Wheelies are neat-o. That's just a fact. But being able to do even a little wheelie is more than just cool. After staying upright and riding with no hands, being able to pull the front end up is the most basic skill you acquire if you are an aspiring rider and not just a casual one.  I'm not just talking about 'mountain bikers' either. Getting your bike's front wheel off the ground when you want to comes in pretty handy in all kinds of situations, on all kinds of bikes, and it never becomes less handy, no matter what…

So people are always buggin’ me about the ads we (occasionally) run and how they want to have a copy of those cool/creepy/offensive/horrible illustrations and pictures in a nice format that they can hang on their shop wall, or in their dungeon or where ever. Well now you can have those “fancy” images for your very own. Introducing, the 2013ish Surly Calendar.  It’s got some cool art and you can hang it on your wall and it will tell you what day it is (at least help you attempt to figure it out). You might be saying, “Hey asshole, the…

Perhaps you recall from a few years ago a group of individuals who rode their bicycles over and along the continuous ridge of mountains that run north to south, the continental divide created by the upsurge of clashing tectonic plates along western flanks of North and South America. They called their effort Riding The Spine. We have been fortunate to hear back once in a while from some of them. In one case, a few years ago, Goat was in Argentina with something of a mechanical and wrote to ask if we could send him what he needed to get…

Seeing how I am the self appointed “Tsar of Anti-Social Media” I wanted to take a moment to talk to you about social media and how it fits within Surly. I understand some of you do not particularly care for things like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, so on and so forth (the names alone make me want to hate them right away). Not everyone that works for Surly likes the whole social media thing as well; but everyone understands it has its place and its uses. I get the feeling that most of the angst revolves around the fact that it’s…

Fat Tires and Front Derailleurs, Ad nauseam.     Earlier last year I was experimenting with wide rims + big tires on my Karate Monkey and had the joy of dealing with tire rub on my front derailleur cage. I was using an early proto of what led to the Rabbit Hole rim and a Maxxis Ardent 2.4” tire. Thankfully we make [and supply with our frames] a nice little fitting, the “Monkey Nut V2” [MNV2].     Several Surly frames, starting with the Karate Monkey, have come equipped with our horizontal dropout with a derailleur hanger. This little frame bit is…