A year ago, I purchased some Velocity 650B rims and 40mm-wide Panaracer Fatty Rumpkin tires. The intention was to convert my fixed-gear Pacer (built with Karate Monkey dropouts) to a 650B bike. Well, that never happened. And I'm glad it didn't, because my geared blue Pacer is better suited to use the 650B format. The Pacer fork doesn't accept 40mm-wide tires, so I swapped it with a Steamroller fork. The axle-to-crown height of the Steamer fork is 3mm taller, and the offset decreases by 7mm. The trail measurement changes a bit, but the resulting geometry (61mm of trail) feels just…

The nature of my job often entails riding the hell out of the newest Surly products to test them pre- and post-production. It's not uncommon for me to ignore an older bike for a year or two while the newer stuff gets flogged on a regular basis. Such is the case with my Tuxedo Blue Pacer. I rode that bike for more than a year in all conditions…enough to break the drive-side Ultegra crank, shred a few tires, and wear out 2 drivetrains. But when the Karate Monkey protos came out, the Pacer got shelved, so I could focus on…

Even if you're not a resident of the U.S. of A., you have probably been kept awake for days by the incessant clatter of fireworks eminating from every crevice of our fair nation. Sorry about that. Though we do seem to have an itch for blowing things up in other places, normally the explosives are kept under lock and key by authorities such as the Army, the ATF, and, for farmers needing to blow boulders or stumps from their property, the local Farm and Fleet store (who do in fact carry C4 and blasting caps for just such purposes). But…

What happened to Stevil? Hey, presto. Also: Local sweetheart badass Anitra ran into some trouble recently. Show up at Grumpy's NE the evening of Sept 6 and help the lady out. Lastly today, to the guy who wrote in to bitch us out because we did not accomodate him by specifically addressing on our website whether or not he would be able to do barspins on a stock Steamroller: You, sir, are an asshat. It's one thing to write to us and ask if you can do barspins with the Steamroller. You want to do barspins? Great. But it's just…

You don't have to be a Fleck or a Dave (see bike camping posts below) to enjoy good time bicycle participatory ridingness. Two stuffs you might enjoy coming up soon (MPLS local): 1) Bicycle Film Fest is coming up in like a week. Go to it. See movies. Cruise toward the fest on watever bike you choose to ride, joining up with more and more people on bikes as you get closer to your destination. Although you'd never know it by looking at the website, Surly is a main sponsor for the Minneapolis leg. Informations about films, schedules and locations…