Gideon's bike life - Genesis, Graham Weigh, Cinelli, Land Shark & Ritchey

Like seven of my friends have got new bikes recently, so I've got The Itch.

• Custom Woodrup.
  
• Enigma Etape.
  
• Fairlight Secan.
  
• Nagasawa track.
  
• All City Big Block.
  
• Brother Swift.
  
• Planet X singlespeed (not super inspiring, though does tip the partner-bike-balance in my favour).
  
  

Annoyingly, it's currently the worst possible time to buy a bike - brexit & covid are having horrible impacts on supply & prices. I'm a constant browser of bikes online, but I've not bought a new bike since my first fixed gear in 2013 - something which started this journey - but it seems like the way to go at the moment to get something. I've never used the cycle to work scheme, despite having ridden to work for my entire career (bar the last year, & being completely remote now, it's surprising I still qualify).

I've been thinking about what I want out of a new bike, so I've started with a set of things I enjoy in cycling:

• I enjoy pushing myself when riding alone. Permanent WFH has meant that I've lost the base miles of commuting, so I've snatched the odd few miles here & there on an evening & throughly enjoyed just getting out on the roads & going fast.
  
• I enjoy the odd bit of gravel riding, but the good stuff is so infrequent & generally so far away in Yorkshire, I think I'd get more value out of a more road-focussed bike. I don't mind a mud-apocalypse every now. I generally don't have the skills for the technical stuff as I've always ultimately been a road rider (never had an MTB).
  
• I enjoy bikepacking, though it's never been something I've been prepared to sacrifice the base enjoyment of a bike for.
  
• I enjoy the aesthetics & the craftmanship of the bikes I've had. Not entirely sure how I've honed in on this, but all my favourite bikes I've owned have been from the nineties & been steel.
  
  

None of that sounds very unique so distilling it into a set of criteria shouldn't be too hard, in theory.