Originally Posted by
bbattle
A growing consensus is that it is better to have purpose-built bikes than a jack-of-all-trades bike. Touring and quick riding don't go together in perfect harmony and a lot of bikes that attempt to meld them end up as commuter bikes. Or totally awesome Randonneurs with names like Singer and Herse.
Why, it is the justification for N + 1, our guiding light and perfect excuse for having a garage full of bicycles.
Go ahead and get the Stanyan and build it up. After riding it awhile, you'll know which direction you'll want bike #2 to go. And then bike #3, #4, and so on.
I think this is a very good point worth emphasizing, and exactly the point. If we put a loaded touring bike on one end of the scale and a sprint bike on the other end, the bike that we would be looking for would be somewhere in the middle of the scale, obviously. This sort of melding of extremes is done all of the time in the sporting equipment industry to maximize profits. It brings to mind, this time of year, the all mountain ski. It’s not a powder ski and it’s not a slalom ski, but it will do either equally badly.
I don’t think that N + 1 is necessarily a solution to finding this type of ‘do-anything-even-if-it-does-it-badly’ bike, but it is certainly a reliable excuse for buying another bike.
