Priority Bicycles Pulls Out a Wild Card and It Could Change the Face of Hardtails for Good

That's right, the 600ADX is nothing more than Priority Bicycles' idea of the perfect bike-packing machine, and seeing as how I'm a sucker for any hardtail, I decided to bring this puppy to light. Not to mention that it comes in with a rather neat and interesting drivetrain setup, one designed to be as hassle-free as the industry currently allows.

Kicking things off for this bicycle, let's dive deeper into its bike-packing abilities. One thing to consider is that the 600 ADX was designed hand in hand with Ryan Van Duzer, an American outdoor lover, bike-packer, motivational speaker, and downright explorer. He's also been in cahoots with Priority for some time now, building "his own" bikes as the years go by.

As for what this collaboration has sparked this time, we're being offered an aluminum frame with a very luscious top tube to seat stay weld - it's nearly a straight shot tip to tail - and if we look closely at all the tubing, we can see mount after mount for bags, racks, water bottle cages, you name it. Overall, 19 mounting points are added to the 600ADX.

The top tube has mounts on top and on the bottom, and so does the down tube. The seat stay is packing some of these anchors, and with a handlebar bag, seat post bag, and any other after-market mounting system you can find, the presenter in the video below states that this puppy is good even for those five-day trips out into no man's land. Be sure to look into suspension fork mounts, as there are plenty of options out there; go a step further. Speaking of forks, a Marzocchi Bomber Z2 with 100 mm of travel is standard on the 600ADX.

Now, as we move forward on this two-wheeled mountain goat, we arrive at the all-important drivetrain. Here, we can see that Priority has chosen to go with a Gates carbon setup. That means that you won't have to worry at all about cleaning or lubing this setup for hundreds, even thousands of miles, not to mention the lack of having anything to service.

Wait a minute? Isn't a belt drivetrain typically set to just one speed, and how the hell am I supposed to ride off a mountain with what is often a 2:1 gearing ratio? Not to worry; the 600ADX has a trick up its sleeve. While the Gates setup attracts your attention with questions about how this bike is meant to function off-road, the Pinion C1.12 gearbox answers them all.

That's right, this one has a Pinion gearbox with a 12-speed pinion system that can offer a gear range of up to 600%. Now, that's more like it! Oh, and what you need to understand about this BB-mounted gearbox is that it's an entirely enclosed system, meaning you won't have to worry about dirt, dust, or grime getting inside. Even Priority claims that your next drivetrain servicing after purchasing a 600ADX will be 6,000 miles (9,656 km) from now.

As for the rest of this bugger, the wheels are from none other than WTB, and so are tires, and TRP handles braking with a four-piston hydraulic setup with 180 mm (7.1 in) discs. Yup, that'll do it, loaded to the brim or not. Speaking of loaded to the brim, a standard 600ADX, most likely the medium-size frame, weighs as little as 34 lbs (15.4 kg). Let's not forget internal cable routing.

Finally, since your local dealership probably doesn't have one of these babies in stock, allow me to throw some geometry at you; maybe you can get a feel for this beauty. Overall, headtubes are set at a nice 68 degrees and seat tubes at 74 degrees. The reach for the medium frame is 427 mm, and the chainstay length on all sizes is set to 456 mm, so it's a tad longer than the average of the past few years; blame or thank Gates for that one.

But, who the hell is Priority Bicycles and how did they manage to pull off such a Frankenstein of a machine? Well, ever since 2014, Priority has been hitting the market with everything they have, and over the years, what started as a Kickstarter campaign, transformed into one of America's fastest-growing bicycle companies.

Heck, in the two years that I've been writing about them, I've seen their fleet nearly double, if not triple, so they're doing something right. If you're out in NYC or Mill Valley, California, feel free to look up this crew, head down to their office, and see what the 600ADX and Priority are all about.

Just be warned, you may very well be leaving with a new bicycle in the trunk of your car. Why not order one right from where you're standing and let us all know how it feels to ride an MTB whose chain never skips a beat?