Do I keep them both?

Help me!

Been a flat bar guy all my 41 years.

I picked up a Midnight Special 2 years ago and still haven't found myself feeling ever "at home" with drops. Also, it's not terribly fun on the big gravel downhills around here. Sure is sexy though, and is fun to ride overall.

I grabbed a Karate Monkey last year and feel much more natural on it. Super fun on the the downhills, and definitely the bike I'm riding if I'm heading out with the wife and kids for some easy miles.

As a test, I ran the same 10 mile loop with both bikes on different days. Mostly pavement, I was only 1mph faster on the MS with about 10 bpm lower HR.

I'm wondering if I even need two bikes. Part of me is thinking I should sell the MS, and buy a second wheelset (700c?) for the KM for faster road stuff (and maybe suspension fork?). The KM has 650b wheels with knobbies on it. Seems like I should be able to close that performance gap pretty easily with that change. Or am I missing something? I was pretty shocked how close the bikes were (according to strava stats anyway).

Thoughts?

Posted May 10, 2026, 10:03 PM UTC

37
Loading comments…