Falling behind a little here, people. I have great intentions late at night forgetting the fact my internal clock won't be fooled by the tasty food and drink I can't avoid colliding with in Japan. Ending a night of partying at 2am here means it's high noon yesterday back home. But I just can't seem to sleep past 7am local time. I ought to go to bed early on account of it. Oh well. You have no idea the sacrifices we at Surly make to ensure you're entertained. As popular myth states, the band played on as the Titanic sank.…

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 second full day of our Japan extravanganza started out with a very cryptic note taped to one of our bikes parked along the railing outside the hotel. Bringing the bikes in for the night was out of the question according to management. The logistics of fitting a Big Dummy into a Japanese-size elevator or hotel room would be challenging at best anyway. If finding space to park bikes can be this difficult, imagine the premium on car parking in a country without much discretionary real estate to spread around. My ride for the trip -- a stock Dummy with…

Hey -- Tom Waits ain't the only one who's big in Japan. Considering the fact that some of our own friends and family can't even stand us, why should Japanese cyclists regard Surly with any greater esteem? Maybe it's because we just keep coming back. In reality, a major reason is we have a kick-ass distributor who has taken the time to help dealers and media understand what Surly is all about. Finally, somebody gets us? This is my second Surly trip to Japan. Before I came on board the entire crew invaded the main island two and a half…

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…