Before we start, I suggest you locate a large sheet of paper and a sharpened pencil. Shit’s about to get real 🙂 The revolving door of the ShedofDreams(tm) is rotating at such speed it is a minor miracle it has not been torn from its hinges, and is now accelerating dangerously towards the western horizon.

While cataloguing the increasingly baffling ins, outs and some shaking it all about of the last few months feels important, firstly I feel the need to update my bike buying rationale. Long time readers of the hedgehog may remember one of the bedrocks of our marriage is I pretend to be executing a 4D chess bike curation strategy and Carol pretends to believe me.

Strip back niche chasing fads, shiny new toys and perceived gaps in an already stacked bike shed, it really comes down to nothing more than I like buying and riding bikes. This is not just rampant consumerism- I’m entirely uninterested in – for example – changing my five year old car. It does everything I need it to do without costing me much money in doing so*

Bikes tho, maybe it used to be chasing “the one” perfect frame. But I’m honest enough nowadays to peg the lowest common denominator as the ham-fisted baboon making a horses arse of riding anywhere near the limit of whatever is unfortunate enough to be the steed of the day.

There’s also a persuasive argument stating riding one bike all the time will make you faster and more confident. Well maybe, but I’m not chasing those metrics much either. Finally bike overlap appears to be a issue for those following the cult of the one true bike. Again, I don’t care- wake up, choose a bike, go riding. Not sure what the problem is.

However, even for a man spitballing nonsense on multiple bike ownership, owning three trail bikes with similar dimensions, travel and components is difficult to reconcile. Sober anyway. I always knew the Propain represented the trail bike hegemony leaving the RipMo and SB130LR as shed queens since April this year**

Both went on various selling sites with variable levels of interest and offers ranging between insulting and bizarre. Do I look like a man in need of a broken PS2 and a pair of axle stands? They both eventually sold each with it’s own slightly odd story.

The RipMo went to a lovely fella who was travelling to Morzine the very next day. He wanted a bike better suited to those trails in an attempt to keep his teenage sons in sight. The Yeti sold then rapidly unsold after a crack was discovered near the bottom bracket. Not smashed in my ownership, and I’d been riding it for 18 months!

After much back and forth, that sold at a price reflective of the cost of a full repair. And the Digger had already been shipped out before I smashed myself up. So N-3; hence the uneasy feeling on entering the shed that we’d been the victims of selective but invasive burglary.

Time to address that. Firstly came the gravel bike replacement. A steel framed, 140mm forked, lightly built backpacking hardtail. With XC tyres, it’s a hoot on easy trails and I expect it’ll be the ideal companion on planned 48 hour lightening raids crisscrossing Welsh mountains. All hail the beige adventurer.

So, and do try and keep up, we have the Cotic BFE (4 years old) hardcore winter hardtail and all round antidote to needing a full suss for most of my riding, Nordest Britango for blasts from the house and trips to the hills, the Hugene as my all round trail bike for most of my non winter riding, leaving only the never-to-be-sold Nukeproof Giga (also 4 years old) for when a big bike adventure awaits.

Done and dusty. Hard to cram anything else into some perceived micro niche. For most people anyway, which I am not. There’s a certain serendipity to the image at the top of this blog. I bought my second ever MTB from Stiff Mountain Bikes in Headingly. I remember debating the merits of a 110mm over a 120mm stem!

25 years on and sadly that shop is closing down for good. Leaving with a set of blow out deals that caught my roving eye. Specifically that ex-demo Santa Cruz 5010: yes it’s another sort of trail bike, no it’s not that different to what I have other than a right-on-trend 27.5in rear wheel. Good for jibbers apparently. No idea what that is but assume there are tablets to help.

I bought it because it was cheap- relatively the RRP on these things is insane. Surely no one outside of Audi owning Surrey dentists ever pays full price. This was further discounted with it being an ex-demo model with a few scars from over enthusiastic testers. Nothing more than cosmetic tho and – most importantly – in the fastest colour available.

So what’s it like? Only ridden it once in a timeline of increasing dampness. And I’m only three rides post splatterday all clear. It was fun tho, lots of fun, fast turning in fun, involving trail chatter fun, soft off the top but grippy traction fun. No idea tho if this is just riding bikes, riding new bikes or riding bikes without worrying about injuries.

Whatever, it was great and I have zero regrets.  The shed feels “about right” and I don’t expect the call of the shiny to be heard anytime soon.

It is me tho, so….

*nowadays that means: comfortable seats, decent aircon, reasonable stereo, not hard to park 😉

**My plan was to ride the RipMo on “Splatterday” but a quick lap of the farm track had me shunting it behind the Hugene. Not sure it’d have made any difference.