I’ve written before about bikepacker Ryan Van Duzer. He’s great to follow on YouTube if you’re into adventure biking in the Rockies.
He also worked with a bicycle company called Priority Bicycles to design a bike for his rides — the Priority 600x. He’s featured it a bit on his channel, with a couple of reviews, and I’m fascinated. Mostly with the drive train. It pairs a Pinion gearbox with a Gates Carbon Drive belt, making the whole thing extremely low maintenance. And I can see that on long, dirty rides through rough terrain. You don’t want a chain getting messed up and broken miles from nowhere.
Priority sells all belted cycles, with various gearboxes. The Pinion is their top of the line, but they’ve got others (although I’ve read the reviews and probably wouldn’t settle for anything less than the Pinion). I’d love to go with a belted system, but it’s just not practical right now — especially with the Pinion. You have to pretty much design a frame around the gearbox. That means I couldn’t necessarily get the frame I want (the 600x is aluminum for example — I want steel). I’m at a time in life where my next bike could pretty much be my last for anything adventurous. I’d like to think in 10 years when I’m approaching 70 I’ll still be out there, but I’ve got to be realistic. The legs are getting tired enough now as it is. I can only imagine what they’ll be like down the road. My next next bike is gonna be a cruiser trike that I can ride around the “community.”
In any case, if you’re younger and would like to look at an interesting bike, here you go…