Ev0lutionz

Just asking, just in case the main one needs hub/freehub maintenance and is down for a week? I just got a spare wheelset since my main one has to undergo some wheel maintenance and I cannot not cycle to work..

Bigbus

I don't have a spare wheel set, but I have the parts to rebuild one (or more). Everything from spokes to hubs and bearings. I also have more than 1 bike so if I'm not in the mood to work on the one that's down (rarely am I not in the mood) I can always ride the other.

pdlamb

Spare wheelset? Shoot, I've got a spare bike!

Now the problem with having a spare like that is that it's just too easy to ride the backup, and neglect the primary bike or wheels, until you've got a problem with the other one. Now you have two wheels (or bikes) that need serious work, and nothing to ride!

PaulRivers

No, to big and to expensive, if I was going to do that I'd go with a spare bike.

Edit: A spare bike is seriously the only way to go if you want a serious backup. It lets you ride when minor maintenance means time is tight (need to be at the ride in 5 minutes and you just realized the tire is flat) or a major rare event (shifter broke, bike got hit and damaged in the rack, bike got stolen). If your whole bike needs a tuneup at the shop you'd need a 2nd bike to be able to bike, they can't adjust the shifters with just the wheels.

caloso

My main commute bike is my CX bike. I've got 4 spare wheelsets. They won't have the optimal commuting tires on them, but they'll work in a pinch.

cyccommute 

Shoot, I have 6 spare bikes!*

It’s difficult to be that lazy with 6 spares. Or, at least, it takes longer for problems to happen to 6 more bike

*That’s 7 total at my house. I have one at my daughter’s house in Tucson. If you pushed me really hard, I have enough to build 3 more and it only takes a couple of hours for me to build up a bike.

cyccommute 

I do have spare wheels but, like I said above, I have spare bikes as well. Additionally, I would never stand for a problem to take a week to fix. One of the downsides (and upsides) of owning a fleet of bicycles is that I can’t afford to have someone else fix them. I fix them all myself.

BobbyG

I have three bikes, and a spare wheelset for one of them...it has my studded snow tires mounted for a quick change to studs when it snows.

h_curtis

Got 4 bikes, so no.

Darth Lefty 

I don't.

If I find a flat tire in the morning I pull the valve, squirt in some sealant, and that fixes it. I assume it's because the sealant dried out but I don't check. So far on my MTB and gravel bike, the tread is gone before much goo accumulates. The next gravel bike tire I'm getting is a slick and it will likely last much longer so that will be a new experiment and we'll see how it goes. I don't recall ever owning a slick long enough to wear it out before selling the bike, though a couple have succumbed to damage.

With a hub problem I'd take a different bike. I've got a MTB and a gravel bike that are "current" and a couple of old roadies in the back of the garage that would do in a pinch. (And - whisper it here - the truck.)

base2 

No spare wheelsets, only wheelsets that don't have bikes currently attached to them. Sometimes they'll swap around based on the goal for a given bike or given ride.

In general, all my bikes are fixed/serviced immediatly after a ride or the very next day. So the whole fleet should be in a state of readiness at any given time. If there is any kind of a problem when I grab a random bike, another fills it's place & the defective bike gets bumped to the front of the repair queue.

Spare wheelsets are a really good idea that, IME often doesn't work out as well as you would think in actual practice. Brakes & shifting always seem to need some sort of attention & time when making the make the switch.

Gresp15C

Spare bikes. In my view, if you have space for a spare bike, it's pretty cheap insurance policy against downtime due to repairs. Murphy's Law says if you have spare wheel, something else on the bike will break.

Possibly my most important maintenance technique is constant vigilance. Being responsible for my own maintenance, I don't wait until things break. More often than not it's possible to notice that something is a bit out of kilter, and fix it with an adjustment or tightening something before it turns into an outright failure.

Bikewolf

Great tip. Thought about doing the same. But for now, personally, I use one main (non-studded) bike, and keep one (studded) winter bike on stand-by.

Having a spare wheelset sure is useful and adds convenience. Maybe later, when budget allows ;-)

Bikewolf

Exactly. Maintenance is key. Especially in winter "listening" to your bike (+ checking, even cleaning your bike) is a smart routine.

# Kiss your bike and she'll always bring you home (to paradise)

BobbyG

...just $40 for the pair at a bike co-op. I already had the studded tires, just $30 each bought off-season 5 years earlier.

BTW, I sympathize with those on tight budgets. Right now for me all bike related purchases are on hold except essential repair or maintenance.

cyccommute 

Only to a point. Being aware of how the bike is working and fixing problems that arise is different from what many people do when it comes to “maintenance”. Constantly taking bikes apart to “maintain” them often gives rise to other problems. And if you have to constantly clean your bike and/or its drivetrain, you should really ask if you should perhaps reassess your lubrication regime.

Bikewolf

True. And in the end one can only control so much. But that's the adventure of life on wheels ;-)

pisuicas

have a flat bar synapse bike, a commute winter bike and a wife so no spare wheelsets

MikeVargo

I commute on a gravel bike that I also have a 28mm road wheel set built for. It's like two bikes with one frame!

timdow

I am on the lookout for another wheelset, but not for commuting backup (although they could be used as a backup). I have a spare bike as a backup. Want a 27.5 set for wider tires so I can tour offroad.

DiabloScott

My commuter is a fixed gear. Once I broke a bunch a couple spokes and the shop didn't have time or materials to fix it so I bought a spare set of wheels that I could ride the next day, and then repaired the original set later.

Now one set is light and narrow with fast tires and fits under my fenders, and the other set is fitted with wide tires that won't fit under my fenders. So I have a winter set and a summer set, and either can be used as the backup.

ThermionicScott 

I love building wheels and hoarding bike parts, so you'd think I'd have spare wheels galore. But as it turns out, nearly every bike is set up with a unique wheel size and I just end up riding a different bike if one is down with a mechanical issue...

gaucho777 

A spare wheelset? No.



I have multiple spare wheelsets, plus about 10 spare bikes, three of which have racks. My commuter uses a 5-speed/120mm rear wheel and I have a few other bikes I could "borrow" a wheel from if necessary.

cabledawg

My commuter bike is an e-cargo bike so I kept the original rear wheel in the case my electronics fail. Just pull the battery, control box and swap the rear wheel and I'm back on the road. I also have a full extra set of front/rear wheels that can fit this bike but the rear shifter wouldn't work right (both 7sp, but indexing is off). Then I have my old mountain bike that I've turned into a casual rider with a rear rack, hybrid tires and cushion seat. If somehow the world went to ****, I have my new mountain bike I could ride in a pinch. Spares for spares

79pmooney

My commuter for many years was a sewupped fix gear. Early '80s Japanese 27" wheel frame, fenders, LowRider. Mafac brakes. Simple, reliable. (Fix gear rear wheels have so little dish that spoking isn't critical and spoke issues (almost) never prevent use. Sewup issue? Peel it off and stick an a good one. I rarely had a spare rear wheel for that bike. Fronts sometimes got borrowed off my good bike. 20 years ago I went from sewups to Open Sport rims and Pasela 28s. Different but little change in routine or reliability.

That fix gear was my workhorse when I didn't own a car. It got put away dirty and wet and rolled out and ridden the next morning. Weekends it slept in and I rode the good bike. When I turned 32, I bought a car so the workhorse saw 3-4 days of use/week but not much else changed. Now I am retired and it goes for long stretches of disuse. Last week I rode it for the first time this year. Pulled it down, aired the tires, bounced it and rode it. Except for the bounce to hear any new rattles and airing the tires from 40 psi, just like the "put away wet" days.

The secret to having that kind of reliability is simplicity. Nothing is complicated or close to the edge on that bike. Tubed 28c Paselas. Wheels with 36 spokes of 4X, a system I have been using nearly 50 years. Almost dishless rear wheel. Butted 2.0-1.8 DT or Wheelsmith spokes. Centerpulls; Mafac front, Weinmann rear. Currently an '83 Trek 4something frame. (Well, that hasn't been so trouble free. Cracked through the seatstay cap and deep TREK logo. Repair and paint cost me a half grand and 2 weeks of no ride. But with both sides repaired right, it should go on another many years.) Quill stem, ordinary aluminum drop bars, Tektro levers. Decent seat and post. Specialized with its plastic (rainproof) cover and a well used and deeply scored Campy Chorus post. They work.

Oh - simplicity - fix gear. Doesn't get any simpler. No gears, no shifters, no rear derailleurs to damage in a bike fallover or riding spill. Chain maintenance gets radically simpler. There is no minimum required lubrication you have to do. (Frozen links? Just slide the wheel forward to get chain slack back and ride. Boston winter salt roads in my no-car days. Late March - new chainring, cog and chain. New rims and spokes. Those sewup wheels had fallen into so many deep potholes in puddles and in the dark that they were not remotely round. Neither the sewups themselves nor the spongy Mafac Racers cared. And it didn't matter that I had a few loose spokes with nipples so corroded they were never turning again - remember, no dish.)

That setup works so well that when frames have accidents, I just buy another early '80s frame and swap the parts over. It may happen that those frames will become unavailable before I am beyond riding in which case I might have to have one custom made! So far I have benefited from that wonderful window where the Japanese set a wonderful standard that almost everyone else eventually copied. (The Trek is US but adheres to all the Japanese set standards and might be Japanese tubing and maybe even Japanese framebuilding. All the parts are swapped in from the previous Miyata.)