People who own just one mtb… What do you own?

Santa Cruz Solo / 5010

Does most things really well, better than I do.

and some mincing:

150/160mm FS with Talas 36 up front. Does everything. 120mm mode on the forks is useful as the difference between 65.5° and 68° is enough to keep the bike sharp on flatter trails.

Whyte G150 , pikes up front and does me , long saddle days or silly hour blasts ,even work commute

Trek Stache 29er hardtail, 120mm SID RCT3s, 2×10, stealth Reverb, wider bars, shorter stem, nice chunky 2.35″ tyres.

Works pretty well for most things, from a quick loop around the woods to bikepark wales and other trailcentres.

I do sometimes think about 27.5 full suspension bikes but it’s a big chunk of money and I don’t need to go faster than the mates I usually ride with.

Always had only 1 mtb and built to be do-it-all, so good trade-off between lightness and strength, and never that expensive either! Had a Rock Lobster 853 for 7 years, then an Inbred, and now this:

Parkwood in the fields by Matthew Walker[/url], on Flickr

Good value, rides well, pretty light, crap decals removed on everything where possible!

Just one. Can’t afford more due to being a student. Rigid singlespeed, though it’s going to get a dropper soon.

Don’t like having too much stuff, so one MTB and one road bike for me.

The MTB is an On One Codeine with 160mm up front and is probably a bit much for the day to day stuff, but I’m enjoying thinking some more interesting lines and it pedals incredibly well for a heavy single-pivot bike.

Cotic Solaris with 120mm forks and a dropper until recently. XC use locally mainly

Now acquired a Salsa El Mariachi for local rides and bikepacking trips when I want to go rigid. Currently singlespeed but will prob go to gears at some point

(I know that makes it two MTBs)

Rigid Cotic Soul.. Usually 1×9 but currently SS with a chain tensioner..
I also have a 90s steel Joe Murray town bike

Only ever had one.
Yeti 575.
Modern day Swiss Army Knife.

This. I have a hardcore hard tail, an XC hardtail and a 575. I kinda qualify as I have’t ridden anything other than the Yeti since I got it. It’s great at everything. All day XC epics, trail centre stuff, dales, Alps etc etc.

One review I read once said it was an XC bike on steroids, and this isn’t a bad description, apart from the fairly slack head angle that is.

Commencal Meta 5.5.2 XT 2008.
150 Revs up front, 140 Fox RP2 out back, DT Swiss 26″ wheels (Hope and DT Swiss hubs), full XT (2×9 with bash/Stinger), Reverb, SPDs – @30 lbs. A good all-rounder. Getting on a bit now but has been great on local stuff, trail centres, lots of Lakes trips and just done a stint in Morzine – a little more travel would have been nice but it coped pretty well. Toyed with changing it for something like a Transition Patrol/Radon Slide/Canyon Strive but can’t justify spending @£3k when it won’t make me a better rider than when I’m on a perfectly capable Meta.
Also have a carbon Cube roadie but that doesn’t count 😉

100mm travel carbon xc 29er HT, does everything I’m capable of

Ditto. Whyte 29CS. It is a very nice one bike 🙂

(Do also have a cross/road bike but no need for anything burly round here)

Right now only this one

I do have a custom steel Gnarmac that covers a bit of MTB ish stuff.

As long as you don’t count the rigid commuter as it just happens to be an MTB technically, then yup, just the one MTB.

2011 Pitch Pro, 1×10, 170mm Lyriks, wide bars, dropper. Far more capable than I’ll ever be and a bit of a slog on tamer trails but dragging it up hills keeps me fit. Just a big bouncy fun bike really.

As I am in the process of splitting down my 26″ HT I will be left with my 140mm 5 29 for 99.9% of my riding. I do have some early 90’s bikes but they’re for looking at more then riding.

Think I’ll end up with a 29″ HT and 650b FS in the future though.

Nukeproof Mega TR with two sets of wheels. One set relatively light with 700/800 gram tyres the other set a bit heavier bit fitted with DH tyres. This seems to cover most bases.

It’s not the only bike I own but it is the only MTB I ride – Giant Reign 0 2009.

my jones is the only bike i own. set x10 speed.

with a 29er front, fat front option and a load of different tyres and various bike packing bags etc i feel i’ve got a bike thats adaptable for anything id want to do on my bike.

had a few other second bikes (carbon hardtail 26″, single speed 29er) but when the jones is about nothing was winning the ‘which bike today’ competition other than it.

having said all that, I’m talking to a mate about an old kona 26″ of his for use as a hack bike for local messing about/scooting to the shops etc. ill see how i get on…

This is my only MTB now – I don’t ride much nowadays though so have no need for a full suss or front suss…

You could have one bike but it’s always going to be a compromise (as each of the ones you have are on certain things).

I suspect a lightweight full sus would make more sense as a compromise unless you have a need to fit racks at any point.

I honestly do not feel that having a 160mm bike is any compromise at all. I can climb up anything just as well as my mates on 29ers and shorter travel XC bikes, and when it gets to the downhills (which lets face it are the reason we go mountain biking, me anyway) I can blast down anything, the steeper the better. There just isn’t any compromise there for me. The only reason I could imagine wanting a different bike would be for XC racing, which I have no interest in.

My bike btw

I had a SC Blur Classic and a Heckler, I used to ride the Blur a lot more but found the Heckler too big a bike, then got rid of them both, well the Blur complete, the Heckler was stripped down with the majority now on my Yeti ASR 5 which is somewhere in the middle of the two and does what I want.

You could have one bike but it’s always going to be a compromise

Not really. I’m not good or brave enough to go down anything that would compromise my bike and for everything else it matches my ability. Only time I would feel over biked would be on a gentle bimble but that doesn’t happen often and that’s what the retro is for.

I’m a one-bike-to-rule-them-all person.

I currently ride a Cotic BFe with 140mm forks. It does everything from local XC riding to any kinda trail centre or natural trails or down-hill stuff.

I limit the bike – so I’m happy 🙂

Oh don’t get me wrong, I limit all my bikes. It’s just I limit some of them less than others depending on the ride.

Just the 26″, 100 mm HT steel singlespeed (Genesis IO ID). I ditched the Alfine hub, then I ditched the riser bars for some funky semi-drops, then I ditched the front suspension and wide tyres for cyclocross. It’s 9 kilos and rides like a dream. I do go back to wider tyres for off road duties.

I also have access to Teen 1’s Giant Trance, and the FS is far more capable than me, but the ride just doesn’t excite in the same way. And that includes some of the Dh at FoD.

voodoo bokor – 26in tyres, small fork, still got most of the original bits on it, I figure that it’s not worth upgrading unless something goes really wrong (which it won’t for a long time)

it’s more than capable for the stuff I do on it so can’t see the point in trying to flog it on for a more expensive replacement… and can’t afford that anyway

What are you thinking of, man??!? My wife might read this, it has taken years for me to persuade her that I am the only MTBer who has only two bikes, every body else obviously having n+1!

at my peak i had 7 bikes…i sold a few and one got lent out never to return
i then got married and at the time had 3. then we bought a house and i had to sell another due to a lack of space, then one got stolen. the insurance payout went towards upgrading the one that was left. due to a lack of space still i cant have more than one bike so here it is in its latest incarnation:

Edit: the tyres have been swapped for some Schwalbes and i also own a 700c hybrid commuter but i dont class that as a proper bike!! 😆

I only have the one bike built up currently, a Ragley HT…I can do most things on it, surely the very point of a MTB is that they are versatile and can turn their hand to anything?!

If your only riding is XC racing and training for example then get an XC focused bike, if you only ride uplift days get a DH bike etc….but if you do a bit of everything the bike should reflect that.

The Ragley has been designed to run forks from 130mm to 150mm, I run mine at 140mm and it’s a great UK trail bike.
It’s also hardy enough to take on uplift days, compact enough to play on dirt jumps (I had it over at the Milford trails dirt jumps this weekend) and it’s comfy enough to spend all day on if I want to cover some distance.

It’s far from perfect though, it’s a heavy lump when doing a bit of hike-a-bike and the back end is less compliant than other HTs I’ve owned over the years.

My FS (when built up again) has a similar ethos, it’s a Giant Trance and should be able to make a good go of most riding when it’s finished…when you have one bike you have to be careful not to go too far in one particular direction (too slack, long travel, inefficient peddling) for example, can leave you frustrated on normal trail/XC type rides….likewise a bike with steep angles, twitchy handling, short travel etc may put you off trying more DH type stuff or put you off entering Enduros etc….

I went 2 yrs, early 13 to Spring this year with just 1 mtb – a Soul, with 120mm Reba’s and a Reverb. It is more than capable for all I ride – mainly west of Scotland techy xc, some big days, the odd trail centre.

I did however supplement it in May with an Anthem SX, which is more of the goto bike when trails are dry as it’s more capable in most ways. It won’t come out so much in the winter though, as I prefer the simplicity of a HT in the gloop.

I only have one bike, ’15 Giant Reign, so 160 front & back.

I don’t really go out and do mile munching, boring XC so I don’t need a bike that can do that.

But I’ll blast round the local woods, do the odd trail centre, race enduro & DH on it and it’s currently nearing the end of a summer in Whistler.

Bronson

DMR exalt from here. reason? I’ve always liked DMRs. Good fun, simple build.

Transition Patrol, 1 x 11 XT.

Wanted the scout but glad i got the patrol

Canyon Nerve 29.

Technically I’ve also got an old Rockhopper Pro (maybe a 2006 vintage) as I haven’t bothered to sell it. It’s taking up room in the shed for the one or two times a year the wife wants to come mountain biking.

Ventana el conquistador tandem, only mtb in 15 years. Ok, I lie a little, we have a hardtail S&s coupled tandem for traveling but it is very rarely used and most of that is road tours.

Rigid retro M-Trax (chromoly) with full XT (including B/B). Makes my fillings hurt over some rock gardens but not as bad as most modern rigids, allegedly 8)