After this I had to leave to take the kiddies out trick-a-treatin', so not only did I miss the best part of the day but I also have no photographic evidence of it. It's certainly better this way.
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After this I had to leave to take the kiddies out trick-a-treatin', so not only did I miss the best part of the day but I also have no photographic evidence of it. It's certainly better this way.
]]>2) Outside Magazine has recently named our venerable Cross Check as one of their favorite commuter bikes. Neato.
3) One Elan Viss wrote to me in June saying
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"Hey,
My name is Elan Viss and I have been a fan of your bikes since i was about ten years old. i bought an instigator last year and i am buying a steamroller tomorrow. I just thought that it would be appropriate to thank the company responsible for some of the toughest, straightforward, and high quality bikes out there. I am seventeen years old, and to be honest, i ride the crap out of your equipment. I would not trade it for anything, and I recommend it to everyone. I was wondering if you needed someone to write for you guys on the website or your blog or something. I can write, and would love to represent you, or would love for you to represent me... however that would work. Thanks again, and keep it surly. -Elan"
I explained to Elan that we do not hire out for this sort of thing but gave him an assignment anyhow. Write something relatively short on the Surly topic of his choice. He did. It's about riding his Steamroller on the Canal trail, and it is genuinely enthusiastic propaganda from a genuinely enthusiastic rider. Read it here.
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4) A while ago I shared a letter from George who had written to report that his old skool brown Steamroller with 1" threaded steerer had been stolen. Bummer. Recently George wrote in to update the situation:
"Forgot to give an update on my stolen steamroller last spring - As soon as I was set to order a new creamroller I got a call en route to Moab that my lovely baked bean cycleship had been turned into the fort collins bike coop and my bro snatched it up and brought it home for me. Turns out that maybe I abandoned her in someones yard during an impromptu grassnap slash blackout mission and it was exactly the same as I had left it. even the seat was in the same location with the knog lights still on it! Anyway, I should take delivery of a lovely beef gravy brown crosscheck this afternoon and I couldn't be more stoked to have a 3rd brown surly in the fleet!"
5) Want to put a kickstand on your Long Haul Trucker, Cross Check, or other bike? Read this first, the new Spew #20.
6) SurlyDotOrg. I like it better than our website.
]]>Today I received an unsigned letter via email, addressed to a hidden group identified only as ‘Homie09’. It instructed the reader, as if it were a ransom note, to reapply the attached Homie Fall Fest flier to whatever blog it is he or she writes for, and to pay special attention to the revision which changed the specified meet-up location from Grumpy’s to Whitey's in NE MPLS. I made note of the fact the odd meet-up time (10:49) had not been altered.
Curious, I called up the only number I knew to be possibly affiliated with any of the people most likely to perhaps associate with the outskirts of the perimeter of the inner circle of the group which in all likelihood is somewhat responsible for having something to do with planning the annual Homie Fall Fest, which as you may know occurs around here every autumn. I was given another number and told not to explain where I had gotten it, and then they hung up. I dialed this number and waited while it rang and rang and rang.
“Hallo?” a vaguely European sounding voice said -cautiously- when it was finally picked up.
“Yes, hi, um, I received a revised Homie flier and I just have a couple questions. Am I talking to the right people?”
A prolonged pause followed, the receiver of the phone on the other end muffled.
Finally, “Yes.”
“Ah, o.k., great,” I replied. “May I ask to whom I am speaking?”
Another muffled pause.
“My name is Nels Unterwerer. I am the undersecretary to the director of Homie relations, Mr. Atticus P. Townehomme. What is your question?”
What?! What the hell was going on? I stalled briefly, uncertain what to make of this bizarre series of events, then shook it off and forged ahead.
“O.K., sure,” I said. “Why did the Homie location change?”
“The, uh, “ Nels cleared his throat. “The, uh... apparently, uh, Grumpys downtown doesn’t open until noon,” he replied, and promptly hung up.
I thought on it for a while. Was it merely a joke? Was it ridiculous mistake by a bunch of bike (and god-knows-what-else) addicted wasters? Or was it a red herring designed to throw the hounds off the trail? Any option seemed implausible. Wasters would never have the follow through to pull off something like the Homie, and it wasn't funny enough to be even an esoteric joke, but what kind of people would deliberately and quite publicly change the location at nearly the last possible hour? And who exactly were they trying to throw off, anyway? And why? It was either brilliant or stupid as hell.
Anyhow, there you have it. I am hereby posting the revised flier. And of course, please take note of the location change.
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Grumpy Girl Ride WINTER, 2009
Come rain, come shine, come snow or sleet!
Alls you need to know is meet us at Grumpy’s Nord East 1:30pm November 7th.
From Nobody in Minneapolis:
That is all.
]]>Nick, this one's for you.
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One thing we are still getting the hang of is this blog thing. The process has changed from the way it was, and the learning curve is steep for the digitally challenged folks who make up Surly. Be patient with us and keep those expectations low. You'll feel better and so will we.
My submission for this week is about Swervy, a.k.a. Nick Sande, leaving the grassy green Surly pastures for the dreary, wet and depressing confines of Portland, OR. OK, I know Portland is a great place. Don't email me with your complaints. We did what we could to try and keep him here, but nothing we did seemed to persuade him otherwise. We wish him well, and expect to see him on a somewhat regular basis. Meanwhile, if you live in Portland and you cross paths with Nick, be sure to kick him in the nuts and buy him a cold one. It will make him feel right at home.
He looks like this:
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A couple of quick notes:
Thank you for coping with our not hereitude while we were in Las Vegas showing our stuff. You are better to us than we deserve.
Our new website is up (duh) and it looks pretty ok from where we sit. Please note that the Dealer Finder thing is being worked on. There are many cool shops who carry our stuff that didn't get transitioned over to the new finder thingy. We are working on this and it will be rectified soon.
Availability. Soon we will have some good dates for the new stuff we showed. When we do, we'll let you know. Until then, hang tight. Some things will be available around December, others not for a bit after that yet. Thanks, Skip
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More info will be available in the future. Or, it will not.
That is all,
Skip
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A tailwind blessed me that day...at least, for the first portion of the float. What took me 2 hours on the 7th, took 45 minutes this time. So, instead of simply paddling the relatively calm backwater on the south and southwest shores of Pike Island and returning along the same sheltered route, I decided to paddle completely around the island (counterclockwise), despite the certainty of strong headwinds and opposing currents on the much larger Mississippi River channel that forms the northern shore of the island.
Pike Island, located below the sandstone cliffs of Fort Snelling in Minneapolis, lies in the fork created by the Mississippi River and the Minnesota River. It is the codpiece in the crotch of this two-river junction. The majority of water surrounding the island, including that of the Minnesota River is relatively slow-moving. Two thirds of the journey around the elongated land mass was pretty mellow…essentially like flatwater paddling. But then I rounded the eastern tip of the island.
The wind and current, that had previously pushed me down the Mississippi at a respectable clip, was working against me. At times, when the winds strongly gusted, I made no forward progress upstream, despite my best paddling efforts. I thought about moving towards shore and pulling the boat along as I waded in the shallow water, but that felt like cheating. So I continued on with the arduous task of getting back upstream to the western point of the island, using only my paddle. I dug the blades of the paddle in deep and used power strokes to make headway. Occasionally, the wind would die down and I would gain some forward momentum. Most of the time, however, I made slow forward progress…moving inches at a time.
Finally, after an exhausting push upstream, I reached my destination…a nice pebble beach on the western tip of Pike Island. There, I set up a windblock with a sizable log, my pack, and the raft, so I could cook dinner (Mountain House Chile Mac) and make coffee with my little Esbit stove. It was necessary to weigh down the raft with a large branch, so the wind wouldn't flip it or carry it off.
My well-deserved, slightly cool Miller High Life (it's the champagne of beers, ya know) tasted fantastic, and my dinner-in-a-bag tasted even better. I spent an hour and twenty minutes there…relaxing, eating, sipping coffee, and enjoying the day on the edge of the mostly-deserted island that is part of the Minnesota State Park system.
After packing up my stove and cook kit, I paddled the short distance across the channel to the Mississippi shoreline, deflated the raft, and packed everything up (11 minutes) for the 5km ride home on the Condundrum.
The roll home was a nice change from the combined 5 hours of paddling and sitting I'd just done. The 170mm cranks on my uni are long for distance riding. I was barely able to keep ahead of a two runners who plodded along behind me. But riding the Conundrum is still faster than walking or running when one factors in the amount of gear being carried. I doubt if a runner could carry what I had on my back and still keep my pace for any length of time.
The unicycle/packraft combo certainly has some merits compared to the bike/raft set-up: lower weight, lower volume/area taken up on the raft, less profile in the wind, and easier to push/pull/carry through dense vegetation. The downsides include lower speeds on land and less storage capacity.
That was a really fun, challenging, low-cost way to spend the day without getting too far from home. Of course, I live for the journey. Those who only look forward to the destination would have hated it. Different (paddle) strokes for different folks.
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(who, preposterously, is not from Alabama), recently obtained a Big Dummy and wrote to us with his findings:
Bama's Big Dummy part 1
1. It's very black.
2. It's stiffer (as in bottom-bracket-sway) than any other bike I own. Seriously. It doesn't flex from side to side.
3. It's got all the braze-ons.
4. The geometry is spot-on/perfect. It steers better than a tandem, feels like a bike, and is very stable when leaned over in corners . . . that is, its predictable and the front tire doesn't "drop" when I tip the handlebars into the apex of a corner. (As opposed to say, a chopper that's front wheel "neutral" position is sideways.)
5. It comes with a kickstand.
6. It has really nice brakes and XT hubs.
7. It's so much easier to pedal than the extra weight of a Burley. I knew the trailer induced shimmy was going to go away, but I didn't think it's be so much lighter. [Some of this has to be due to greater tire and wind resistance of trailers, as opposed to weight. -KB]
8. I can't believe the weight is so perfectly balanced between the front and rear wheel; I thought the front wheel was going to have too much weight.
9. You guys know way more about frame building/design than anyone else. After riding the Big Dummy, its more apparent how much thinking and experience went into making this thing work.
10. How easy it is to install Xtracycle stuff on this frame. Maybe the folks at MRP could take notes on how to manufacture a product that doesn't require a Dremel to install.
I have not personally used any MRP products, so I cannot speak to that. I have used trailers and find them to be useful tools for the right task but I agree, the BD hauls more efficiently. And unlike a trailer, which is generally left at home when it is not specifically needed, the nice thing about the Big Dummy is that you already have your ability to haul things right there under you where ever you ride it. Got a call from the better half asking you to pick up some groceries on the way home? Done. Found a guitar at a yard sale on your way home from work? No problem. Etcetera. I know some of you will find all this terribly obvious. Others will not. If this review has helped you gain a better understanding of the riding dynamics of the Big Dummy, I urge you to visit your local shop, where they will (let's hope) get you a Big Dummy of your very own. If you're still not certain, you should pay a visit to The Surly Big Dummy Society, a repository and resource for all sorts of Big Dummy informations, and which, like so many good ideas, we did not think up or incorporate. Charlie, good on ya for that one.
And finally, a late entry forwarded to me by Whirl the Everstoned. Funny how sometimes two wrongs can make a right.
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