How many bikes is it right to own?

i have 2, now contemplating 3rd, will it stop!?

granted they each suit diff purposes - 1 mtb, 2 vintage track, 3 vintage road

I've two. One with gears, one without. But that rises to two and half if you count the half-built frame. Or three and half if you count the mountain bike sitting outside. Or four and half if you count the 1990 Raleigh Marauder at my mum's. And five and a half if you count the vintage roadster I haven't yet sold.

n+1

I do not think there is an upper limit of bikes its right to own.

There might be a limit to carbon stuff because its so bad for the environment but otherwise your limited to space & money.

as many as you have space for. next

I have one fixed, one single-speed and one geared road bike. Thankfully it's not North Korea and you can have as many as you can afford (other halves permitting).
Like the man said - n+1.

beater fixed, 90's road(in progress), touring. this seems to cover all the angles i need. obviously many will need trick/polo as well.
3 seems to be about right for road, then i presume if you offroad theres the same again as well.
n+lots ftw

I have five complete bikes and one frame and forks. (Fixed summer, fixed winter, geared, track only, vintage project and cross f&f.)

I think I need at least thirteen for all my needs to be satisfied.

After thirteen then the number required becomes n+1 naturally...

Ask 50/14.

No limits.

1 geared and 1 frame. Heh. :S

I've got a winter hack, old team raliegh for the turbo trainer, 4 racing bikes and a time trial bike + a custom one for the nationals (still being built).... sooo 8 I guess?

9 is too many.

I have just teamed up with an Australian (God help me) to start building and selling fixed here in Espana, as there is a dearth of fixed wheel bikes. It should become fashionable here in about two years, which should give us time to get it together. Last count we had fifteen frames and bikes.

I like to roll in them.

As many as cameras - n+1? Gear acquisition syndrome - usually fired up by an online group of collectors.

You really need a bike or maybe two - one for commuting and another for fun. And one for off-road. Maybe another for the track. Oh, and one to pose around in Shoreditch. Plus something vintage to show off online.

I've got 2 fixed one road bike and a brompton

as mentioned get as many as you can store securely

I'd quite like a cyclocross I think

No limits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFd5Cci_pE4

My fixed and cheapo geared road bike

2

In general, if you have somebody else in the house who will question whether you need another bike, then it as well to go into the relationship with a sufficient number that extra ones can pass unnoticed. It helps if you stick to one or two basic colour schemes. If you have 10 black bikes and add a yellow one, it will stand out. If you have 4 black bikes and add another black one, you can probably bluff it out.

In the absence of domestic constraints, the total number will depend on which types of riding you do. For example, if you ride exclusively for the purpose of track racing you probably only need five bikes:

1: Race sprint bike
2: Race pursuit bike
3: Track training bike
4: Summer road bike (can also be used on the rollers for warm ups)
5: Winter road bike

Not everybody is so narrowly focused, though, so you might need to add

6: Road race bike
7: Road TT bike

and then there's the winter to think about

8: CX bike
9: Second CX bike for swaps

but if you're going to ride CX, you might as well do some MTB races for skills improvement

10: XC Race MTB
11: XC Training MTB

That was fun, but now there are other challenges opening up

12: Full-Sus enduro bike
13: SS MTB

And you SS MTB is nice, but it's not quite right on the local six pack, so

14: Dirt jump bike

And you did OK in the MTB class at the BMX track, but those little wheeled bikes seem to be even better

15: BMX race bike
16: BMX jump bike

but your BMX jump bike is good on the stairs and rails, but there are things in the urban landscape you could session if you only had a

17: 20" trials bike

which is all very well, but that hippity hoppity stuff doesn't really flow, so it's not helping you MTB riding as much as it should, so maybe what you need is

18: 26" trials bike

Now that you're going out and playing on natural stuff, picking lines that flow together, perhaps you need to up the ante by hitting them faster

19: Freeride bike

Of course, if you're going to go fast, you have to go faster than everybody else, which means racing

20: DH race bike

and there's no pointing driving all that way to races and then not competing in all the races

21: BSX/4X bike

Obviously, I've pared the collection down to the bare essentials by sticking to sports use and eliminating spares except for CX. Some people also think they are missing out on the full experience if they don't also have a tandem or three

22: shopping bike, probably a flat bar porteur
23: touring bike (expedition)
24: touring bike (audax)
25: recumbulent
26: polo bike
27: some sort of cargo bike
28: grass track bike
29: speedway bike
30: fixed road bike
31: cycle-ball bike
32: acrobatic bike
33: stayer bike
34: 6-day/madison bike
35: fixed TT bike
36: hill climb bike (fixed)
37: hill climb bike (geared)
38: spring classics bike
39: medium gear fixed TT bike
40: "Old Skool" legal TT bike
41: roller racing bike
42: NJS keirin bike, but only if you qualify

1 bmx
1 track bike
1 road
1 mixte surf checker

prob need a mtb again soon

pretty sure everyone here has a decimal place in there somewhere... I have 1.3 as i've got about 1/3rd of a bike rattling around the house.

I have

a fixed Kuwahara beater
a Moser track bike
a Cannondale R500 geared
an Orange P7 Hardtail

and I still want

a sick carbon race bike (scott, storck, colnago, whatever)
a full sus 9" job
a 24" jump bike
a tri machine
a penny farthing
a snow bike
a recumbent
I can go on...

2 track
2 road
1 conversion
1 grandpa shopper

would love a hard tail mtb but lack of funds prevents this at the moment.

1; a 'custom made' road/bmx/time trial bike for the olympics (still being built)
2; a 'clown bike' for my role as the comedy 'baddie' in the next James Bond film (still being built)
3; a 'space bike' for when I lead the first manned mission to mars (it's hush hush) (still being built)
4; a new 'sexy bike' which I will let glossy girls sit on and have their photograph taken so they can be perved over by bearded losers (still being built)
5; an 'alchemy-Canute' bike which is being made of base metal but which will turn in to gold when I sit on it (still being built)
6; a 'Popecycle' because the Vatican has asked me to be the next Pope (still being built)
7; a 'Spacehopper' which Mummy bought me. It's not really a bicycle but I like bouncing up and down on it in our drive before Mummy calls me in for dinner. Hope it's egg and chips (still being fried).

pretty sure everyone here has a decimal place in there somewhere... I have 1.3 as i've got about 1/3rd of a bike rattling around the house.

If you count the parts bin, all bets are off.

I have 8* at the moment, but there's a frame and enough spare parts to make one more, and there might be another frame or two in my dad's shed which are technically mine.

*
1: Lo-pro
2: fixed road bike
3: bike for use on the rollers
4: TT/Track bike (depending on which bars it has on it)
5: summer road bike
6: SS MTB
7: winter road bike
8: two-speed hybrid 29er mongrel bike