Bike tribes

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Oldhippy

Cynical idealist
Am I the only one who, barring full on racing road and MTB, gets bewildered by the seemingly endless array of a bike for this, a bike for that? I have one touring bike, it goes off road, on road, pulls trailers, carries shopping, goes camping on road and off and is daily transport. I don't have to change the tyres every five minutes for weather conditions, I buy one set of Marathon touring tyres and when worn out replace.
 

vickster

Legendary Member
Yes, cycling is a broad church, people like different and do different things when it comes to cycling.
(and I personally like having different bikes, clothing etc for what is primarily a hobby as I no longer commute, although I will shop by bike if out on the one that has the rack for the pannier bag).
None of the different ways to utilise and enjoy cycling are right or wrong
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
It's either road or MTB for me. Road for road, MTB for fun, although my 90's MTB is geared up for commuting on and off road.

A cross bike could be some fun !
 

CanucksTraveller

Macho Business Donkey Wrestler
Location
Hertfordshire
To an extent. I mean there's that relatively new idea of "gravel bike" but probably not that many more. And I think marketing has led that, it's not necessarily that people needed a defined machine specifically for very light, slightly quickish off-road circumstances, but bike companies love telling people they do. Can't blame them I guess, if I were in the bike selling business I'd be doing the same.

I think if you own a good tourer with decent tyres and a good rack, it's easy to think you've got the bike that does the most, they do cover a lot of the cycling "Venn diagram". Certainly once I got a tourer a couple of years ago I got rid of two whole other bikes (a carbon road bike and a shopping hybrid) as it did both their jobs.
I'm not quite convinced there's that many more defined, specific bike types now anyway. There's road, MTB, hybrid for sure, then really specialised stuff like those big Bakfiet cargo things, tandems, everything else is really just a slight variation on one of those former main groups. A gravel bike for example is really just a road bike adapted to wear more sensible footwear.
 
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oldwheels

Legendary Member
Location
Isle of Mull
I used my Brompton for all sorts of riding conditions including some very rough tracks on Speyside. It was really just a matter of adapting your riding style to suit the surface and picking a route. On my MB I would have ridden in a different way but since I had a motorhome as base I only had room for one bike and the Brompton fitted the bill.
 

grldtnr

Senior Member
Yes, cycling is a broad church, people like different and do different things when it comes to cycling.
(and I personally like having different bikes, clothing etc for what is primarily a hobby as I no longer commute, although I will shop by bike if out on the one that has the rack for the pannier bag).
None of the different ways to utilise and enjoy cycling are right or wrong
I don't go to church, but 'religously' cycle, a different bike according to what I want to do!
But I am a cyclist still ! Kemosavvy! ( Did I spell that right, don't know ,don't care!)
 

Drago

Legendary Member
Ive come up for an idea for a new class of bicycle. The Pea Gravel bike. Ill be a millionaire by new year.
 

Cathryn

Legendary Member
I actually think cycling's incredible range of activities makes it unique amongst sports. I can't think of another sport that allows you to do everything from pro racing to track to road to MTB downhill to cyclocross to gravel/non-downhill XC to commute to leisure to families to adaptive to touring to family transport. And I love how broad the range of 'cyclists' is.

What other sport is so versatile?
 

All uphill

Still rolling along
Location
Somerset
I should just have two bikes; a low value one that I feel OK to leave in town, and a nice bike for covering bigger miles.

In reality I have four, a folder, two nice bikes and the old one that I still don't leave unattended.

I never thought of myself as the collecting type.
 

Smokin Joe

Legendary Member
I actually think cycling's incredible range of activities makes it unique amongst sports. I can't think of another sport that allows you to do everything from pro racing to track to road to MTB downhill to cyclocross to gravel/non-downhill XC to commute to leisure to families to adaptive to touring to family transport. And I love how broad the range of 'cyclists' is.

What other sport is so versatile?
Motorcycling.
 

hatler

Guru
I actually think cycling's incredible range of activities makes it unique amongst sports. I can't think of another sport that allows you to do everything from pro racing to track to road to MTB downhill to cyclocross to gravel/non-downhill XC to commute to leisure to families to adaptive to touring to family transport. And I love how broad the range of 'cyclists' is.

What other sport is so versatile?
Sailing ?
 
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