The Radavist

One of the original “all-rounders”, the Singular Cycles Peregrine first took flight over a decade ago, in May 2007, as an homage to post-war French constructeurs with modern updates like bigger tire clearances, more robust steel tubing, and disc brakes. I’ve had this bike for longer than I’d like to admit but with supply chain issues, parts shortages, and trying to align a review with more stock incoming from Singular, I’m finally ready to share my thoughts on this versatile bike. And we’re giving this exact build away in the coming weeks, so read on below

When I first fell in love with bicycle touring, I used panniers, mounted on a front low-rider rack, on a mid-low trail bike. We used to ride from New York to Philly with similar kits in 2008 or so, actually using newly-released Revelate saddle packs in conjunction with traditional “touring” garb. In the following years, makers were starting to move towards more customized bicycle bags, leaning away from Berthoud, Ortlieb, and the mix of classic, timeless, and staple brands.

There are so many idiosyncratic ways to camp by bicycle and these days, I feel like the soul of bicycle touring, vis a vis Adventure Cycling’s Bikecentennial in the summer of ’76 and even the 1983 Pearl Pass tour (complete with MTBs equipped with racks and panniers), still exists and is cherished by many, myself included. Many brands have since picked up this torch to carry on similar vibes. Brands like Swift Industries, whose image feels as timeless as the Bikecentennial, began launching their first randonneuring and touring bags at the 2012 Philly Bike Expo where I had the pleasure to meet Jason and Martina.

Here in New Mexico, we’ve got a few bag makers, one of which is Buckhorn Bags that just released its own pannier design, in line with the tourers of yesteryear. Let’s wax poetic about some waxed canvas vibes below!

Here in the Quaker City of Philadelphia, we’re blessed with a number of reliable shops in just about every corner of town. Shops for very serious racers, shops for mountain bikers, shops just for anyone in the neighborhood in need of help getting around on two wheels. We’ve got ‘em all and plenty of ‘em. Keystone is one of Philly’s newest shops catering to all kinds of bikes with an emphasis on everything rando, touring, and bikepacking.

I grew up working at a Specialized shop, and learned how to mountain bike by watching Ned Overend’s Performance Mountain Biking technique VHS. While I always appreciated the refreshing ideas of small makers, I thought it advantageous for larger brands to be able to invest more in their materials and construction. This was a time when top-end bikes were made of metal, and made domestically.

Metal Matrix (M2) composite is a prime example of this. The big S sourced a 6061 alloy infused with an aluminum oxide ceramic particulate by Alcan. Say that again, backwards now. Alcan called it Duralcan, and I am proud to display their logo on my top tube—that cool typeface!

You ever have a bike that was super rad, but you just didn’t ride it? My Velo Orange Polyvalent was that bike for the past few years. Beautiful, capable, and yet, neglected. This past winter, during a bout of organization, I wondered about this bike that sparked joy aesthetically but didn’t really get ridden. What’s the point in keeping something around that doesn’t get used? I committed to riding it to work for a week to see if I could get at that very question – and I ended up riding it daily for the next four months.

A few weeks ago, the umbrella company of radical bicycles and components that is Tanglefoot Cycles reached out, sharing their parts catalog. Aside from their wild bicycle designs, the Discord Peeper Stem really grabbed our attention. In that post, we hinted at this showcase, which we’re delivering today so enjoy a long cruise with Tanglefoot at the helm…

Pandemic life means a lot of the normal, day-to-day coverage we cherished has gotten put on hold. One of which are Shop Visits. While I’ve been sticking local to Santa Fe over the past twelve months, my friend Nick was able to submit a Shop Visit to his local digs, Two Wheel Drive down in Albuquerque. Read on for Nick’s photos and words by Zach, Two Wheel Drive’s manager…

I love well-used 26” rigid MTBs from yesteryears, you love them, everyone loves them, they are the best.  Liam’s steed is no different with its glorious mane of tattered Newbaum’s tape flowing in the wind is something to see.  At first, when I saw it, I thought, “oh rad an updated Rock Hopper” to which I was quickly corrected that, “It was a Rock COMBO.”  How could I make such a mistake, this was no run of the mill 1980s 26er.  This was a Rock Combo, the first gravel bike? First performance Hybrid? Since there were only 500 made I guess it’s not so bad that I didn’t recognize it.

Since no one is out riding the Tour Divide this year and I’m locked away in a lake house in Wisconsin, why don’t we take a trip down memory lane? Like, I found a backup of these images on my iPod kinda trip down memory lane, back to 2014 baby. This was my first proper “bikepacking” or off-road touring trip. I borrowed my dad’s 90s hybrid and put a Surly fork and some racks on it and hightailed it to Missoula after finishing my first few weeks working as a tour guide in Oregon. I met Kurt and Sam as they were working their way down the Tour Divide as the inaugural Blackburn Rangers, which I had applied for too, but didn’t get, so why not just crash their party anyway?

Wow! What a year it’s been. In the past twelve months, we’ve shot roughly 300 bikes. From gravel races, to NAHBS, the Philly Bike Expo and our normal travels, we really captured some unique builds and we’ve got a good handle on the bikes the readers of the Radavist enjoy checking out based on some key metrics.

Every year we try to do our best to sort through twelve months of archives to narrow down to this list. The first filter is the comment count, which we start at 50 comments. Then comes page views, with the minimum number being 20,000 views. Finally, we look at the social media chatter; including Instagram comments and how many times was the post shared across various platforms.

What we end up with is a list that is filled with a plethora of interesting, versatile, and quirky bikes. The only editorial decision I myself made was to omit reviews of stock bikes. So no Santa Cruz Stigmata or Cannondale Topstone this round!

Check out the full Top Ten Beautiful Bicycles of 2019 below, in no particular order…