Hello Singletrack hive-mind,

I currently have a 2013 Bfe and a 2014 alfine Roadrat and I’m considering getting rid of both and replacing with a more ‘all rounder’ bike. Long story short short, I’m thinking 29er for off-road, on road and commuting duties. Been looking at the Karate Monkey Ops and Cotic Solaris and was just wanting input and ideas from the ever reliable Singletrack 🙂 I would even go short travel full squish, but have a weird attachment to steel hardtails 🙂

GET A SOLARIS!

I’ve looked *really* carefully at going down to one bike. Even mention of this topic has my brain whirring again… 😉

I have fond memories of just riding whatever MTB I had all the time, everywhere – I even did JOGLE on a Cannondale F900 (Lefty up front) back in the day!

A 29er with two wheelsets would fit the bill perfectly for this vision and one with mounts etc even more so (hence the appeal of a Surly).

The main reasons I can see “for” are:

– Riding one nice bike all the time;
– Saving space;
– Lower overall cost.

The main obstacles for me remain:

– Locking-up said single nice bike at a main railway station around once a week (now moot, as my two bikes are closer in spec than in the past);
– To a degree, limiting my riding.

I got close to going down to one bike in the spring, when I needed a new “life bike” and was eyeing my less-used Cotic Soul as a donor.

In the event, the good weather of 2014 has led me to spend more time on my Soul and to push my riding boundaries a bit more. I’ve also enjoyed spending a lot of time commuting and touring on the Escapade that I bought after deciding I needed to keep my second bike – complete with drops, disc 29er wheels, 35c tyres, rack mounts etc.

This has basically reinforced the point about one bike limiting my riding. Something like a Karate Monkey or Solaris would have done all the above, but probably wouldn’t have hit the spot in the same way that my two bikes did individually this year.

At a push, I’d probably opt to keep my Escapade and build something based around that if faced with a one bike scenario. It covers 90% of my mileage: riding with a tagalong / bike seat / commuting / light off road / riding to the shops…but it’s not going set any singletrack thrill records.

It would be very possible to swing the notch back towards MTB-style (swap the frame and combine parts), but then it wouldn’t be so good for the 2,000 miles I do on the road every year.

But the idea of a single bike still appeals to me… I don’t know why – aaaargghhh!!!

Thanks for the input. I’ve recently become a Father, hence the need for more space. I’m lucky in that the bike(s) is parked in my office at work so security isn’t really an issue. Had a radial fracture to my elbow in June and it’s not healed too great and I find the Roadrat a tad uncomfortable because of this.

I still plan on doing regular Macc forest runs (it’s literally just around the corner) and trans-pennine / trail centre rides. The only thing I really like about the rat is the speed. Beyond that I prefer the MTB but the Bfe seems like overkill and isn’t great on longer rides. Argh….too much to think of 😕

Salsa el mariachi is pretty do it all