Ya need two road bikes. Because, duh.

Calfee Bamboo

It goes without saying, right? Despite what significant others and financial advisors might insist.

Ya need two bikes. Now, I have a sweet Calfee carbon road bike and a full suspension Trek Fuel but that’s just the natural split — road and mountain. What we’re talking about is two road bikes, one as backup.

Now that I also have a Calfee bamboo gravel bike, I find that it saves me a lot of rides that would otherwise be wiped out if my one bike needed some work.

It’s just seems to be the inevitable order of things that one bike always needs to go to the shop. This is partly a sad commentary on bikes getting too complicated — electronic shifting, disc brakes, etc etc.

Then there’s the new issue of swapping out a different wheel-set — in my case, a nice climber’s wheel-set, the Mavic Ksyrium Pro UST, and the aero wheel-set, the Rolf Prima Ares 4. I love them both and they’re not only awesome but bomb-proof, which I appreciate at 200 pounds.

This is the bike version of the joke about this being a first world problem. Oh, woe is me, have to take the bike in swap out wheel-sets. And it’s true, not exactly a life or death drama here.

Still, I find more and more that there’s always something that necessitates having two road-ish bikes. I don’t have any mechanical skills (the real inherent problem) so that change of wheels mean a derailleur adjustment and a slight tweak of the disc brakes.

Oh, and can you fix the brake lever that seems to be sticky and what? — I need a new chain? And the tubeless tires new need sealant. Yeah, of course they do, sure, ring me up.

It seems like every other weekend, I have an errand called “take bike to shop.” I’m not complaining about hanging out in bike shops which are magical places but it does get expensive and I’m simply going to have to learn how to make micro adjustments to Di2 and disc brakes. That or move into a house that’s next door to the bike shop.

Thankfully, I have two bikes. The carbon road bike needs work on the rear wheel but I’m still riding tomorrow — I’ve got two bikes. Ya gotta have two.