I was a Benchmade fan long before I was a Spyderco even though Spyderco is so close to my home. Over the years, I slowly gravitated to Spyderco because of their designs, thinness and strength and quality of their knives. Also, Benchmade discontinued a number of their knives that I liked, went to MAP pricing, and they're politically more vocal than I prefer. Today, I have only one Benchmade, their venerable, classic 710 M2 and have three of Spyderco EDC's, PM2, Manix 2 CF S90V and Sage 2 Ti. Sold off all my other pocket knives. Both are fine companies but the Colorado one is my preference.