Riding to work on your 'best bike'?

CRAIGO5000

What's the general consensus on this?

I've never really owned a 'best' bike before, but that will all change after Saturday as my Ribble Stealth with Sram Force groupset will ready! Shame it's at the tail end of the gorgeous sunny weather...

I have had thoughts about commuting the Stealth and leaving the cruds on the Allez as the Winter spec hack and/or when the weather forecast hints rain for the day. I don't want the general road crap putting a short life on the Sram groupset as that bike won't have cruds on.

Do you guys have a similar mentality when it comes to riding your Sunday best or are they strictly for best use? :?

I don't want to be one of those guys falling into the trap of saving it for best and then realise that every other weekend brings rain and it never actually gets used. If I have a good bike, I want to be on it all the time - we live in England after all. 8)

iPete

Riding is riding personally but then my best bike is my only bike.

il_principe

I figure that I'm more likely to have an accident on my commute into central London. By "accident" I mean "be driven into by some SMIDSY". So the best bike is left for weekend rides etc. I'd also rather wear out expensive components doing the sort of riding I really enjoy, rather than the daily grind.

dhope

Most weekdays I'm on the fixed commuter. If I plan on extending the commute then I'll take the better bike. If it looks really nice out I might take the better bike too. They're all for riding so I'm not too precious. It's not a stupidly expensive bike - Boardman with SRAM Rival. If it was a few thousand's £ worth of bike then it'd probably not see the commute at all... y'know, unless it was a really really nice day or I fancied extending my commute. Oh.

spasypaddy

if im going to a race straight from work then yes. otherwise no, not a hope in hell. just look at it, why would i ride that in traffic?

DrLex

In contrast to those in the Smoke, my commute is short (sub 6 miles) and enjoyable, so the best bike was bought with the main purpose of commuting. It also gets stored in a secure compound when there. If I was a keen racer, then I'm sure the best bike would be saved for race days & competitions.
Little chance of a consensus on best bike use - think it's just working out what's best/seems right for you and your needs/uses.

greg66_tri_v2.0

I don't believe in leaving nice things for "special". They end up sitting there never being used.

That said, I tend to use my preferred bike/wheels on dry days and the other one on wet days. Time of year/traffic doesn't make a difference though.

rjsterry

iPete wrote:

Riding is riding personally but then my best bike is my only bike.

+1. Although I seem we have the same definition of the word "only"

bigmat

Been riding the "best bike" a lot lately. Strava emphasised what a small proportion of my overall mileage I was doing onit, which was a waste frankly. All three bikes get used, I tend to save the best one for sunny dry days or when I have a race / training ride after work, mountain bike for really foul weather / when the winter roadie is laid up / winter roadie still default bike (although I've got rid of the Cruds, upgraded to 10 speed, generally got it in pretty good condition so its no hardship riding it )

CiB

Most of my riding is the commute and I want to do that on the best bike I can muster, so it's the carbon Di2 powered road rocket for my commute every time. It helps that it's a v rural commute and that it's quite a distance so requires something good to do it on, but I'm with Greg on this. Why buy a fancy dan bike and then not use it? And DDD called me cool for commuting on a bike of that spec so that's good enough for me.

Kieran_Burns

Greg66 wrote:

I don't believe in leaving nice things for "special". They end up sitting there never being used.

That said, I tend to use my preferred bike/wheels on dry days and the other one on wet days. Time of year/traffic doesn't make a difference though.

This.

I won't ride the Madone when it's wet (no guards) and sometimes I take a longer loop home that it won't cope with (off road) but when it's glorious like this week - I like to ride it as it makes the whole 12 mile commute just bloody marvellous. The only downside is that the spd-sl pedals are a faff I can do without as I can never clip in properly and need to be a lot more careful at junctions.

Saying that though - being able to cruise along at 3 or 4 mph faster than normal is a great feeling

notsoblue

Well, I don't race, and I don't regularly get out at the weekend. So most of my cycling is actually my commute. I like to ride such that it gives me a good workout, and I'll occaisionally extend my commute into Richmond Park. Why wouldn't I use my best bike for this?

To be honest though, my other bike is a hybrid, so its really just for slow/functional riding (shops, pub, riding with slower cyclists). I wouldn't get as much enjoyment out of commuting with it.

Headhuunter

I only use my "best bike" for commuting if the others are all out of action. I find that the commute wears through components fairly quickly. Riding in the rain and on salted/gritted roads in winter and the increased braking involved in the commute means that brake pads, chains, gearing and hub bearings etc need a lot more attention. I like to keep my "best bike" for weekend club rides

roger_merriman

No I wouldn't since my best bike is a MTB (hardly flash mind you) and riding that on road is horribly slow, and frankly I hate riding on the road on that bike.

The MTB gets taken places to play.

so I have a 2nd and SS with panniers etc it's not as fast as a carbon super bike but it's fun and capable bike. I use that for commute/shopping/rides into North Downs/and so on.

Wrath Rob

I'm now doing more intra-week training that involves something at the start or the end of the commute. Normally I'd use the Comtat or the SS for this but now that I've got a Powertap wheel on the nice bike (and I've lost my HRM), I'm using that more on the commute. Not really a problem as long as you accept that things will wear out quicker. And you've got somewhere very secure to leave it. Oh, and you'll have a much bigger FCN target on your back. Especially with deep section wheels.

CRAIGO5000

Do 30mm rims quantify "deep section" ?

To be honest, I'd love the action that a higher FCN would bring. Sadly on my commute I rarely see other cyclists. The ones I do see are hipster couriers or ladies wearing floral dresses riding with baskets.

Maybe I should move South...

veronese68

I don't have a best bike. If I did I would use it for the commute as I would want to use it as much as possible. I would probably avoid using it in the darkest depths of winter when the roads are gritted though.

mrc1

I used to commute on my Pearson Touche and leave the Ciocc for best, but when we moved house and didn't have access to a secure car park I had to get rid of the Pearson (two bikes in the bedroom didnt go down well). I was pretty nervous riding it in heavy traffic/crap roads at first but I soon adopted the view that I didn't buy the bike to worry about it so just got on with it.

willy b

During Oct/Nov/Dec I was riding my old Bianchi in SS mode, which tbh I enjoyed alot.

The BB gave up in Jan and I decided I wanted to do extra miles on the commute, so since then I have been using the best bike. Not used the best wheels yet on the commute as they are 50mm Carbons

Agree with others about using the best bike though, if most of your riding is your commute then why not!

DonDaddyD

In all honesty it's either a balance between or one of the following:

G66 wrote:

I don't believe in leaving nice things for "special". They end up sitting there never being used.

This

ill Prince wrote:

I figure that I'm more likely to have an accident on my commute into central London. By "accident" I mean "be driven into by some SMIDSY". So the best bike is left for weekend rides etc. I'd also rather wear out expensive components doing the sort of riding I really enjoy, rather than the daily grind.

And this

CIB wrote:

Most of my riding is the commute and I want to do that on the best bike I can muster, so it's the carbon Di2 powered road rocket for my commute every time. It helps that it's a v rural commute and that it's quite a distance so requires something good to do it on, but I'm with Greg on this. Why buy a fancy dan bike and then not use it? And DDD called me cool for commuting on a bike of that spec so that's good enough for me.

It's all abot personal circumstance and a combination of where you're riding and affordability that influences the decision.

Some people have a best bike and cheap warhorse so hardworking it could resist depeleted uranium. The best bike is kept for weekends as the cost/risk of running it everyday wouldn't be financially viable.

Some people have an option of two Cervelo's, either of which could equate to being someones best bike.

Other's have one bike and no car and arguably invest money equalling the cost of running a car into that one bike.

Me? I have a best bike and a warhorse. If I dropped to one bike I could run the best bike indefinitely. But if I had one bike I would argue that my weekend gear changes would feel less special, less crisp.

Medders

I have been thinking about this recently. My best road bike is simply not being used as weekend rides are now almost exclusively mountain biking. So it sits in the shed while I do my commuting miles on the condor which is heavy and less enjoyable to ride and still has maintenance cost of stuff wearing out (105 is still not cheap to replace and I seem to be eating pedals atm).

So I am erring on the side of selling both the cervelo and the condor and buying one bike to do it all. Something lovely in high grade steel - e.g http://www.mosquito-bikes.co.uk/index.p ... tti-duende - and fitting crudracers for the winter or using my hardtail.

obviously this has the benefit of satisfying the urge of buying a new bike and mitigating the cost by selling the others (aka making the lies to be told to the wife about the net cost more plausible).

clarkey cat

I was riding my fixie home the other day and wasnt really enjoying it that much. I got in, and my best bike was sat there, looking all sad - why dont you ride me so much, it was saying.

So Im going to flog my fixie and make my best bike my commuter and buy a new best bike.

UndercoverElephant

clarkey cat wrote:

I was riding my fixie home the other day and wasnt really enjoying it that much. I got in, and my best bike was sat there, looking all sad - why dont you ride me so much, it was saying.

So Im going to flog my fixie and make my best bike my commuter and buy a new best bike.

This logic is beautiful. Good work.

Pufftmw

My best bike is locked in the server room @work at the moment but thats because its an mtb

Last winter I was mixing Gary Fisher for rubbish weather & Ghost for those slightly better days but then I thought nuts to it and have almost exclusively been riding the Ghost to/from work. I think Strava has encouraged me to as don't want to miss the opportunity for a crack at a segment. Gary has taken on the role of the "nip into town and leave locked up outside" type bike.

In terms of maintenance, a wash and a service every now/again is what the Ghost gets and it needed a new cassette & 2 wheels a couple of months back, so its not really costly seeing as compared to trains/tube commuting.

msmancunia

I go to work on my "best" bike - nothing flash, just a decent Trek road bike that I got through the cycle to work scheme as I do a 25 mile round trip, so need something decent. My old bike (just a basic hybrid) is now just used when I go to the shops as it's got panniers. Not half as much fun as the roadie though :-) I do 90% of my miles when I'm commuting, so I'm buggered if I'm going to use the "crap" bike.

willy b

DonDaddyD wrote:

Some people have an option of two Cervelo's, either of which could equate to being someones best bike.

porlyworly

I use my best bike to commute daily, never understood the point of having something you love but only allowing yourself to use it on weekends! My old bike has been firmly relegated to "backup" status...

corshamjim

My Pashley Paramount is my 'best' bike in the sense that I just love riding it. It's as comfortable as an armchair, it almost never lets me down, has never suffered a puncture in the three years I've had it, has three gears which is enough for almost everything and drum brakes which don't care if it's raining and don't wear my rims out.

My Trek Pilot otoh, which some might argue is the 'best', cost twice as much, will go about 5 mph faster if I can be bothered to pedal it that hard, and only gets used for any rides which I simply can't do on the Pashley. Even if I enjoyed riding it more, I wouldn't use it for commuting as the components would be just so darned expensive to replace as they wore out, and the mudguards on it are rubbish so I'd be forever cleaning the drivetrain.

keyser__soze

CRAIGO5000 wrote:

Ribble Stealth with Sram Force groupset... Allez as the Winter spec hack and/or when the weather forecast hints rain for the day.

Sounds familiar, my partner had exactly the same setup before she ditched the Allez for a Kilmeston as it was a bit too big. She used the Allez/Kilmeston for winter commuting and when it rains but finds it hard to resist the temptation to take out the Stealth all the time as it is more comfortable and significantly faster.

il_principe

CiB wrote:

Most of my riding is the commute and I want to do that on the best bike I can muster, so it's the carbon Di2 powered road rocket for my commute every time. It helps that it's a v rural commute and that it's quite a distance so requires something good to do it on, but I'm with Greg on this. Why buy a fancy dan bike and then not use it? And DDD called me cool for commuting on a bike of that spec so that's good enough for me.

I don't buy the "not use it argument." My commuter does around 68 miles a week. My best bike does anywhere between 30 and over 100 a week. So it depends on length of commute and how much you ride outside of that.

rebs

Ride mine on dry days or when I want to do extra miles after work.
Shame not to use it otherwise.