…..when I spend more or less the same amount of time riding as when I was a 1 bike man?

Anyone else found this? – I seem to be spending most of my time in the garage these days – As soon as one bike is sorted one of the other ones needs attention – its never ending!
Ok there has been a few upgrades but the vast majority of my time is spent replacing worn or broken bits, servicing brakes and forks and rebuilding wheels.

It doesnt seem to make sense.

I should point out that im not complaining as such – the garage is my favourite part of the house, however I have noticed a disturbing increase in malevolence from she-who-must-be-obayed, and have a feeling this may be in some way related.

All roughly the same age? Then they are wearing out together.

Best buy 3 new ones to put this off for a year or so!

why does 3 bikes = much more maintenance than 1 bike…..

Because you’ve got 3 bikes to maintain instead of 1 😀

My bikes seem to “degrade” faster when I’m not riding them. A week of being ridden seems better on them than a single ride then letting it fester for the rest of the week; brake pistons stick, freehubs seize, seals dry out, drivetrains rust…

Try having 4 😉

You or someone else is riding your bikes and you don’t know about it.

I have one bike, compared to all my n+1 mates I seem to always have a working bike. Whereas they seem to have a collection of bikes that either dont work, or need attention.

It seems to easy to put away one that needs work and then forget/ignore it since you have another to ride.

But soon you end up with all of them needing attention.

the solution is always a new bike
Il ask Santa!

Are they women’s cycles?

haha
I think you may have hit the nail on the head. who would have thought it all boils down to menstrual synchrony!!

Worse over winter IME, there just isn’t enough daylight to fix them, as a result I’ve resorted to keeping the singlespeed working and everything else is going to have to wait for some days off and daylight.

I think theres also an element of expectation mnagement. With 3 bikes you still expect to put at least one chain/cassette on per year, service the forks/shock once a year etc. Whereas with 1 bike I just rode it untill it was FUBAR, then fixed it, so it probably just had 3x more stuff wrong with it at any one time, but didn’t have 2 other working bikes to compare it to and notice quite how FUBAR it was!

I find that when things need fixing it’s on all of them, I went through a phase when I first had three of maitaining them all time. Then all of a sudden it stopped and I barely did anything for about two years except for changing brake pads and tyres – about three months ago it all started up again. Bearings in the pedals, freehub replacement and two complete chainsets!

Having a few bikes…. I find the one I want to ride, inevitably has something vital missing that has to be borrowed from another bike. The bike something gets borrowed from normally being the bike I want to ride next..