Surly Bikes
O.K., a few weeks ago some of you noticed some things which appeared in a place they were not yet supposed to appear. These things induced palpitations in a small group of bike nerds and questions began immediately to percolate. “Is it what we think it is?” the nerds asked hopefully. We played it cool. We weren’t yet ready to talk about it.
And then it happened again. Ho-kay.
There is no longer any point in ignoring or denying the impending existence of these items, and while it is not normally our style to happily share the few secrets we have worth keeping, this one time we will slice you off a slab of what’s coming. Savor it.
So… you know how our chainstays have long carried the message Fatties Fit Fine? And remember how Pugsley took that concept beyond all our other models and made it sort of cartoonish? Well, maybe you’d better sit down.
Yes, we are introducing a few new things coming up soon, among them a new frameset (which will also come as a complete bike) called the Moonlander. It takes the FFF philosophy very, very seriously. We called it Moonlander because of its dune-crawling, all-terrainability and very large tires reminiscent of NASA moon rovers.
Moonlander is designed to work with our new Clown Shoe rims (100mm singlewall!), Big Fat Larry tires (4.5” Larry tread!), and Mr. Whirly Offset Double crank (a whole other story!). The very wide rims and very large tires, as you might expect, make for amazing traction, floatation, and minimal ground impact. The frame’s 28mm offset and the Whirly Offset Double crank allow room for such big rubber without chain rub. You’ll also be pleased to know that the fork (symmetrical blades, no offset) operates using a 135mm hub but unlike the Pug fork will use a front disc caliper adapter. The rear dropouts are the same as the Pug. And –stay calm-- we’ll have rims strips to fit these rims in a candy cane of colors, including good ol' black.
At this point, bike nerds of a certain ilk are, to use the parlance of our times, “sporting wood.” Take a minute if you need to.
We’re excited, and we’re glad you are too. But for now you will just have to sit on your hands and dream of what you’ll be able to do with Moonlander. And lest you think Moonlander is the only trick we have up our sleeves this coming year, I assure you that is not the case. 2012 brings quite a spread of other tasty Surly bike stuff. So stay tuned, and thanks for your interest. Seriously. It’s nice to be wanted.
One of Surly's design enginerds, Thor, using Dave's Moonlander proto to conquer the mudhole.
