How many bikes do you need?

One of my favorite writers is Peter Egan from Cycle World, and one of my favorite articles of his is, "How many bikes do you really need?" In the article, he settled on five: a sportbike, a sport touring bike, a dirtbike, a great big hog, and an old crock. Similarly, I spend an irrational part of my waking hours trying to determine the correct size and composition of my bike fleet. I'm currently at an uncomfortable seven. They are (oldest to newest):

1. Surly Cross Check:

I've the CC about four and a half years, and it's done most everything: fixed gear, touring bike, cyclocross bike, town bike, etc. It's not perfect--I'd like to drop the bottom bracket, lengthen the head tube, and lighten the tubing up a hair, but it's so versatile and fun that it's earned its spot in my constantly churning fleet.


2. Soma Juice:

I've had the Soma only over a year, and it's mostly been a rigid/single speed mountain bike, with a brief foray into bike camping. Is it bad that my second oldest bike is barely a year old? Maybe I shoulda kept the Fargo...


3. Specialized FSR

As I mentioned earlier, I picked this up on a whim about a year ago, but I've really been enjoying it. Clearly, it's pretty much used only for riding single track. Quickly.


4. Soma Double Cross:

Currently set up as a child puller and around-town bike.


5. Rawland Nordavinden

My pure, geared road bike for those long, solo road rides I always think I'm going to do, but rarely actually do. Yes, it has toe clips--I ran out of clipless pedals. These things happen with seven bikes.


6. Specialized Globe Vienna

Another child puller, but a cheap one. And it's actually a dedicated hybrid, not a repurposed 'cross or mountain bike.


7. OS Blackbuck

Er, another rigid/single speed mountain bike.

(A quick aside to my wife: seven bicycles take up much less space and money than five motorcycles!)


I've long maintained to myself (and the few people who will stand around to listen), that I really only need three bikes: a mountain bike, a road bike, and an around town/utility bike. However, when I seriously think about my riding patterns, I could actually get by with just two: I'd drop the road bike in favor of the utility bike, since most of my road riding is actually just errands around town, short hops through the metro park, or pulling the kids around.  Forced to radically downsize like this, it would be the Surly as the town bike and either the FSR or the Soma as the mountain bike.      

Insightful readers will see the downfall of the two bike plan in that last sentence: I have to choose between the FSR and the 29er? But some days I want the pure simplicity of the single speed, while on others I want the speed and comfort and ease of the FSR. Selling one might just cause me to buy some variation of it back later, which isn't the smartest economics--I should know, as I've done this many, many times.            

So right now, I'm working on a plan to get down to just four:

1. Mountain bike: FSR--too much cheap fun. 26" full suspension bikes are at a sweet spot for buyers right now, with great technology at blowout prices.

2. Alternate mountain bike: Soma or Blackbuck. I say this like it's a tough decision, but the Soma will win. I'll give the Blackbuck a few more rides to somewhat justify getting it, then it's going on the block.

3. Road bike: Rawland--I need to do more road rides, and I want to try out the new brakes I just got for it. Also, it "planes" like a Chris-Craft. Whenever I get inspired by my issues of Bicycle Quarterly, I can jump on this bike in all its flexy glory (and none of its 650B silliness)

4. Town bike: Surly or Soma or Globe. Another easy choice: the Surly is the only definite keeper here. But then what do I do when I want a fixed gear ride?

Such are the the dilemmas I wrestle with.

Soma Double Cross Family Truckster Review

Aside from what are probably Russian hacker sites, I see a "lot" of my traffic (which is a relative measure, maybe four visits to date) come from links I put in my posts on my bike forums. Never one to fear pandering to my audience, I thought I would put up something that might interest these visitors more than my kids:

Or perhaps instead a quick overview of my bike train:

 

This season so far, I have a Soma Double Cross 'cross bike, pulling a Burley Picolo, pulling a Burley D'Lite trailer. Taking it from the rear:

 

The Burley trailer is something I bought third hand from Larry H. at work several years ago. It's seen some miles: the seat is starting to fail (look closely at the center), and one of the snaps has snapped off. It's also far from waterproof anymore. I've thought about either ordering a repair kit or buying another used trailer for parts, but this will probably be the last summer that the twins can both fit in the trailer. After this year, it may get mostly used for camping loads and groceries, so I'm hoping it can hang in there another six months.

Next up is the Picolo:

This is new for me this year. Compare this to my previous trailer bike, a Giant Halfwheeler that attached to the seat post:

(setup from last summer) Many bike geeks greatly prefer the Picolo because it mounts to a special rack, rather than the seat post. This is supposed to greatly reduce the input loads from the trailer bike to the front bike. But the Picolo has been out of production for several years, and was thus sought after by those bike geek dads. When I saw this one float across my local Craigslist, I jumped on it, even though it was missing the special rack that I later had to special order. The verdict: it is in fact more stable than the seat post mount type, but the trailer bike rider can still put a decent amount of torque into the system if he wants to. Especially big, burly lads like Henry. I'm happy with my purchase, but I'm not sure it's worth the $350 cost of new version vs. a typical $150 trailer bike.

The Picolo, by the way, has six speeds to the Giant's one. So far, this has been no benefit: Henry only has the hand strength to move the twist shifter over the few smallest gears, and on the very smallest gear, the chain line is so bad it causes the chain to consistently derail off the front sprocket. I ended up setting the limit screws to block this. Also, the Picolo doesn't have a water bottle mount like the Giant, so I need to rig something up here.

And then there are my wheels:

A 60cm Soma Double Cross, built from the frame up (as virtually all my bikes are).

I run kind of unusual gearing: a 38/26 front with an 11/34 9 speed rear. That gives me a decent, wide range cruising gear, with a useful bailout gear for steep hills. When dragging these kids around, it doesn't take much for a hill to be "steep." Probably, a 22/32/42 would be even more useful, but I like the double rings. Flat pedals let me ride in sandals or whatever I have on.

 

A key item for pulling a trailer bike is wide handlebars (drop bars, in my experience, are always too narrow). These are On One Marys, flipped, with Sram twist shifters. I'm not sure why, but I really like this combination. Comfortable, looks good, easy shifting. Somehow, the flipped Mary works to make up for short top tube of the Soma.

 

If our adventures every go really late (or into the fall), I have a dyno light up front. It's just a cheap Sanyo hub I bought used with a $35 Avenir light, but it's a surprisingly effective setup. Certainly it's good enough for riding dark multi use paths. The fork is a Nashbar carbon model from my parts bin. A good steel fork would be better for attaching racks and panniers, but my steel fork is happily nested on my Surly Cross Check.

So here's my checklist of what makes a good family truckster:

- a reasonably stiff frame with moderate trail. The Rawland that's shown above wasn't good in either regard: it was downright sketchy with a rear load input. Fun to ride unloaded, though.

- wide bars for leverage, at least 24"/60cm. My Marys are about 650mm, and they're great.

- wide range gearing with easy shifting. I love single speeds more than most, but even in flat Dublin, I find myself shifting on grades that are imperceptible to anyone not towing 150 pounds. You're shifting a lot!

- fat tires, because you can't always dodge stuff

- fenders, because kids like to hit puddles. So of course you need lots of eyelets then to install your fenders (and racks more than likely)

- flat pedals, because, c'mon, you're not riding for your PR, and it's fun to feel the wind in your toes.

- good brakes, because you're stopping a big load. V brakes are fine, though (discs are also nice)

- good standover clearance, because you're straddling the bike flat footed while your stoker gets ready.

If you're thinking this sounds like any run of the mill hybrid... you're right. Hmm, maybe I'll have to think about one of those myself!

But, you say, you're really curious about how the Soma stacks up against the Surly? Stay tuned my comrades!