I just started thinking about this and took a neat little trip down memory lane. I'm sure some people have had (and still do have) many more bicycles than I ever have, but I feel like I've been lucky to own some good ones. I tend to keep a bike for a long time and only own one at a time. Here goes:
Mid 1970s: I started on a hand-me-down that my grandpa probably got from one of my cousins. I rode it for a while with training wheels until the kid next door teased me about them. I made grandpa take off the trainers and I was off!
later '70s: I got a Huffy Thunder Road for Christmas. Uhm, yeah, a Huffy.
Christmas, 1979: Team Murray BMX. Doesn't Murray make lawnmowers? Anyway, it was chrome and gold and I loved it.
1981: I got my first really nice bike: a Diamondback BMX from Wheels N Things, which (unbeknownst to me until recently,) was the headquarters of the Diamondback national race team in those days. I didn't meet Harry Leary or anything, but I had a pretty righteous bicycle. I pedaled that thing for years. I wish I still had it, but sadly it was stolen in the later '80s.
1988: First MTB! I saw a Jamis Dakar in a bike shop and convinced myself I needed a training tool for motocross. Paid for it with my own money, which was a confidence booster.
1995: Bought a used Cannondale MTB from my friend. It was purple. (Hey, this was the '90s! Everything was purple!)
2005: Gary Fisher Cake 2 DLX: Soooo choice. I could finally afford a really nice bike, and this one was trick.... It almost made me puke to pay $2,000 for a bicycle. Little did I know....
2017: Finally replaced the Gary Fisher with a word-salad bike: Commencal Meta AM V4.2 Ride. Yikes! This one was more of an "entry level + nicer suspension" setup. Modern geo and a way better "Enduro" experience than what I had been riding.
2025: Upgraded the Commencal with a Meta V5 Ohlins: the best of both worlds, enduro geo and nice components. I'll probably ride this one until I can't pedal without assistance.
So, that's it. 9 bikes in 50 years. What have you guys had?
Not sure if I should be proud or embarrassed, but I recently wrote down every bike that I’ve owned (and can remember) in a spreadsheet.
Across genres including kid bikes, mountain (DH, XC, Trail), road/gravel, BMX, and dirt jumpers, I have owned 102 bikes.
Some of these are just new frames with swapped over parts, but I consider that a different bike for this purpose. I might have a problem.
The most bikes by far are BMX (26) and DJ (19), as I was a 6 night a week skatepark kid growing up. I wish my skills were better for all that time.
I’ll add, hands down the best bike of all of these was a ~2000 V1 Santa Cruz Superlight which is still in my Mom’s garage (I’m 40 now).
Asterisk means currently using, most built up as frames, I don't buy complete bikes that often.
Banshee - Rune 3
Bridgestone - MB-6, worked at McDonald's in high school in the early 1990s at to buy that one for like 300-400 dollars new. Rode this to school as a commuter bike in the Phoenix metro area in AZ. If you were going to have to ride a bike to school way cooler than a 3 or 10 speed road bike back in those days
Evil - Insurgent V1, Insurgent LS, Insurgent 3*, Wreckoning V1, Wreckoning V3*
Guerilla Gravity - MegaTrail
Huffy - had a BMX style Huffy when I was a kid, mag wheels, heavy AF but rode that thing all over the place in rural Iowa and Phoenix area
Ibis - Mojo HD4
Kona - Dawg, Blast
Knolly - Warden 2016, Warden C, Warden LT
Marin - in the mid-2000s I got back into riding bikes once my kids were a couple of years old, bought a Marin off a guy on Craigslist for a couple of hundred bucks as we were pretty cash strapped at that time. I think that bike was a frankenbike with a Marin front triangle, never was able to match it up with actual Marin bikes around that time or researching prior years. That thing was a hazard between the bike geometry and me learning how to ride a full suspension, ended up moving to the Dawg to keep myself in one piece and eventually the Heckler 6 as real mountain bikes
Pivot - Firebird 27.5, Mach 6 briefly
Revel - Rail 27.5
Rocky Mountain - Maiden*, Altitude 2023*, Altitude 2024*, Slayer 2024*
Santa Cruz - Heckler 6, Nomad 2, Nomad 3*, V10.6*
Schwinn - I was injured most of my time in college on the cross-country team (I'm not physically built for running the 60-70 miles a week in the mountains of Arizona that college cross-country requires) and when you were injured you had to ride a Schwinn mountain bike while everyone else on the team was running. Turns out I enjoyed that way more than running so shout out to whatever early-90s Schwinn hardtail that was because it got me hooked on mountain biking
Transition - Patrol 27.5 (gave it to a friend to use, very fun bike)
Turner - RFX 4.0 (have the frame sitting around, not currently built up and riding it)
Yeti - SB165*
Favorites out of that are the SC, Evil, and Rocky bikes as far as how they ride.
You can't go far in Arizona without seeing Pivot bikes but I don't love them personally for how I like to ride and how a bike feels. Hard to put a finger on it, just not my cup of tea.
Before :
Mid 80s Univega Alpina
1991 Cannondale SM700
1994 Cannondale Super-V 1000
Currently:
1996 GT Zaskar
2021 Santa Cruz Hightower CC
2024 Santa Cruz V10
1980's - Peugeot Black Lion BMX. Ammaco - Country Club MTB, Dawes, Wildcat MTB
00's - Specialized Rockhopper, Specialized - Stump Jumper, Gary Fisher Wahoo
2010's - Pace RC506, Santa Cruz Tall Boy 1, Santa Cuz High Tower LT1,
2020's - On One Hello Dave.
broke my elbow BMXing in summer 2019 and vowed to do something safer... like mountain biking... (if only he knew)
started with a Scott Aspect hardtail. after that found a cheap Diamondback Atroz to try FS for the first time. actually kinda loved it but thought I was being too unsafe on it... so I bought a Salsa Rangefinder and went back to XC and bikepacking and stuff.
almost immediately got bored of that. bought a Vitus Mythique. almost immediately broke my collarbone on it. got a little discouraged, sold it. literally tried to ride BMX again but by this point just felt even older and stiffer and hated how it felt.
bought a Polygon T7 so I could try a 29er FS. it was better than i thought. still wasn't my favorite and money got tight so I sold it and bought a dirt jumper. Verde Radix. I liked that a lot more than I thought but I missed trail riding and the progression on the DJer quickly became more dangerous than I preferred.
sold it and bought a 2016 Kona Process 153. probly my favorite bike I ever rode, even though it climbed like a pig. that general era of the Process line and the Entourage before that are probably as close as you can get to a BMX/DJer in a FS bike, while still having gears and a dropper.
during the BOGO sale decided to 'upgrade' to a modern Kona Process 153. immediately regretted it, but partly because I should have bought a medium for the modern sizing and not a large. Never liked how the bike felt. Ran a dak stak riser bar and made the bike more fun but unstable (unpredictable). got out of shape on a jump and got my first concussion and broke my back (a little bit)
got a lil discouraged but cracked on and tried to find a different bike with better sizing/geometry. demo'd a lot of stuff and actually rode a Poseidon Norton hardtail in the meantime. ended up settling on a YT Jeffsy MX right before they went under. Been so happy with it I've been trying to theorize what to replace it with and haven't quite come up with anything. I think by now it's the longest I've owned an MTB. Sure it would be lovely if the frame was lighter/carbon but otherwise it has no flaws for my riding.
I also bought a Haro Steel Reserve DJer and then recently a Propain Trickshot DJer. the Trickshot is a game changer. the weight of this thing is almost unnerving. can throw it around and do whatever you want, it's almost too light.
so I still have the Jeffsy, Norton, and Trickshot. I have vague ideas about what I'd replace things with but... These bikes are so good I haven't settled on anything yet.
1990s and 2000s: Trials bikes and BMXs
2010 - 2014: On One 456. Really fun hardtail that I used for a bit of everything. Broke with a fatigue crack in the seatstay, near the brake mount.
2014: Banshee Rune #1. Good bike but broke in 2 months with a fatigue crack at the shock mount.
2014 - 2015: Banshee Rune #2. Warranty replacement that broke in the same way.
2015 - 2017: GT Sanction #1. This bike was ahead of it's time and I have a lot of good memories racing with it. Broke with a fatigue crack in the drive side chainstay.
2015 - current: Nicolai ION 20. Really fun DH bike that was progressive but just before Nicolai's Geolution where geometry numbers became extreme. Original front triangle broke in 2019 with a fatigue crack in the weld near the BB/main pivot but was replaced under warranty with a new triangle including extra gusset.
2017 - 2018: GT Sanction #2. This was a replacement frame for #1 but broke in the same place after a year.
2018 - 2019: Dartmoor Blackbird. Fitted all the parts from my previous bikes but the shortest bike I've owned and it always felt like I was riding near my limit of control. Broke with a fatigue crack near the BB.
2019 - 2023: Transition Patrol: Great bike that cornered incredibly well and managed to feel balanced despite relatively short chainstays. Broke with a fatigue crack in the seatstay, near the brake mount.
2023 - current: Ragley Blue Pig. A hardtail that fitted all the components of my previous bike (including the 170mm Fox/Avalanche/Push forks) and is fantastic fun to ride and remarkably capable.
2024 - current: Raaw Madonna. After the Transition, I was concerned that the geometry would be too long but it works really well and the higher stack clearly helps balance it.
I play a never ending game of parts musical chairs, but frame wise in my adult life I've had:
2017-2020: Canyon Grand Canyon AL, very XC geometry and my first 29", felt like I was absolutely flying everywhere
2019 - 2020: some Mongoose dirt jumper. Absolute boat anchor of a frame, and so was the rest of the build !
2020-2024: Dartmoor Primal 29, first time into the more gravity oriented world. Really fun bike when pointed downhill, incredible value, but that stiff rear end beats you up on long rides. According to Strava I've put almost 5000km on this frame.
2020 - current: Octane One Zircus. Great dirtjumper frame for a budget build, super stiff which is great for the asphalt pumptracks I use it on. Pretty light in it's current setup.
2023-2025 : Polygon Siskiu T8, my first FS, bought on the cheap used to try it out. Not a bad bike, but ultimately not what I was looking for so I ended up not putting that many miles on it.
2024 - current: Jeronimo Txabardo, steel replacement of the Primal. Really happy with it, a great workhorse. Probably a bit less fun than the Dartmoor, but that might be due to the larger size.
Would only replace it if I found a purple Cotic Solaris Max
2025 - current: Propain Tyee CF5. Replaced the T8, love it. Currently built on the lighter side of things (B1 Lyrik, supertrail tires...) to make enjoyable on longer rides.
A 2024 Optic should be joining the stable soon, and maybe some sort of DH rig as well. Had a gravel from 2020 to a few weeks ago, but sold it as it was gathering dust.
Just mtbs? 5th grade through high school: an early 90’s Peugeot Tundra Express. Then a 1995 Cannondale F500, a 1997 Gt Avalanche, a 2000 Rocky Mountain Pipeline.
College and a year or so after: 01 Balfa BB7, 03 Rocky Mountain Slayer, 06 Spesh Enduro, 05 Banshee Chaparral, 06Transition Gran Mal.
Then I got a job at the big red S… had too many the years get foggy but: every version of the enduro till 2013, a pitch test mule that was a little longer than production (one of my favorites), a camber 26 test mule, sx trail, demo7, two demo 8 versions during the Hill/ Fairclogh era, epic 29, 2012 stumpjumper evo 26, 2013 converted Sworks stumpy to evo, several alloy and steel p-bikes.
Left specialized and got a first gen alloy, then carbon Bronson. Then the v1 following, v1 offering, v2 offering, v4 offering (current), and a Stanton Sedona ht.
Current Fleet
Previous Bikes
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