This past Saturday was trouble before it even started. Surly Brewing Company was having their grand open house to show the public our first glimpse of the new brewery. There is absolutely no affiliation between Surly Bikes and Surly Brewing, except for the fact that they like bikes and we like beer. After the initial shock of finding out another company in town shared our name, our eyes lit up with cross-promotional ideas, errr, free beer. Either way, Kenny Bloggins, Sovern, pal Mike and I rolled the party bike up to north Minneapolis. As we were locking up our bikes,…

Mpls girls on bikes. Do I have your complete attention now? The Minneapolis bike scene gets better and better, to the point now that girls are organizing their own pub roll rides. Whether this is truly a drunk ride or not is for you to find out. All girls of all abilities are welcome to join. Grandmas, trailers, lowriders, highriders, sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, pinheads, dweebies, wonkers, richies, whatever. The organizers are the types of girls that simply like to ride bikes without all the testosterone and stupid let's-go-fast action that so many group rides turn into. I'm told nobody…

Product Stock Status We'll be out of many sizes of Karate Monkey framesets until mid-June. Also back in stock approximately mid-June: - Cross-Check framesets, all sizes in both Dark Green or Black colors. - Offset Large Marge rims for Pugsley frames, non-cutout (DH) version, original extrusion. - Offset Large Marge rims for Pugsley frames, cutout (XC) and non-cutout (DH) versions in the NEW dedicated offset extrusion rim. What is the difference between the new and the original. The new extrusion will have 12mm of spoke offset vs. 6mm on the original. This allows better spoke triangulation for a stronger wheel.…

Do you work on your own stuff? I mean, when your bike is all broke-ass and it needs fixing, do you do it yourself? Where do you get your work done? Man, when I was growing up on the farm in Iowa, we fixed a lot of stuff. My dad - while not the master metalworker, or super anal finish carpenter - was a true problem solver and a visionary when it came to getting it "good enough." Some of my first memories are of him wrestling with the old Ford 8N tractor (I think it's even where I learned…

From the mailbag this morning: hey you surly folk - started with a 1X1 a few years ago. it rocks at going over rocks, around rocks, even under rocks occasionally when i'm in the right place. then rock gardens started getting easier and i thought a fixie might make them more challenging. what better ride to fix than a karate monkey. one speed, drop bars, fixed 38X17. damn thing goes over rocks too, and around them, but not yet under them - no trips to moab with the km yet. then i thought road rides might build the muscles a…