One Year With Two Birds: Singular Peregrine Mk4

I received the first Peregrine September 13th, 2025.

 The Tale of Two Birds:

The Singular Peregrine Mk4 is my newest bike in the stable. I have written a lot about this bike over the past year. Well.....actually it has been about two bikes. Both Peregrine Mk4's. 

I'm not going to delve deep into the weeds on this post, because if you've been following along here you know most of the story already. For those of you who may have found this post in a search, or are new to this blog, see my review of the second Peregrine HERE and you will be able to catch up with the backstory. 

Now, I wanted to hit a few points here upon the anniversary of getting the size Large Peregrine Mk4. First and foremost which is germane to this discussion is how the Peregrine Mk4 fit works. The size Large Peregrine I first received, on paper, looked to be the correct fit for me. However, in practice, it was a bit off.

Now this is my opinion, and Sam Alison of Singular may disagree here, but the Peregrine fits like an 'old school' road bike would fit. A really old school road bike. Most of you dear readers may not understand what this means. I do not blame you. Road bikes haven't been fitted in this manner since the 1990's.Maybe the early 2000's. 

The size Large Peregrine as it appeared in January of 2026.

 It used to be said that if you had more seat post sticking out than what could be covered by a fist, you had too small a bike. Standover clearances weren't observed as being all that important for decades. It was all about how the bicycle fit you when you were riding it, that mattered most. Certainly tradition and early engineering dictated that a top tube be level. A "double-diamond" frame geometry was considered to be strongest. Materials technology - or the lack thereof - also comes into play here. 

Sam Alison is heavily influenced by classical road bike aesthetics. Part of this is the level top tube, double-diamond frame look. Lugged construction and box crown/plate crown fork designs also are a part of his stylistic choices. So, it maybe should not be a surprise here that the Singular Peregrine leans more toward that old way of fitting a cyclist than the new ways we do things in 2026. Take, for instance, seat tube lengths. 

The size Large Peregrine Mk4 seat tube length on the geometry chart for this bike is listed at 57cm, center to center. That is 1cm shorter than my classic size. (typically), but in today's sloping top-tube world, those old measurements do not add up. As an example, my Black Mountain Cycles MCD has a 53cm seat tube. But with this design, as with most modern bicycles, a lot of seat tube showing is generally expected.  Standover is almost not a thing anymore. Although, it can come into play with big tires.  We generally are looking at "Reach" and "Stack" now because modern geometry doesn't fit the old ways of sizing a bicycle. 

The current Peregrine Mk4, dubbed the "XLBird" by my friend Ari. 

The size XL Peregrine Mk4 has a seat tube of 58.5cm. A half a centimeter longer than what I would deem "right" for myself. This made the top tube come to a 59.8cm length, 1.8cm longer than "right" for me. The size Large top tube was 57.2cm, .8cm shorter than I'd typically go for. 

Again, in practice all this means something more than the raw numbers show. I never felt quite "right" on the Large Peregrine. The XL? It feels far better to me. Even if it has less standover clearance, which again, doesn't matter when you are riding. If anything, I may go with a slightly shorter stem on the XLBird as the stem swapped over from the Large Peregrine was retained for this version of the Peregrine. 

Actually, if Redshift Sports would make a silver ShockStop Stem, I'd put that on here. I just cannot bring myself to go with a black anodized stem. Not on this build. 

But all that aside, I am very happy on this XLBird and it should satisfy my cravings for a classically inspired bicycle which can take on big gravel tires.