As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been a bit of a collector.I collected baseball cards, Star Wars cards, coins, stamps, nuts and bolts, wheel weights (insert lead-poisoning joke here) and, for one period as embarrassing as it is inexplicable, dental floss. Used. Don’t ask. I really don’t know.Though I still have my baseball cards, coins and stamps, all the other collections – yes, even the floss – are history.Now the only thing I really collect is bikes.Truth be told, that’s not really fair.Generally, a collection is something squirreled away, enjoyed occasionally as a collection – you don’t spend you coin collection, for instance, or use your stamp collection to pay postage on your bills. My collection, at least, gets used for its intended purpose.I have my regular fixed-gear commuter bike, a sporty road bike, a mountain bike and a cyclocross bike. I also have two beater mountain bikes, one of which spent most of its time on the trainer in the basement. The other was a pack mule to which I attached the kiddie trailer then, later, the trail-a-bike. I also have two old – er, I mean, vintage – steel frames in the basement I intend to build up into fixies someday, and another cheapo road frame in the garage I’ll build up with castoff parts to replace the cross bike that has replaced a mountain bike on the trainer in the basement.It’s not the full Roy G. Biv, but I have an orange bike, a green bike, a blue bike, a black bike, and two gray bikes. And a silver bike.I had a red hybrid bike – one of my first big college purchases – but a few years ago I gave it to a down-on-his-luck guy who was going to use it in place of the car he couldn’t afford. I’d like to think it’s still being ridden today, but I have no way of knowing.I know I don’t need so many bikes, but I justify them because I don’t spend much on my car, and because each bike is suited to specific purposes.My commuter is low-maintenance and tough, up to the rigors of daily and sometimes foul-weather – riding. My cross bike is my back-up commuter and better suited to really sloppy conditions, like snow or mud. It’s also a sacrifice to the hamster wheel in the basement. My mountain bike is a truly bad-weather commute-bike backup; I’m thinking of investing in a set of studded tires for riding in the snow and ice. And if I want to go fast (by my standards, at least) and far, I swing a leg over my roadie.The to-be-built-up frames might be a bit superfluous, but I figure there’ll be a time and a place for them, too.That said, I’d like another bike or two – if only I could afford it. Or them.I keep hoping I’ll stumble upon a nice vintage steel fixie to commute on. I’ve had my eye on an off-the-shelf single-speed crosser. Vowing to spend more time off road, I’ve noticed some nice new mountain bikes. And my sporty road bike is starting to get a little long in the tooth.There’s an old joke that the amount of bikes a person needs is a formula: N+1, with N being the amount of bikes a person already owns. By that formula, I’m due for a new ride any day now.But what do I know? At least I’m not jonesing to add to my floss collection.