I’ve already got a Salsa Vaya and two sets of wheels. One for road and an off road set, the frame will run 700×50 so good clearance and tyre choice. Impulse bought a new Salsa El Mariachi frame to build up rigid. I’m now realising that I can do 99% of the riding I do on the Vaya so will it be a waste of time and money building the El Mariachi?? Although I’ve lusted after an El Mariachi for years and always missed them when they came up for sale, since realising the versatility of the Vaya, I’m wondering do I really need the Vaya. Heart ruling Head?
What would you do???

I don’t know where you ride, but where I do, the El Mar would be a far more versatile choice. You ain’t riding the trails on my local hills on a drop bar bike, and the slight drop in speed on road/easy trails is a compromise that I could handle.

Keep both bikes, always handy to have a spare or two.

My El Mariachi was my singlespeed, my CAADX is my ‘gravel’ bike, yes you can ride the el mariachi on the road/easy stuff, but the CAADX is more fun and the El Mariachi was for XC/Trail stuff where the CAADX wouldn’t work at all.

My problem/argument was the other way around, I had the EM and then bought a gravel bike which displaced it for a lot of stuff, but not all. Now I have a more ‘trail’ orientated hard tail it’s hard to justify the EM though as the gap between the trail bike and the gravel bike is pretty narrow so it’s* up for sale. If I was to get a new bike now it would be a bigger FS bike, I’ve bought way too many gravel/XC bikes over the years and have just about covered every niche and sub-niche!

*actually it’s not, it’s already been swapped to a Charge Cooker, same niche but less £££ tied up in the frame.

Build it differently.

My hardtail and full suss can both be ridden round my local woods. The hardtail has much lighter wheels and tyres that would be fine round something rockier, the full suss has tyres and wheels that are significantly tougher for much rougher trails.

I could have one, or one with two sets of wheels.

It’s nicer to have two bikes that are both a bit different 🙂

What about a suspension fork and a different build on the more mountain bike of the pair?

Personally I’d have the Vaya as a do-it-all road/gravel thing with dyno, guards and versatile tyres; and then the El Mariachi as a rigid MTB. One drop bar, one flat bar. Seems ideal*. But then my 99% of riding may not fully overlap with your 99%.

* being brutally honest, rather than “ideal” I mean “a good start” 🙂

2 bikes that do the same thing – only option is a third, that way there isn’t a bike left at home all lonely and unloved on it’s own.

Keep both bikes, always handy to have a spare or two.

This.

I had a very similar problem with a Longitude and Vagabond. Kept the Longitude as it did off-road/load lugging marginally better, and couldn’t afford to keep both (I knew that when I bought it that it was a shoot-out as sale of the other had to pay back the purchase)

Just go and ride. If you can have two or more bikes then rule still applies. It’ll all work itself out. If in a year you find you hardly rode one then get consider getting rid.

I would sell it. I only have one bike at a time and that one bike is not really suitable for most things I do on it but I like riding it which is the main reason I ride a bike.

I’ve always had two bikes over the last 10-15 yrs , a hardtail and a full suss. Always ended up selling the least used then fell into the same trap of thinking I needed two. In reality the Vaya copes well with singletrack and will run 29×2.0 tyres. So probably will sell the new El Mariachi frame. Anyone interested??

I’ve always had two bikes over the last 10-15 yrs , a hardtail and a full suss. Always ended up selling the least used then fell into the same trap of thinking I needed two. In reality the Vaya copes well with singletrack and will run 29×2.0 tyres. So probably will sell the new El Mariachi frame. Anyone interested??

I’d build the vaya up with narrower/faster tyres, something like vittoria terrano 700x40c, and the mariachi with 100mm sus forks. Not much overlap there. Not too much overlap with something slightly more trail/gnarr like a 130mm+ FS bike either.

Depends where you live though, it suited me as I can either ride a gravel bike form my door on bridleways, or head to Swinely and Farnbrough for something more technical-XC.

I miss My Mariachi, but the Cooker that replaced it was almost as good and a fraction of the price so it didn’t matter so much if it wasn’t used daily.

Do you need the space or the money?

I have a rigid Solaris and a rigid El Mar. The only difference was the El Mar was SS, Solaris was geared.

El Mar was for local stuff and Solaris was for trips, they were my only two off road bikes. But there was so much overlap between them I struggled to justify it, apart from the SS factor. Then I wanted another bike so I sold the El Mar for the space, kept the Solaris, and bough a 7 foot long Big Dummy instead.

End result is I’m riding my Solaris more, mainly for local rides. Which is no bad thing!

Keep them. I have 2 bikes similar to those, a 650B road/gravel bike and a rigid 29er on 2.4s. They may cover some similar riding but they’re very different at the ends of the riding range covered by the 2 bikes. And I ride them with a different attitude. MTB is just more fun. Gravel bikes never replace MTBs off-road, even on easy XC terrain. And MTBs always feel like a drag on longer road sections – not saying I won’t do it, just that the drop bars feel much nicer on tarmac.
I guess what’s important is not the spec of the 2 bikes but that they ride with different attitudes. To me a slack lazy gravel bike and a racy 29er would be the wrong combo.

@benp1 it’s neither to be honest, I’m dealing with a kidney tumour and just evaluating the future with regard to “living” a bit more. I suppose the best thing to do would be build it and ride it then decide. Jameso that exactly how is planned to run it, built with a firestarter fork and 2.6 front with a 2.4 rear, 1×11 drivetrain.

2 bikes that do the same thing – only option is a third, that way there isn’t a bike left at home all lonely and unloved on it’s own.

N+1 as always.

N+1

I think that the correct number of bikes is one. I have two though…

I’ve got a 29er with decent spec inc Reba forks you can have for £200 plus p&p. That’ll build your EM for cheap ad make it different to the Vaya.

Sell one or repurpose it. I have two Giant Propels (due to an accident and a bike rebuild). One has been repurposed as a training TT bike after I never raced it. You won’t ride them both otherwise. Keep the lusty one 😉

That’s a good option for me, a set of 650b wheels with wider tyres and run the El Mariachi as a 29er to create two distinct and different bikes with different characteristics. Cheers