Review: Singular Peregrine Mk4 - Ride Impressions

 NOTE: Guitar Ted paid for the Peregrine Mk4 out of pocket. Singular Cycles is not paying for, nor has any knowledge of this review, (that is - until Sam reads this post!) All thoughts and opinions are Guitar Ted's.

 First of all, thank you for reading the build series for this bike. If you missed it, the previous three posts to this one should catch you up on things regarding this bicycle. Another thing to note here is the Schwalbe G-One Overland tires will be going on soon and these WTB tires are not the final look for this bicycle. Okay, with this out of the way, I wanted to give you all my first ride impressions from the two test rides I have put in on this bicycle so far.

The first ride was a neighborhood test ride to make sure everything was put together correctly and functioning as it should. I did run into one issue with the bike on this ride which I wanted to speak to here. It has to do with the seat post binder bolt. 

Typically, the non-driveside part of the binder is keyed and the key mates into a slot in the frame so this part of the binder bolt cannot rotate. You adjust the binder from the driveside. However, the binder bolt which was shipped with the frame is not keyed, so I must use two 5mm wrenches to adjust the post height and secure it. No big deal. However; on my first ride the post was slipping, because I didn't get it tight enough, and I did not have two 5mm hex keys along with me. Just a bit annoying is all. 

 I did not glean enough from what the rest of the bicycle was doing on the first ride because I was so annoyed by the slipping seat post. (It was noted about halfway through the test loop) So, I really couldn't tell you much about this bike from this first ride.

The second ride went far better and I brought two hex keys with me on this particular ride. However; I had that post locked down and I ended up not needing the two hex keys, but isn't this the way things go?  

 This time I was able to concentrate on what this bicycle was doing differently than the Twin Six. It was apparent right away that the Peregrine felt springier, less harsh, and definitely a bit more forgiving without being flexy and unpredictable.

I hit some dried out tractor tread tracks. Kind of like a dirt version of rumble strips, and the bike floated over these with just a touch of feedback to my hands. The T-6 would have communicated this to me as a very buzzy, rough patch, but the stiff carbon fork on the T-6 is mostly to blame there. I needed  a Redshift Sports ShockStop stem on the T-6 to help with this issue. On the Peregrine Mk4? I don't find it to be necessary yet.

Overall the bicycle reminded me of an old mountain bike in that it was doing things in compressions and over chatter which I found familiar from my experiences with those old, steel frames and forks. The fact of having the bars behind the front axle makes this even more pronounced, I think. It was slightly better than those old bicycles though, and I think this is due to materials use and through axles. 

I did find I had to really weight the handle bar on the inside of a corner to keep the front tire biting, but during gravel riding, this should not be a big deal. Speaking of.....

This will be the next test. A longer gravel ride. Stay tuned....