Looking at a new bike and it occurs to me that there is two types or more correctly two options in owning bikes. I am mainly talking road but can be applied to off road.

Road rat, cyclo. Cross bikes like the Planet X Ti haffenback, Surly frames, Singular swift, Peregine etc all claim utility credit entails.

Then is those sleek racing frames in carbon which claim you are cycling on ex Tour de France thoughbred….

I am attracted to the utilitarian types but can you really have just one do it all bike?

depends on priorities, amount of time doing each.

I tend to the rugged build style, for all that I’d love to whizz around at 18mph for 60 miles, reality is I like linking roads with trails (or vice versa) and when I had a perfectly decent road bike it’d come back all mangled and muddy from excursions round the country side. So I saw the light and got a Peregrine. It’s not light, it’s thus not ‘fast’ but suits me to a T..

I’ve got a Kinesis TK3 (now 4S) which does all of the above. Really needs different wheels/tyres for touring and racing tho.

Would have gone for disc brakes but they are banned for road racing 🙁

Kcal what’s the Peregine like?

Any pics?

There is no such thing as a do it all bike.

You may find a bike that’ll have a good go at everything you want it to do though. So really depends on what you want it to do.

@aw – really like it.. definitely good for mile after mile of varied stuff – hanker after using it for some touring as well, maybe this spring / summer. Until then I’ve been using it to explore tracks and roads round my local county; been excellent. Did a 110 mile excursion round the boundaries of Moray on tracks – linking three walking trails – and felt fine at the end of that..

Pics – not many actually, must rectify that but hold on — nope, doesn’t seem to work on Instagram at least.

Got a cx bike for commuting mainly offroad, got a modest “sleek racing bike”, only took it out half a dozen times last year, it is nice to have something that give so much speed with so little effort but the cx bike did something like 20 times more miles. (Generally) A bike with full guards and disc brakes will get ridden a lot more in the UK than a featherweight speed machine I reckon.

Depends how much you like road riding really.

I have a top-end steel close-clearance road bike and a deep-drop brake mudguard equipped cr-mo / 105-level bike. I’ve ridden the 105 bike thousands of miles in the last year, the top-end bike I’ve not ridden more than 300 in 2 years. I go a bit faster one one and it looks prettier, I find the other far more useful on wet, broken up roads and I don’t fuss about the amount of wear and tear it gets. If I lived in Italy and only rode on buffed tarmac in the sunshine it’d be the other way round.

Thanks kcal….really tempted by the Peregine. I saw Singular Sam and some sweet set up Peregines at the London bike show 🙂

I also saw Sam’s prototype stainless steel frame, now that was special!

I am a commuter so I am knowing the value of a hardy reliable machine

Did a mixed ride today, road, Sustrans, muddy bridleway. 42mm Marathon XR tyres but could have put full 29er 2.3s in. Wouldn’t throw it down Jacob’s Ladder, but it’s no wimp and can handle a lot. Loads up lovely too, either panniered or frame bags. It’s no speed machine though, went for a road ride with my mate on his skinny roadie and 23c tyres and was holding him back badly.

@aw –I’ll put a couple of pics up on Facebook so I can link to them.

Out on morning explore. It’s currently set up as a bit of a do anything; singlespeed, couple of crud guards (in fetching white at rear..) and Tangle bag to carry ‘stuff’..

Quite a big range between utility and sleek racing frame.

Bikes with clearance for guards (and maybe disks) can still be fairly lightweight and not sacrifice much speed if not designed for luggage or light off-road.