vik 

Keep the mtn bike and get an inexpensive touring bike like a REI Randonee.

Or sell the mtn bike and get a cheaper hardtail mtn bike and a Randonee.

max-a-mill

if you absolutely have to keep it down to 1 bike how about a second set of road wheels? same hubs (so you can switch them back and forth without adjustments) lighter rims and road tires....

of course i still say 2 bikes are better but if i had to have just one thats what i'd do...

rando

oooh, nice idea!

stevel610 

If you have to keep it to one you may want to consider a late 80's to early 90's Mtn. bike with relaxed geometry. Should be able to find a nice one for less than $200 and buy a second (or third) set of wheels to meet your needs.

yes

Don't sell the prophet. Two crappy purpose built bikes are better than 1 'do it all' bike of any cost.

Buy an old touring or road bike for $100 or so on craigs list. That'll do ya for all of your road, touring, commuting needs. Keep the prophet for off road.
That solution will be cheaper than a second set of wheels for the prophet, and will be much much better.

chipcom 

+2

Businezguy

I'm so tempted to sell my Prophet and buy a cheaper (although more useful bike for my needs), and avoid my wife's wrath. I would have to agree getting a used touring bike is a very tempting option for me. My only concern would be that I'd probably want to swap out parts, especially the handle bars (I wouldn't want drop bars), and to do so might cost darn near as much as a new touring bike such as this:

https://www.rei.com/online/store/Prod...ory_rn=4500921

That type of a bike might do the trick though. It has awesome handlebars, it's rigid, it can accept racks, and even comes with one. It would be perfect. The Karate Monkey might be even more versatile a bike for me though?

chipcom 

If you want one bike to do it all, you need to prioritize each type of riding you expect to do and decide what compromises make the most sense. The Karate Monkey is like a swiss-army knife, it can do a lot of things, but not as good as something specifically designed for a specific job.

Adam Turman

Haven't read every post, but it sounds to me from your first post that you'd be happy with a cross bike.

I know Surly makes the Cross Check, and Bianchi has the Volpe, and many other major brands have a cross-style bike in their fleet.

Take one out for a spin and see what you think.

Businezguy

My thought is the Karate Monkey is a better compromise than the crosscheck, because the KM will be better offroad, and I want to enjoy a lot of offroad riding/touring. I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but I'm moving to Colorado, and expect to enjoy just as much off road biking as road biking, and I'd love to combine both in one ride. That's really my reason behind getting a versatile bike.

If I get a bike exclusively for road biking/commuting and keeping my Cannondale, a touring bike would be a very easy choice, and would be favoring something like the Surly LHT. It's ashame I can't mount any rack I want to the Surly KM, or that would be an easy choice/compromise for me, and make my decision so much easier.

rocks in head 

cyclocross or cross/touring bikes are probably what you're thinking of. Purely cyclocross bikes are $$$ expensive, but check out the Surly crosscheck, Bianchi Volpe, the old Trek 520, or any of the others... I waited until a volpe came up on CL. (I since fixed it... but that's probably not what you're after).. above you'll find good advice, I see I've repeated some of it.

trace22clawson

Rocky Mountain Bikes! I just bought the Rocky Mountain Sherpa. It's a touring bike. I use it as a commuter, road bike, and touring bike. It's made with high quality steel tubing. It can accomadate larger tires (comes stock with 28mm... but the wheel can apparently handle up to a 50mm.) It has long chain stay (445 mm) and can accomadate any rack you can think of. It also has braze-ons for front panniers (no longer available on the Bianchi Volpe.) Rocky Mountain's roots are in the mountain biking business... but the sherpa is a much better option than any of the touring bikes mentioned here. I was in exactly the same situation as you.. except I wasn't looking for something to take offroad... but the sales people at the Rocky Mountain dealer in Vancouver, BC said that it excels offroad and I shouldn't avoid trail riding.

True, no suspension on this bike, but the steel makes it run smooth and absorb bumps as well as any non-suspension bike can be expected too. I think you give up too much road, touring, and commuting versatility if you add suspension to a bike. (I dunno... I've never seen front panniers on a suspension fork... do they do that?)

https://bikes.com/

Check 'em out. (Man, how did they score that web URL?)

Businezguy

The Sherpa looks like a pretty interesting bike. Why would you recommend it over the Long Haul Trucker? I'm not an expert at reading specifications, so I apologize if I'm asking for you to interpret them for me. Also, I looks wide and far on google, and could not come up with prices for these bikes, so I was wondering if you new them.

Thanks so much for your recommendation, it looks pretty interesting. My only concern so far compared to the LHT is that the LHT has Mountain Bike components, which should make it stronger for off road use, I'd assume, and more reliable.

Sammyboy

You could buy a used tourer, and make your money BACK by getting the parts. Here's how it works. You buy your tourer - be prepared to wait and get a bargain. Then, you buy a flat bar bike for a bargain price (doesn't have to fit you, you don't have to like it, but the better the components, the better for you). You get it, part it out, keep the bars, resell the rest on eBay. If you're careful in your buying, and do a good job of your selling, you can make good money that way, and have your bikes for nothing. Don't get too hung up on how everything costs a lot.

Last year I bought a Raleigh Gran Sport (70's fast road bike) for £60. I sold the Cinelli bars and stem, the Campagnolo DT shifters, the Campy brakes, and the Shimano Light Action derailleurs for around £130 total. So, I could spend £70 on new parts, and still not have really spent anything. I sprung £5 for a set of Simplex Retrofriction DT Shifters, pulled a Shimano Golden Arrow derailleur out of a box of parts I bought (sold the rest at a profit, so that was free), bought a Shimano 500EX Exage gruppo for £16, sold the RD, the shifters, and the calipers for about £25, then put the brake levers on my bike. Pulled out a set of Shimano 600 calipers I took of another bike I split for profit (also free) and put those on. Wrights leather saddle out of a box of vintage kit that I had again turned a profit on, and a Nitto stem, again from a bike I made money on. Traded the FD from the 500EX set for a Golden Arrow FD with someone from BikeForums, and finally, splurged a total of £25 on Nashbar moustache bars, and elkhide bar covers from Velo Orange.

So, I got a free bike, and in fact, I made £40 ($80) on the deal. In my experience, the wife won't complain too much about that.

M_S

A LBS near me has been building up some absolute Frankenstein's monsters of bikes. My mind jumped directly to their awesome perversion of the Kona Dew Deluxe. Here's a picture:

Now here's the stock Dew Deluxe:

The Dew drop comes with Disc brakes, but apparently they switched them out for a better set (I know nothing about discs, so I can't verify this). Obviously though, the biggest difference is the drop bars--those will help on touring, and basically for every kind of riding but the mt. biking. But the bike is so mt. ready that you'll probably be fine riding the hoods. Of course, you may not live in Portland, but if you want to build something, this might be a good rough template.

That said, keep your mt. bike, I think. I saw a used trek 520 from 1983 for about 150 bucks yesterday, so a second used bike may be your best bet. Then again, I've been perusing craigslist for months and still haven't bought anything, so...

Hope my indecisiveness helped.

Businezguy

You certainly make some VERY good points! Your suggestion is a major consideration. Heck, it'd even impress my wife if I could pull that off!

Cyclaholic

I think you're going about this all wrong, just man up and grow a pair then TELL your wife than you're going to buy whatever and as many damned bike as you want and if she don't like it... well... just tell her to not let the door hit her azz on the way out. If by some miracle she stays then send her to fetch you a beer while you peruse the catalogs looking for your new bikes.

(aint it great giving someone else advice you wouldn't dare follow yourself )

Sammyboy

Heheheheh. This is how come I have 9 bikes (at the last count) and no objections from Herself. I get cool bikes, and I bring in some extra income!

I would add, take a little time learning what different bikes, and different parts, sell for on eBay. For a week or two, always be watching the full 100 items, so you get to see where stuff ends up. Then, only buy bikes which are well under the market price, and where you are sure that the parts will go well. I mostly do vintage bikes, and I score on badly described bikes, poorly photographed bikes, ones with an undisclosed reserve which turns out to be low. I typically watch 60 bikes for every 1 I actually buy.

trace22clawson

The MSRP on the Sherpa is $1399. That's what I was quoted by bicycle shops that are authorized dealers in the Seattle area. If you go to the Rocky Mountain website they have a dealer locater. Give a few of them a call to check their prices. Both have good components. My preference are the STI shifters. The Surly comes with bar end shifters (true touring stuff) and I'm not used to bar ends. I've heard and read alot of good stuff about the Reynolds 853 steel tubing on the Sherpa. I don't know much about the steel used on the Surly, other than it is really strong stuff ... here is a little discussion on the Surly steel:

https://www.finishing.com/323/64.shtml

I considered the LHT too. It's a good bike. It's just not available yet.. and who knows when it will be. I've talked to some of the shops and they say that Surly tells them "April-ish" and that with previous experiences they have had with Surly... that means between "June and September." I couldn't wait.. there is nothing to test ride in the Surly LHT. One of the guys that works at the LBS has a LHT.. he says great bike, awesome touring machine, but by no means "nimble." The Surly has a longer wheel base and longer chain stays than the Sherpa.. which is nicer for touring. I guess my feeling is that the LHT is more of a true touring bike than the the Sherpa. But, like you, I'm not trying to zero in on any one specific type of bike, but one that will serve my purposes best in many categories.

Businezguy

Thanks so much for all of your advice. Right now I'm leaning towards finding a great used bike from Ebay. My new reasoning goes I should get a cheap, reliable bike since they are so easy to find, and since I'll be using it for practical reasons, and don't want to get it stolen.

Investing so much in something, only to find you can't enjoy it because you are constantly worrying about it sucks! There are so many options out there, I should easily find a good price on something. Thanks for your awesome advice!

I'll keep you posted when I start looking at various deals, and I know you folks will steer me in the right direction, as you already have.

JohnBrooking

I was just thinking how surprising it was that no one had advised you yet to buy a second bike but unload the wife.

H1449-6

+1

Businezguy

Unfortunately, I'm attached to the wife too much. It's a cruel fate I suffer, I know.

DC Wheels

Bianchi Volpe for everything! You just need to buy two sets of tires - one for roading and one for off road. Not super fabulous for either but a good all around bike for these activities and for commuting. It's set up for racks and is billed as a cross/touring bike.

But if you already have a prophet that you use alot and love then consider buying a used anything to keep the cost down and peace in the house for the occasional off roading. Be wise with money and patient with your wife. You don't have to have the best bike to have fun if you mix a bit of gratitude and contentment into your attitude about biking. Why do you need the perfect bike now? So you cannot off road for awhile. Its okay. When you get funds down the line for a used or new bike the trails will be waiting. The glass really is half full. You can work on your road speed or build up to a century...

tnscoop

Bicycles, like most sports gear, is subject to the rule of threes. There really isn't any one product that is good at everything. But there are usually three products that will cover well all you might want to do. As a demonstration, I like to 1) mountain bike 2) bike commute 3) do 20-40 mile road rides for exercise. What do I need? A mountain bike, a commuter bike and a road bike. I might get by with 2 (until recently I did have just 2 bikes, but for winter riding I needed a commuter that could take fatter tires than my road bike).

Since you simply want to go up to 2 from 1, I wouldn't look to sell the Prophet since that would leave you with one bike that doesn't meet your needs. Instead, look for a good deal on a bike that meets your need. I just bought a Bianchi San Jose as my main commuter. At $600 this bike is only $100-$200 more than a monthly car payment. My bike is my work commute, so I've just covered my daily transportation with a little over one month of car payments. See how that rationale works.

Back to the rule of threes. Eventually you will need that third bike. Keep that in mind when figuring out how much to spend this time. Sometimes it makes sense to go big on number two so that number three can get under the radar more easily.

And, finally, the rule of threes applies to many things. Three backpacks, three whitewater kayaks, three pairs of skis, etc., etc.