Last Ride For The Gravel Bus

The 2020 Twin Six Standard Rando v2 I dubbed "The Gravel Bus" 

 I suppose many of you fine readers are aware I am about to take delivery of a Singular Peregrine Mk4. This frame and fork will be built up using most of the parts from the Twin Six Standard Rando I have. I've gone over all the reasoning for this in past posts about these two bicycles. If you want the lowdown see HERE and HERE for the story. 

Since this Standard Rando v2 is about to be dismantled, I thought one final ride was in order to get a benchmark on how it rides again and to give it a proper send-off from my stable of bicycles.  It isn't that this bike is "bad", or even a bicycle which isn't quite "good enough" when it comes to why I am passing it on, because it is a great bicycle. It is just that I have grown to love fatter tires again on gravel and the T-6 just cannot get me where I need to be in this regard. So, I have decided to move on from this bicycle mainly based upon this fact. 

If you look closely, you can see how minimal the tire clearance is with this WTB tire which is listed as a 700 X 44mm. 

 Currently I have a 700 X 44mm WTB Raddler mounted on Shimano GRX rims which measure 25mm inner rim width. This wheel is standard width now days for gravel use. Some are advocating for even wider rims, but for what I typically use here, 25mm - 30mm inner rim width is going to be the maximum for my needs. 

So, as you can see above, putting a 45mm+ width tire on a current issue Standard Rando just is not going to work with today's rim widths. So, this issue is solved by the Peregrine Mk4 quite handily. This is but one reason I am moving on from the T-6, but I had to have a certain look and feel in the replacement bike, and I feel the Singular does this. See the linked post above if you want to know more about this. 

 The Standard Rando is a great bicycle and my wish would be for Twin Six to come up with a v3 of this model with the capability to handle up to a 50mm tire. But at this point, I cannot get the bike in the configuration I would like. This is sad, in a way, because the Standard Rando is a fun bicycle to ride. I love the water bottle capacity, the classic look, and the way it handles is very predictable. Maybe a tad on the stiff side, yes, but with the ShockStop stem, I can tame this characteristic of the Standard Rando v2 easily. 

I'm going to miss this bicycle, for sure. However; it is plain to see to me, at least, that I am more apt to grab a bicycle from my stash with larger tires than what this bicycle can handle. As an example, this ride I took the other day was the first time I had ridden the Standard Rando in 2025. So, yes, it was time to rectify the situation, and my expectation is for the Singular Peregrine Mk4 to do this for me. 

The switch over of components should begin this weekend as the Peregrine is expected to find its perch here on Friday. You may wonder what is going to happen to the Standard Rando v2 frame and fork.  I initially thought I might sell it, but..... I could use a fatter tire fixie. Hmm......