Admirable! Thoreau would definitely approve. Unless we have some peculiar masochists in the crowd, I think your average of one saddle per cyclist should earn you a secure spot at the bottom.
And, four years on the road is worth a round of applause too. We’re usually ready to see home again for awhile after five months.
I must warn that "four years on the road" must be read cautiously and the only award it might deserve is one for inflating what it actually is. While it is true that we have been on the road for that long, more than a third of the time has been off the bikes.
Oh well, thanks for the clarification. We’re not that far out of your league then. It’ll be two years for us next month, with no end in sight either. We’re on the road 8-9 months per year and come home to regroup periodically. We’re pretty soft though. None of that ripio for us!
On the contrary, I think we are way behind you and Rachael and Leigh keeps reminding me that we are not "real" cyclists. What we don't have is a home to return to for re-grouping so we have no place to store additional bicycles even if we had any.
I skimmed that book in the library, I'm pretty much in her camp. My shorthand approach to defining "attachment, use and appreciation" works great for me but leaves my wife apoplectic:
When we built this house 17 years ago, when we moved from our smaller house there were boxes of stuff that were in our old basement labeled "save" that we hadn't touched in a decade of living in the old house. My memory was that they were stuff I wanted to get rid of when we moved into the small house, but the party to whom I am related to by marriage absolutely couldn't part wtih. A quick look in the boxes confirmed a low level of attachment, zero use and only dubious appreciation.
When we moved into the new house, I gave those "save" boxes 1 year - and then donated them to charity without even opening them up. When the Kondo book got all the publicity years later, my wife said "If I had the time, I'd apply all that to those "save" boxes we've had for 20 years" - I quickly changed the subject.
Jumping in late on this thread. After all the references to Kondo and Thoreau I had to go back to the start to remember what this was all about.
Oh yeah, bikes.
I kinda like Mike A’s ‘saddle count’ method, probably because we have two tandems too.
So here goes... the count for the Kaarsoo- McLeods:
2 Toute Terrain Silk Roads - touring and everyday rides
2 Rocky Mountain Altitude 770’s , carbon frame full suspension mtb’s - fun and adrenaline rushes
1 Specialized Dolce road bike - Kirsten
1 Kona Kapu lugged steel road bike - me
1 Dawes Super Galaxy lugged steel touring turned commuter bike - very neglected ‘cause I don’t commute anymore - me
1 Electra cruiser townie - this one’s also quite neglected, novelty rides only - general ‘family’ bike
2 Bilenky s&s coupled Rholloff’d Tandems - touring and fun. Only one has been ridden much in the last 8 years . The other one should probably be sold ... any interest out there ??? Beautiful bike ( it was shown by Bilenky in the 2009 NAHBS) and probably less than 2000 km’s on it ... shameless advertising plug!
That’s all, after many years all the kids bikes are finally out of the garage!
Hmm, if we go by saddles until recently I'd have to add the 5 saddles in a box in the basement. Until my latest bike (Jamis Renegade) I always quickly replaced the stock saddle on every bike I bought, and then saved them "just in case."
Every new saddle seemed to cost more and have less material and less padding to it and seemed more comfortable on long rides. I was going to replace the Jamis stock Fizik Allante saddle, since it looks like an old school saddle - no cutout, actually some give to the material.
But, I never got around to it before doing about 300 miles around Florida earlier in the year and it felt fine. Another 200 miles or so since then, still feels fine. I'm kinda feeling like the new saddle purchases in the past benefited from the placebo effect - probably the stock saddles would have been just as good. I may not be attached to the stock Fizik seat (which appears not to even be sold anymore) but I am using it and appreciating it.
I will keep one saddle from the box and donate the other 4 to a local project that fixes up bikes for low income bike commuters.
Oops, hijacked the thread again - to summarize, we have 5 bikes. I am inching towards adding a tandem but years ago when riding together, my wife and I ran into a group of married cross country tourists finishing up their ride from Seattle to Washington DC and spoke with a married couple on a tandem. They joking called it their "almost divorced" bike, after a few rough stretches. That stuck in my wife's mind, she is not on board yet.
John,
It is true that tandems accelerate the trajectory of your relationship, so yes you need to be careful before crossing that threshold !
John and Lyle: thank you both for your responses, thoughts on tandems, and the important clarification about saddles. We’re counting only mounted saddles here, and at that only ones mounted on a bicycle. Trophy saddles above the mantelpiece don’t count.
And thanks for the caution about the risks of tandem cycling to your relationship. We knew this about ourselves already though, after renting a tandem in San Francisco 30 years ago for a spin across the Golden Gate Bridge and returning quite frustrated. One and done for us, until/unless one of us becomes incapacitated and can’t ride on their own.
It’s time that we update our accounting, so unless I’ve missed someone here are the complete current results of the first ever CycleBlaze Bike Inventory, measured in SPC units:
If we weren't on the road, I think I might succumb to the n+1 affliction. We've been going for four years now and I can imagine that we have at least that many more before we settle down again. Until then all Leigh and I have is a Thorn Raven each.
4 years ago