choose which bike they ride based on the type of race or training ride they are going to tackle. Most Roadies believe that the ideal number of bikes to own is one more than they currently own. Steve Anderson, assistant principal trumpet with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, owns nine horns of varying cost and characteristics.

The more advanced your ability, the more varied your tastes become. In other words, his equipment should not hold him back. An average guitarist will sound better on a better instrument.

A chef will prepare better meals in a well-equipped kitchen. An artist will starve less with nicer brushes. Roadie: The Misunderstood World of a Bike Racer is a light-hearted exploration of the world of road cycling, bike racing, and the people who love it. We have wall to wall bike racks holding up to nine bikes in a row. It proved quite easy to fill those racks, because, well, my partner has four bikes… She has a fixie, a time trial bike, a cyclocross bike and a road bike. We had barely moved in and filled those racks when I joined a new cycling team, Specialized Securitor, and for the first time, I was given a team bike to ride for the season — a shiny new S-Works Amira.

To the horror of my other three bikes, the team bike quickly became the pride and joy of my collection. I was now up to four bikes, with a total of eight in the apartment. By this point, I had been commuting on my cyclocross Candy Crux for three years.

The bike was getting old. The new carbon model I was eyeing was pink and sparkly. And with that I had convinced myself. Before I knew it, it was mine. Candy Crush joined the family. The only catch now was that I needed to sell Candy Crux to fund Candy Crush — and with the blink of the eye I was back to four bikes.

But it was hard to say goodbye. They each have a specific purpose, so I obviously need them all. I love all my bikes. My Amiras are for training and racing and use as a spare. Or until you are ready to ride out again. Engineers and designers developed various bicycles to let us enjoy different kinds of environments. The ownership of too many bikes, […]. The ownership of too many bikes, however, does not make us happier.

We might recall the beautiful days when we were young, having a great time enjoying the bike our parents gave us for good grades. Every afternoon after class, we got on the bike and joined our friends from the neighbourhood. The simplicity of choices made cycling into a pure joy that we warmly shared with others.

Today, on the contrary, bicycle producers try to persuade us into believing that hoarding many bikes in a garage gives us the perfect opportunity to pick the right one any time we need a bike that perfectly matches our intentions.

This way, we are supposed to be ready to tackle downhill tracks with a DH machine offering enough suspension as well as pursuing speed maniacs on our hi-end carbon-fibre ultralight jet. Moreover, we can add an all-mountain bike for having fun on trails, a jumping bike for the dirt park, a commuting bike to get to work, and a secretly desired gravel bike for any other terrain.

Stockpiling bicycles might lead us to accumulate an impressive bike collection. The term was first introduced by American writer, futurist and businessman Alvin Toffler in his book, Future Shock. Toffler described that if too many choices are available, making decisions is mentally exhausting because each option must be weighed against alternatives. As the number of choices grows, people feel under increased pressure, confusion and eventually dissatisfaction with the choice they made.

In cycling, the problem is that we need a lot of time to consider which bike would match the intended road, trail or surface. Having too many bikes make us revise the choice any time we meet either a too technical segment of a trail or too smooth asphalt of the road. Any moment of the ride, we are tempted to regret our decisions.