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I have a bike for all seasons, and a bike for all reasons. Lest you get the wrong idea, I should explain that I deal in quantity, not quality. The sum total value of my entire fleet would scarcely match that of one high end bike. But I've got a bike for every purpose. Like a golfer choosing the right iron for the stroke in question, I go down to the garage and choose the bike de jour.
My new Cannondale is a really nice bike, so I determined to not ride it in the rain if at all possible, and certainly not in the sand and salt season. It replaced my old Cannondale as my main summer weekend bike. So the old Cannondale got relegated to winter weekend bike, replacing the Romic which formerly occupied this position. The old Cannondale was my main bike for a number of years despite the fact that it was about two sizes two small for me and most of the moving parts either didn't or else moved in ways the manufacturer never intended. For some perverse reason, I still enjoy riding it, I guess after all these years I've sort of molded myself to it. The future of the Romic is in question, now that it has no raison d'etre. The Romic being a steel frame, suffered from terminal rust. I considered dismantling it for parts, but then Cannondale I has a really skinny front wheel, and maybe it could still serve as a substitute winter weekend bike when the roads were a bit icy. So I guess I'll keep it around for a while.
Then there's my touring bike. This like most of my bikes began as a frame and grew components. I had seen an ad in a British cycling club magazine for a fine Raleigh Gran Sport frame, for what seemed like a good price (even after converting pounds into real money). Besides, there was something attractive about getting the thing from the source, the mother country, as it were. Of course, what I didn't factor in was the fact that I would have to pay customs on the frame, so by the time I got done with this transatlantic transaction, it ended up costing about what I saw it on sale for at Belmont Wheelworks. It still is a nice frame, which is about the only good thing that could be said about the bike. The shifting doesn't work very well, and both wheels have spokes that are largely composed of rust. The last time I actually used it for touring, I determined experimentally that it is possible to ride a fully loaded touring bike with three broken spokes (twice). Also, the chances of my ever going touring again are remote, and even if I did, would most likely be on the tandem. But you never know, so it, too, retains its position on the hook in the ceiling of the garage.
The there's my commuting bikes. A long time ago I determined I needed multiple commuting bikes, since if one broke down and I didn't feel like fixing it immediately, I still needed something to ride the next day. For a while, I had three commuting bikes, and the rule of thumb was that N-1 of them could be broken at any given time. Somewhere around 1987, I got wind of the newly invented mountain bike, and decided I might be able to reduce the number of winter FDGB's by acquiring one of these. So we added the Novara as the Winter Commuting Bike to the stable. The mountain bike was a bit of a bear to ride and seemed like a bit of overkill on the merely mildly snowy days, so I eventually acquired the Proflex, which was to become the light duty winter commuting bike.
So, I already has two mountain bikes, and I don't even do that sort of thing, and I was prevailed upon to buy yet another mountain bike for our trip to Moab, since the Novara was deemed unworthy, having no suspension, shifters and brakes that barely moved, and wheels that had thoroughly rusted after sitting with a coating of salt after the first season.
So we've got two summer commuting bikes, two winter commuting bikes, a mountain bike, a touring bike, and three road bikes, and we haven't even gotten to the tandems yet.
We got the Santana tandem around 1990, and it served us well, being a rock steady beast in the early days when we were learning how to ride together. But in my heart I lusted for a Cannondale tandem, and we eventually got a good deal on a used one, which was actually older than our Santana, but due to the fact of not having been owned by me, in much better shape.
So we're up to eleven bikes, plus Susan's mountain and road bike. Say, that makes thirteen, an unlucky number. Looks like its time for another one.
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