Pinkbike Poll: What's Your Ideal Two Bike Quiver?
For many mountain bikers, their garage, shed, or living room is filled with more than one bike. N+1, right? There are so many options out there that's it's tough to settle on just one,
For those that haven't headed down the path of hoarding two wheelers, what if you could add a second mountain bike to the fleet? Or for those who have already built up a sizeable collection, what if you had to downsize to just two bikes? How would that affect your choices?
I’ve seen a recent decline in the amount of “do-it-all” enduro bikes out there. The jack of all trades is often the master of none. For some riders, that means downsizing to a slightly more responsive aggressive trail bike that can be pedaled further, faster, and longer, sometimes adding in a budget downhill bike to the garage and a replacement for that gravity addiction.
Others have kept their enduro bikes, which seem to have slowed in progression slightly, or at least their frame features and dimensions, adding an eMTB to explore, commute, or blast out during an hour of parental leave.
Holding steady on wheel size, geometry, and construction, dirt jump bikes have hardly changed in decades and come at a significantly lower cost than a bike with dual shocks, a dropper post, powerful brakes, and electronics gizmos. They require little attention and rarely a costume change - chuck on a helmet and you can ride until the lights turn off at the local park. They’re that simple.
Sub-categories have been narrowed down for simplification:
• DJ (full suspension/slopestyle bikes)
• XC (110mm rear wheel travel or less)
• Trail (111 - 140mm rear wheel travel or less)
• Enduro (141 - 170mm rear wheel travel or less)
• Freeride (171 -190mm rear wheel travel or less)
• Downhill (more than 190mm rear wheel travel)
• eMTB (any travel amount, more than 50Nm of torque)
• SL eMTB (any travel amount, 50Nm of torque or less)
• DJ (full suspension/slopestyle bikes)
• XC (110mm rear wheel travel or less)
• Trail (111 - 140mm rear wheel travel or less)
• Enduro (141 - 170mm rear wheel travel or less)
• Freeride (171 -190mm rear wheel travel or less)
• Downhill (more than 190mm rear wheel travel)
• eMTB (any travel amount, more than 50Nm of torque)
• SL eMTB (any travel amount, 50Nm of torque or less)
If you could choose any two types of mountain bikes, what would they be?
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Friend's bike and other friend's bike
Rigid DH and Full sus Gravel
F150 Lightning and EMTB
Tesla
S-Works
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m.pinkbike.com/u/scar4me/album/F150
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*logs back on to onlyfans*
Hardtail 140mm fork + Enduro for the win
Seems crazy to go with a lower travel option and have a full-squish XC/downcountry bike and an enduro HT.
Also seems crazy to add slightly more travel and have a 150mm hardtail and a 160-170mm FS with similar geometry.
A full on DH bike is appealing but I’d use it less than 10 times a year, hard to justify the cost.
I’ll just keep being the “rides his steel hardtail everywhere” guy and save my $$$ I guess.
Gnartail plus the trail/enduro bike allow full send all of the time.
I've tried the 140 ish bike and the enduro but they are just too close these days.
Well said- that’s the combo I was looking for on the menu.
I am 50 and started riding in 93. Yeah, I feel more beat up after a hardtail ride but modern hardtrails are really fun to ride, especially on flow trails and classic single track
As a single bike for everything I'd go with a slack ht with 140 fork. Might not be the fastest option anywhere, but you can ride it everywhere.
I did set up my chameleon to be able to do both... I'd call it a trail bike though. It's currently set up mullet with a 140 36 on it. But the drop outs are 29er and I have a 29er wheel. So you can very quickly do a wheel swap and it's much more friendly on those long rolly pedal days.
But yes, the tallboy can be ridden in some really gnarly stuff, but can't come you ass like a megatower can.
I would rather have a magetower as an only bike over the tallboy. Put some lighter and faster tires on it and it really rolls out. Also it is not a complete turd on more mellow trails like some big bikes can be.
If I'm riding somewhere where there are alot of big technical features and I'm only interested in the smashy smashy then it's the spire every time.
Arguably almost as expensive as having/maintaining two rigs, but you only have to maintain one super dialed bike and you get a ton of versatility to ride any terrain. The conversion takes ~5 minutes.
I have a short travel Fugitive and the Spire, so 120 and 170 bikes. The Fugitive is anything but light, but itis a cracker of a bike to ride. The Spire is my happy place
Uphill Strava times I figured out are pretty
much solely dependent on fitness, the advantage of an XC bike is a tiny percentage. Light trail bike + good fitness will absolutely smash the uphill times of an XC bike + average fitness.
I think many moved to the newer Sight. 160/150mm gives way more room for error and it still climbs really well. I was about to jump on the new sight train, but got an amazing deal on a Druid. A friend used to change bikes nearly every season and he's settled on a carbon sight (custom build, with his drivetrain and brakes of choice) and has been on it for at least 3 seasons now. Prev bike was an Instinct BC edition, which was quite capable, but the Sight is better. His kid is on a Druid (as are a lot of the kids in school mtb clubs).
I'm hoping to mullet my Fugitive to see how that goes
I already thought of this but not worth it imo
For me, the right answer here is a Druid and my Orbea Terra gravel bike.
Whatever happened to him?
Gotta have a DH bike for racing DH
Gotta have an EEB for 90% of riding
Gotta have an enduro bike to remind you how good the eeb is
Gotta have an xc bike for when the ride is too long for the EEB battery
Gotta have a jump bike for 3 laps of the pump track and looking at the local jumps
Gotta have a 4x bike as it's better than a jump bike for pumptrack
Gotta have a BMX for 1 scary lap with no brakes
Gotta have a cx bike with rim brakes for going to the pub
Gotta have a road bike for that 1 charity road cycle at work each year and as a spare pub bike and for sitting on the turbo that you never turn on
Think that's biking covered.
Still got the old DH bike for sentimental value a good old cracked Nukeoroof and a 2nd Nukeoroof that isn't cracked because they are worthless to sell along with 300 worn tyres, some buckled wheels and the odd broken hope hub because that's their favourite trick.
I refuse to select XC for that, as a long travel hardtail, with a 61degree hta is absolutely not an XC bike.
Plus, what if you like two of the same type of bike rather than different types?
The bare minimum to be happy in life is a Pumptrack bike (DJ or BMX), a trailbike, and an Enduro bike.
With such a 3-bikes quiver, you can be somewhat happy, but you should expect to wake up at night, thinking about how awesome your life would be if you also owned a modern hardtail. To keep things real from time to time...
Agreed! I am thinking about something like a 180/170 enduro bike, with real tires and inserts.
Come on, PB, know your audience!!
Seven different options each for DJ and Freeride (even one for Unicycle!), but no HT?
** rolls eyes **
Gravel for winter fitness and the odd easy XC loop, enduro for the fun riding
I will have both with 2 sets of wheels:
- Light road set with thin slicks / Cheap-ish gravel set with bigger knobby tyres
- Light set with almost XC tyres / Cheap OE set with enduro casing
This can quickly turn 2 bikes into 4. I'm about to build the last set to finish this project.
Trail and enduro seems interesting, but too close as there is so much crossover pedaling performance be those categories.
And XC and enduro are also tempting to better bookend things.
But I prioritize downhill performance and want that (maybe more downcountry trail bike) all around trail bike do everything feel, then full on optimal downhill performance, pedaling be damned!
- DJ, aggressive 29 Hardtail (rootdown), Long Travel 29, DH, Gravel (daily driver)
If I could only have two bikes I'd go for Hardtail/ Enduro.
Also, why no hardtail option?
Yeah there is some overlap, but I think that’s partly because both are so flexible.
The SJE is such a capable bike that on easier trails it can be less rewarding, especially if they’re rolling trails rather than winch and plummet. It’s great for big mountain riding, bike parks and steeper more technical trails.
The Marley is more fun for flowier less challenging trails, and feels less tiring for longer all day rides. With a 140mm fork and modern geometry it’s quite capable on easier enduro trails too, but it’s not as fast as the SJE, so I ride it differently.
I do find myself thinking about taking the Marley to a bike park to see what it could do though…
DH should be number one always and forever.
Trail and enduro? XC and trail??? They're each practically the same thing
Single speed
Far bike
Gravel (just kidding)
Bike packer
My combo is an enduro as a daily driver and a fat bike with two wheel sets (summer, winter).
I also have a mountain unicycle with two wheels (27.5, 29), but I don’t include the uni as part of my quiver cuz it’s like a totally different sport
Mentioning the other type of ride just because I love it. My quite mint, white 1989 Honda CRX ED9. I live in Europe. Don't need a car. It's just for fun.
It would be hard to get rid of the NS Suburban DJ and the On-One rigid 69er though...as they serve their own specific purposes so well.
So for me the 2 bike quiver is XC and trail, but with the caveat that we’re talking the long legged rowdier side of trail.
Transition patrol with cascade link and dual crown form making it 180/190. Keep a dropper post in there but take it out for shuttle/lifts
Biking > Bikes
Happy Holidays
Can daily the torrent to work and play on the trails on work days, big rig comes out in the weekend or shuttles.
never will. My trail bike is a hardtail, my freeride bike is a
hardtail and my downhill bike is a hardtail : )
My fine print is:
- XC biased trail. E.g. Canyon Lux Trail
- DH biased enduro: E.g. The Commencal Meta SX V4 that I already have.
Does no one ride a HT anymore? Surprised they were completely left off...HT for LIFE!
Primary: 2020 Rocky Mountain Instinct BC Edition w/ coil (160/155). One enduro wheelset, one XC/Trail
Secondary: 2016 Salsa Bucksaw (full sus fat bike, it snows here). One max-width wheelset, one studded, one 27.5+
Gravel/commuter/Zwift bike: 2013 Trek Crossrip
I also have a buddy that lets me borrow his 170mm eMTB when I need a recovery ride after collapsing a lung (pretty particular use-case)
27/26 mullet senduro bike - capable of rampage level freeride, dirt jumps and any trail
Run an element and blizzard here in sask. Winter and summer downcountry? Haha ♂️
- Enduro / Gravel bike
- Enduro / Urban Ebike
Grunt & flow.
Specialized Enduro
Levo
Norco 4 Run
Giant TCR
Specialized Fat boy….
And counting…
But E-motos need to stay the f*ck away from anything to do with MTB. They absolutely destroy trails, in one uphill pass. Ask me how I know.
I've seen trail builders in B.C. corner poaching motorbikers and scream at them. For good reason. Takes 100's sometimes 1000's of voluntary hours to hand build an MTB trail.
New trails here are built by reading topo maps, exploring by foot, then hiking and flagging. I've built and helped crews build several trails locally over the decades.
Ridden motos for years, never ridden anywhere even near the MTB trail network. Mostly because don't want to get punched lol.
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