One of the perhaps lesser known Biblical parables is the story of the Merchant and the Pearl often known as The Parable of the pearl beyond price. To heavily paraphrase the verses basically a rich Merchant see’s a beautiful gigantic pearl and is so consumed with the need to possess it he sells everything else he owns in order to buy it. (Matthew Chapter 13, verses 45-46 if you want to look it up)

This my friends has happened to me, not with the product of an irritated oysters excretions, but with bikes, Mountain Bikes to be exact. Now its no secret that I’ve been a bit out of love with the off road world over the last few years. A couple of crashes, low confidence and a lack of riding had all conspired to make my very occasional MTB excursions less than memorable. It’s been a viscous circle. I’ve been frustrated every time I’ve ridden off road for sometime because I’ve been so slow, over cautious and generally felt as if I was tottering around the trails like Bambi on ice. This leads to lots of sighing on the drive home and no great desire to repeat the experience anytime soon.

So what’s changed? Well I’ve found my metaphorical pearl. the bike in the picture at the top of this post. A 2018 Santa Cruz Bronson, a bike which MBR magazine in the UK called ‘the best 150mm Enduro style bike we have ever tested’ Lent this example to ride for the day by a very good and trusting friend for some laps of the Llandegla trail centre I was intrigued to find out how this 27.5’ wheeled 150mm travel enduro style bike with its carbon frame, upto date suspension design and tubeless tyres would stack up against my venerable but faithful Lapierre Zesty (140mm travel, 26’ wheels, tubed tyres, 2012 vintage) The Zesty after all had also won more than its share of plaudits when it was new, the renowned bike tester Guy Kesteven voting it ‘Trail Bike of the Year’ and calling it “Phenomenally well balanced, controlled and playful’ in his test report. There couldn’t be much difference surely? 10mm more travel, some slightly bigger wheels and a bit of tyre sealant were not going to add up to instant mountain biking nirvana surely?

Well, how wrong could I be? The difference was night and bloom’in day. As soon as the trail pointed vaguely downhill the bike just came alive under me, it was brilliant confidence inspiring fun, felt fast and even uphills just seemed much less effort than my poor old already mentally discarded Zesty. The last time I’d been to Llandegla I’d definitely felt the benefits of my increased fitness from all the lockdown road riding I’d been doing, but I’d still felt out of sorts and as uncomfortable as ever on the bike, and hence still hadn’t really enjoyed myself. This time on the Santa Cruz it really felt like the bike was allowing me to exploit the extra watts available from my legs and lungs. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all milk and honey (to get another Biblical reference in) I still bottled a couple of tricky techie bits that always defeat me and came very close to a big OTB moment inelegantly dropping off a section of raised Northshore, but boy did I have fun.

And the Strava times were epic. The tale the times told was one of personal bests practically everywhere around the trails. And these are trails that I know very well and have been riding for years, this bike had literally taken years off my riding. I was in serious bike love with a MTB for the first time in many, many years. This was a pearl that was going to have to be acquired. Well, a similar pearl as this particular carbon fibre framed object of my desire wasn’t actually for sale, but I was already mentally scouring the small ads and speculating on haow much I could get for the Zesty and my Sanderson hardtail as we drove home from deepest Wales.

Back home and within 1/2 an hour of frantic mouse clicking on the interweb the scale of the task in front of me started to sink in. I’d guessed that a similar spec and age do Santa Cruz would set me back a couple of thousand quid – wrong, ohhhh very wrong. I was looking at the wrong side of £3000 easily for a second hand bike of roughly the same age and spec. A new one was £4200 ish if I could find one anywhere as practically every retailer was out of stock. It seems Covid 19 has seen demand for even high end bikes rocket, and the supply chain just hasn’t been able to keep up. Second hand it would have to be then. The second problem was that every second hand Santa Cruz in the country seemed to be either a Large or Extra large frame size, and with my hobbit like legs that was going to be a problem too. I shut down my computer that evening feeling somewhat discouraged. Should I give up on my dream?

After sleeping on the problem and having a good think it sunk in that the ride on the Bronson had ruined the off road experience for me. Going back to riding my current knobbly shod machines was even less appealing than before now I’d tasted the forbidden fruit of carbon 150mm travel goodness (biblical ref #3). I needed just like Indiana Jones searching for the Holy Grail to make a leap of faith.(great film that!) So that afternoon I had a good think about the minimum I needed to get for my current steeds and listed them all on eBay. Then I burrowed into the depths of my garage and cupboards and listed absolutely anything else that I no longer used and I though might have monetary value to someone else. Long forgotten Trangia Camping Stoves (I think my days camping at music festivals are behind me), A nice Timbuk2 Messenger bag that I used to use for work, a old steel time trial frame of uncertain vintage that I was never going to get round to building into a bike again, all these things and others went up for sale. I knew it was probably not going to be enough, but I had to start somewhere.

Fast forward a week and a bit and I’m 3 bikes (the Lapierre, Sanderson and Brompton folder) down and most of my other miscellaneous stuff has disappeared over the Post Office counter wrapped in brown paper on its way to a new owner. All the bikes (just) made their minimum auction price and I was pleasantly surprised with the prices some of the other stuff fetched. Do I have enough folding money for a Bronson? No, but fret not because just when I was wondering if I’d thrown away everything for an unobtainable dream an alternative plan presented itself. If you’ve looked at my Instagram or Facebook you may already know about it. If not, well you’ll just have to wait.