8 Priority Bikes Compared: Is Priority Bicycles Any Good?

Priority Bicycles is an American brand built entirely around one idea: a bike shouldn't need a mechanic every few months. No chain to oil, no derailleur to bend on a kerb, tyres that shrug off glass. It's a sensible pitch, and it's why the brand keeps turning up whenever someone asks me for a low-fuss city bike recommendation.

The catch is that Priority is a US direct-to-consumer outfit. There's no showroom to walk into, no local mechanic on speed dial, and shipping a bike across the Atlantic isn't free or instant — worth knowing before you order one to a UK or European address. They do ship internationally, but budget time and cost for it, and check their returns policy before you commit.

With that caveat out of the way, I've gone through the current range model by model. Eight bikes, from a £450-ish commuter to a proper e-bike, and I've tried to be straight about where each one earns its price and where it doesn't.

Priority Classic Plus — the entry point, and honestly the one that sums up the brand

$599 (at time of writing). Ultralight aluminium frame, a Gates carbon belt instead of a chain, and a Shimano Nexus 3-speed internally geared hub with a 186% range — enough for flat city streets, not enough for anything hilly. Puncture-resistant 700x35 tyres and V-brakes rather than discs, which keeps the price down but is the first place I'd point out the compromise. At 25lbs it's light for the category. It's not an exciting bike. It's a bike you can leave outside in the rain for a year and it'll still work, which for a lot of commuters is worth more than excitement.

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Priority Coast — a beach cruiser that won't rust at the beach

$599 (at time of writing), available with 1, 3 or 7 speeds via the belt drive. This is a proper cruiser — swept-back bars, a front caliper brake, a rear coaster brake if you order the single-speed — built specifically for salt air and sand, which is exactly the environment that eats a normal drivetrain alive. Kenda 26x2.125 tyres, 26-30lbs depending on spec. It's not trying to be a serious commuter and doesn't pretend to be. If you want something to leave at a beach house or a second home near the coast, this is the sensible choice rather than the pretty one.

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Priority Eight — the one I'd actually recommend to most people

$949 (at time of writing, down from $999). A Shimano Alfine 8-speed hub gives a 307% range, which is enough for actual hills, paired with Tektro hydraulic disc brakes rather than the rim brakes on the Classic Plus. WTB Slick 700x32 tyres, a full carbon fork, 27lbs. This is where Priority's spec starts matching its price properly — you're getting gearing that copes with a real commute and brakes that work in the wet, for less than most European belt-drive bikes charge for a 3-speed. Available step-over or step-through. If I were choosing one Priority for myself, it'd be this.

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Priority Turi — the comfort bike for someone who never wants to think about gears again

$949 (at time of writing). Same price as the Eight but a different philosophy — a mid-step aluminium frame, an Enviolo CVT hub with a twist shifter instead of set gears, so you dial in resistance rather than clicking through speeds, and 174 Hudson hydraulic discs. Puncture-resistant Kenda tyres, 30lbs. CVT hubs are heavier and slightly less efficient than a geared hub, and that's the trade you're making here for genuinely stepless, seamless shifting. It's a fair trade for a lot of riders, especially anyone who finds derailleurs (or even indexed hub gears) fiddly.

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Priority Continuum Onyx — the all-weather commuter, built like it means it

$1,349 (at time of writing). This is the bike Priority points at "all-season" commuters, and the spec backs it up: an Enviolo CVT hub with a 380% range, hub-powered lights that just work, full composite fenders, and 174 Hudson hydraulic discs on 160mm rotors. WTB slick tyres are tubeless-ready. At 31lbs it's the heaviest bike here bar the e-bike, which is the price of all those fenders and lights being built in rather than bolted on badly later. If you commute year-round in weather that isn't kind, this is the one worth the jump from the Eight.

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Priority Apollo Gravel — belt-drive gravel, which is rarer than it should be

$1,799 (at time of writing) for the flat-bar aluminium version; a drop-bar version and a titanium frame are also on offer, running up to $2,999. A Shimano Alfine 11-speed hub gives a huge 409% range, hydraulic discs handle the stopping, and WTB Byway or Goodyear Connector 40mm tyres cope with gravel and towpaths equally well. At roughly 24lbs it's the lightest bike in the range that isn't the Classic Plus. Belt drives and gravel riding don't usually go together — mud and belts can be a fussy combination — so this is a genuinely useful bike for the person who wants low maintenance without giving up on going off-road occasionally.

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Priority 600 — the one with the Porsche-engineered gearbox

$2,499 (at time of writing). This is the flagship, and it earns the price with a Pinion C1.12 sealed gearbox — designed by former Porsche transmission engineers — giving 12 speeds and a 600% range, equivalent to a 30-speed derailleur setup but entirely sealed and centre-mounted, so nothing hangs off the rear wheel to bend. Tektro hydraulic discs, and a choice of chunky 650B tyres up to 50mm wide for genuine all-road use. It's a serious piece of engineering for anyone who wants derailleur-level range without ever touching a derailleur. It's also a lot of money for what still looks, from ten feet away, like an ordinary bike — you're paying for what you can't see.

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Priority Current Plus — their e-bike, and a proper one

From $3,299 (at time of writing) for the Shimano version, $3,499 for the Enviolo CVT version. A 500W mid-drive motor with 140Nm of torque, a removable 720Wh battery good for 20-75 miles depending on how hard you lean on the throttle, and dual hydraulic discs with a motor cut-off for safety. It's a Class 2 bike out of the box (20mph) but adjustable to Class 3 (28mph) — check what's legal where you actually ride before you touch that setting. At 55-56.5lbs it's heavy, as belt-drive e-bikes tend to be, but the belt and internal hub mean less to maintain on a bike that already has a motor and a battery to worry about.

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So, is Priority any good? Yes, genuinely. The belt-drive-plus-internal-hub formula does what it promises: less oil, fewer trips to a mechanic, tyres that don't puncture on the first ride. The range is wider and more thoughtful than most brands chasing the same idea, from a £450-ish cruiser up to a Pinion-geared flagship that wouldn't look out of place next to bikes costing twice as much. What it isn't is a European city bike in the Brompton or Schindelhauer sense — there's no showroom, no local mechanic, and buying one from the UK or Europe means dealing with an American direct-to-consumer shipping model rather than popping into a shop. If that trade-off doesn't bother you, the Eight and the Continuum Onyx in particular are hard to fault for the money.

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