Having been “with” Surly for quite a long time now, I have been honored to meet a lot of fine people (I have also have been made to suffer many more people with whom I did not “see eye-to-eye,” but that's a long series of other stories). Once many years ago I answered an email from Steamroller rider Elan Viss. Elan had written to Surly HQ to let us know how much he loved his Steamroller and has from time to time written back to update us on his life and his bike. The other day I received an email from him, the first one in quite a while, and I thought I’d share it here to illustrate first that we make tough bikes that work well for all kinds of things and that last a long time even when you don't pamper them, and second to illustrate that core Surly customers do not write in very often because they are off living fulfilling lives instead of sitting in front of a glowing screen eating Cheez-its and waiting for the next chance to “like” something on Facebook.

       The photo doesn’t begin to explain how cold this morning was. In the Central Valley of California, there is a sort of wet-cold that just hurts to be in. It was only 33 degrees, foggy, and everything that was supposed to keep me warm was soaked. My buddies and I had to take bikes back into the hunting refuge because the roads are blocked off to motor vehicles. That left us very few options. The Surly is set up as a fixed gear rig with no brakes. I robbed part of my parent’s shower curtain rod to make the handlebar. The brushed stainless looks good, but it is primitive. I have to say that the bike handles like it was designed to cross small rivers loaded with shotguns and duck decoys; the folks at Surly very well may have accounted for this. Either way, it performed much in the likeness of its namesake. This article, I reckon, is an ode to versatility and fundamental quality. The no frills approach to bike making seems to be a thing of the past, and otherwise bygone so-to-speak. Not with Surly though. The 4130 carries my hulking frame just fine. Even though I’m about as nimble as an elephant, the bike almost makes me look like a true athlete. Whether I’m riding to the store, riding through a creek, riding for fitness, or just riding because I feel like riding, the Steamroller is my steed, and a good one at that. Thanks to Anders Jerner and Sam Sawyer, my photographer and hunting guide, respectively. Keep it real, and get Surly. 
-Elan

Taiwan is pretty rad.  Good people, bizzare food, and a country filled with manufacturers that make bike parts for the world.

Here are some random pictures I snapped during the trip.  Enjoy...

Squat toilets... Pretty tough to waist time on your cell phone while using on of these.

Checking in on Krampus production.  I do love the look of a raw welded frame.

A whole rack of LHT Disc non-drive side triangles waiting to be welded into frames.

At nearly every supplier there is a quality assortment of candy, coffee, tea, and water.  Seeing as I don't read Chinese, eating candy from the bowl is a little like Russian roulette.

I think an unpolished stainless seat collar would be bad ass.  What do you think?  Also, some top secret 2014 stuff on the table in the background.  You are going to like it.

This is our good friend Willy hanging out at the tire supplier.  Willy is basically Surly's Taiwan engineer.  He keeps tabs on our manufacturers and makes sure everything is going smoothly for us.

Some OD crank arm forgings.  It is wierd to think that one day the exact forgings in this picture will be machined, painted, boxed, shipped, shelved, purchased, installed, and then ridden by a Surly fan.  This could be a picture of the cranks you buy in the future.

OD crank, check.

I think I saw Jeremy Wade catch this fish on River Monsters.

Chicken feet taste exactly how you would guess, skin and bones.  Nummy.

Raw Krampus fork looking good.

That's a whole lot of Krampus forks.

During our trip we had the chance to do some work on a local Taiwan mountain bike trail.  Crazy enough, these massive spiders (Golden Orb spiders I think) were everywhere.  They had huge webs strung out across the trail waiting for bikers to get tangled up in them.  Apparently their poison will only cause some local irritation if bitten, but damn, I was not a fan.  Fortunately, we walked the whole trail and cleared out all the webs before riding.

We also found this MASSIVE earth worm out on the trail.  When it stretched out it was easily over two feet long.  More snake than worm in my opinion.

Whole slew of LHT forks waiting for some paint.

Leeche's advice for driving in Taiwan.... "The rule is, there is no rule."

Maybe this doesn't make sense to folks who weren't there, but that's ok. It doesn't need to. All you need to know is that Dorset in the UK is a very hard place to get to, but very much worth the effort. Gut-twisting climbs up massive seaside mounds always paid off with stunning views and rebel yell descents. Cold clammy camping was tempered by the friendliest bonfire in the English (or some variant thereof) speaking world. And single speeding is still alive despite the efforts of all of us.

This is what I remember:

Camping provisions are best eaten with the Official SSUK GPS Device.

This is almost never a bad thing.

Something in England is "about this tall."

The "start" of the "race" was pretty "tense."

Going up is hard.

Looking back down made up for the hard.

A few racing firsts were achieved - stopping at a museum to see dinosaur footprints for one.

A local selling fancy cheeses at the finish line was another.

And I now feel that every race should have a poet scheduled at some point in the day.

The two on the right won (though we're not entirely certain how that was tabulated). The two on the left were ineligible - one for organizing, the other for being far too American.

So, if you're ever in Swanage, or possibly if you're in Birmingham next year, ride a bike with one gear and you'll probably learn something vital. Either that, or you won't. Still... do.

-Skip

The first thing is that as delivered, the wheel was pulled back in the dropouts. Nope, we want that all the way forward for good handling and to shift right. Once moved to the full-forward position, the chain is too long – way too long!  The bike I got had a chain with 118 pins in it.  That’s long enough that the mid cage derailleur was back against its stops and the chain was sagging onto the chainstay.  No good.  We want to spec a chain that’s short enough to work well, but long enough for people to pull their wheel back a bit if they want to.  I pulled out 4 links (or 8 pins), so the correct length chain for a Krampus with the stock gearing (!!!) is 110 pins.

Pulling the wheel back in the dropouts works OK, but brings up another problem.  Shimano Shadow-Plus derailleurs (like the SLX spec’d on the Krampus completes) are awesome, but are sensitive to axle placement.  What some people have found is that if you pull your wheel back too far in the dropout, your chain hits the knuckle of the derailleur and makes shifting into the smaller cogs, er… difficult. 

This problem is compounded by the fact that the bikes were mistakenly shipped with V.2 Monkey Nuts.  Monkey Nuts hold the wheel back 14mm in the dropout and ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH SHIMANO SHADOW PLUS DERAILLEURS.  (I’ve found you can pull your wheel back up to 8mm in the dropout and everything is still gravy, so if you want to shorten those monkey nuts up to 8mm or less somehow, that will work.)

Next up is the chain guide.  Is yours rubbing on the tire? It wasn’t on the bike I built, but we’ve heard complaints of that happening.  If you’re seeing that issue, I would check to see if three (3) spacers are in place between the guide and mount.  If they are there and the guide is too close for your comfort, the guide can be clocked forward to clear the tire.  This will require removing the crankset and loosening up the driveside BB cup – sorry, but nothing worthwhile is easy.

*This discussion demands an agreement on the definition of tire rub.  My definition of tire rub is the tire rubbing something.  Sprues just don’t count.  If you think that the mold sprues rubbing something is the same as the tire rubbing something, I can’t help you.  Sprues go away with riding – if you want them gone, just lean your bike over and gas it.  They will be gone faster than Coors at a Sunday barbeque!

Lastly, the B-tension adjustment was WAY out on the bike I built.  Way out. B-Tension is that oddball screw setting on the der. You know, the one that isn’t a limit screw.

In summary, or for you who wisely skipped the above outpouring – if you are building a Krampus, here’s the deal:

1. V.2 MONKEY NUTS ARE NOT COMPATIBLE WITH SHADOW PLUS DERAILLEURS!
2. Throw the Monkey Nuts that are included with the bike in your parts bin.
3. Slide the wheel fully forward.
4. Shorten the chain to 110 pins long (55 links).
5. Adjust your B-tension screw to spec.
6. If your tire is rubbing your chain guide, loosen up the BB, shift into the smallest cog, and clock the guide forward until its back clears the tire, but still clears the chain.  You’ll know what I’m talking about when you’re there.

We love all of you and are sorry about this, but shit happens - let's try to get over all of this and down with proper setup.

XOXO

Surly Intergalactic

Fruita, dinosaurs and drive through liquor stores.

For years now I’ve wanted to go to Fruita for the Fat Tire Festival but something always got in the way. Things like work, money, life; I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Having ridden exclusively in the Midwest I would drool over the photographs of the trails in Fruita, Grand Juncture, and Moab, day dreaming of what it would be like to ride there. I cut my teeth mountain biking in the early 90’s just outside of Detroit at places like Highland State Recreation Area, Kensington, Holly, and other places that probably no longer exist. Twenty years later I’m still riding the local trails, only now I’m in Minneapolis. I hate to say it but I’m most likely one of the least experienced mountain bikers that works for Surly so I was somewhat intimidated about what I was getting myself into when I found out that I was going to get to go to Fruita to ride on the company’s dime. To top it all off, two days before we flew out to Denver, I got knocked on my ass by the worse cold I’ve had in years. Panic sets in and all I could think about is how sick I was. I could barely breath, I felt like shit, and it was too late to turn back now. The night before our flight departs, April 22nd, Minneapolis gets 8 inches of snow. Yep, it was time to get the fuck out of Dodge.

I had asked our newest engineer, Andy, if he’d like to come along with me. There was no hesitation what-so-ever when he replied with a loud “Hell yes I’ll go to Fruita with you!” So we started to plan our trip. The extent of our planning was buying plane tickets and renting a van. That was it. Andy is a pretty laid back guy and he enjoys the simpler things in life like sleeping in the back of a van, wearing the same socks until they’re fused to your skin, and playing things by ear. Me, well, I like having a plan, taking a shower every now and then, and knowing what the hell is going on. Don’t get me wrong now, I love camping, backpacking and “roughing it” out in mother nature, but if I’m going to be riding out in the desert all day long a shower in the evening sure would be swell. But, for a nice change of pace I decided I’d go along with Andy’s plan and not make any plans at all. We packed up our bikes and gear and sent it all to Salvagetti in Denver so we didn’t have to fly with them.

Andy, getting ready to ride Rustler's Loop

Phillip and the crew from Salvagetti could not have been more accommodating. Phillip even offered to put us up for a couple of nights and we gladly accepted. We spent one night in Denver, got our bikes put together and did some drinking, some eating, and then more drinking. The following morning it was off to Fruita. 

We rolled into Fruita at around 5 PM Wednesday and started to drive out to the campground at 18 mile road. About half way there I thought we should at least call a couple of motels around Fruita to see if they had any open rooms. As luck would have it there was one place that could put us up through the weekend so we decided to go check it out. A few minutes later we were pulling into the parking lot at the H Motel and Andy is having serious reservations. He thought that motel looked pretty shady and he really did not want to have anything to do with it. Then I noticed that there was a Surly sticker on the door to the motel office and I said “See man, its destiny. We have to stay here now.” After a little more persuasion from me we were checking into room 13. After unloading the van and thoroughly checking the room out Andy was a happy man again, we had nice big beds to sleep in and a great new shower to wash away the grime from riding all day. To top it all off, we had great neighbors and we were only 3 blocks from downtown Fruita.

The H Motel.

Rustler's Loop heading back to the trail head.

Somewhere along Horsethief Trail.

On Rustler's Loop, wind in my beard.

I brought my prototype Krampus that was fully rigid with a 1x10 drivetrain (32t chainring, 11/36 cassette) and Andy brought his Krampus that had a Fox fork on it. After riding for 3 full days I decided a suspension fork would have been nice, but not 100% necessary. We rode the trails at Kokopelli, 18 mile road, and the Lunch Loops in Grand Juncture. My favorite trails were Kessel Run, Rustlers Loop, Horsethief and Mary’s. The Krampus absolutely screamed down Kessel and I spent most of my time on that trail reining my Krampus in. Rustler’s Loop was a lot more fun than I thought it was going to be, there was very little climbing and the faster I rode it the more fun it got.  When I did have to slow down, the Krampus would be back up to speed in three or four pedal strokes. The 3” Knard 27 tpi tires on our Rabbit Hole rims performed fantastically for me. They hooked up great on all the trails I rode only washing out on me once, and that was defiantly user error! I got zero flats which was pretty surprising because I had been warned of the goat head “situation” when riding in that area. We rode every day, pretty much all day. I’m not going to lie, I was hurting at the end of the day but it was well deserved and it did feel good. I never really did get my lungs to work like I felt they should but that was more due to the cold I couldn’t shake and the altitude than anything else. Not to mention, this was really my first bit of serious riding since last fall and I was not in prime shape.

Hot Tomato, best pizza I've had in a long time. We ended up eating there four nights in a row.

Great staff and great owners really make this place special.

All of the trails I rode were well thought out and planned beautifully. The views were amazing, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before on a bike. At times I was challenged as I rode and I’m not ashamed to admit I walked my bike through sections that were beyond me. I crashed once, late in the day on Friday and walked away with only some bruised ribs and a bruised ego. All in all I’d have to say this was the best bike trip I’d ever been on and come hell or high water- I’ll be there again next year for the Fruita Fat Tire Festival.

When riding in the desert, don't forget your sunblock.

More to follow, the people we met, some of the things we saw, and the places we went.

BoB
 

Here is where you can find Coast Kid's account of the weekend. He was either way less drunk than I was to remember so much, or maybe he just pulls it off better.

http://coastkid.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/forth-fat-fatbike-gathering-27th28th.html

Here is a shot of my pug all loaded up with my camping shit.  I used the sleeping bag as packing material to save a bit of room.

When I first heard about going on a two-day beach ride up in Scotland on fatbikes, I was excited, but also a bit pensive.  I’ve done some beach riding before and while it’s fun, it’s not necessarily how I would spend two days.  Slowly pedaling across the sand over and over moving slowly and watching the ocean tick by. That’s not really how it was at all though.  There was a fair amount of sand, but there were an impressive amount of rocks.  The idea was that we were riding while the tide was low, so we could really traverse the tidal rocks and take in some truly breath taking sights.  The first big stop was at this spot, with corroded submarines left on the coast from World War II. (This was actually where we met them for the first time)  From there it was rocks and some pretty impressive single track.  I road my Pugsely set up 1x10 and it was pretty perfect.

The 40 of us were a pretty impressive site to see.  Riding along all on fatbikes (except for a couple of Krampus, and one brave soul on a Karate Monkey).  I certainly have never ridden with so many other fatbikes before, and I imagine from the outside we looked a bit like a freakish weirdoes pedaling bikes that look like they weigh a hundred pounds each.  On the inside of course we all thought we looked like a 50’s bike gang or possibly the cast of Happy Days (that would make Bruce the Fonz, me Potsey and Sov Ralph).

We road in the day and in the evening we drank lots of great local beer.  We also had our fair share of whiskey, as the locals wanted to show off all their flavors. 

The people were fantastic: friendly, fun and very patient of Sov and I and our funny “accents”.  They were truly a remarkable bunch.  Many from the area, but some who’d traveled quite a long way to get there and ride with other fat converts. 

Much like in the States, the people there who ride those bikes have really taken to it, and many of them confessed that it’s the only bike they ride any more. They ride it in every season, and on every terrain, just like many of us do back home.

There were lots of other brands of fatbikes around, of course the Surly’s made a good showing, but it’s nice to see other brands finally accepting it as a “legitimate” ride instead of a passing fad.

All in all it was some of the best riding I’ve done and the weekend was a roaring success. 

We spent the next week zig-zaging across the country visiting dealers and riding a tiny bit.  The next weekend we spent with Charlie the Bikemonger in Swanage at SSUK.  I won’t say much about that, cuz you’ll hear all about it from Sov.  I will say that I road the Pug with a set of offset Rabbit Holes, and we’ve even started carrying orange rim-strips so I could keep my Halloween theme going on the bike. It handled awesome on the trails. It's not like the Krampus, it's like something else all together.  Here are some pictures of it with the Rabbit Holes (with some clearancey shots for you nerds out there)

Notice those snappy orange rim strips. They are my favorite so far, but that's not surprising from a guy with a pumpkin bike. Here is that clearance shot I promised.

And another.

I road the Pug with Marge Lites and Knard 26x3.8s on the rocks and Sov road the beach on his Krampus and it worked pretty well for a trail bike.  He was much happier than the guy with the Karate Monkey, but couldn't traverse the really loose stuff as well as the fellas on Moonlanders. 

If you ever get a chance to ride the beaches in Scotland on a fatbike, I couldn’t recommend it enough.  But there’s no time like the present, so go ride.

It’s absolutely feasible for me to ride my bike wherever I want, and set up a stealth camping spot for the evening.  I’m not advocating for camping illegally, but simply finding interesting spots to rest for the evening that will keep me within the good graces of Johnny Law. 

It is decided.  I’m going to use my bike to camp a shit load this summer.  How much is that?  I’m not sure yet.  I’ll include a schedule in my next Blog entry.

Tonight I went to task updating my stock 20” Surly Troll to serve as my bike camping platform. 

Here she is…ready for a reboot.

The first things I wanted to change were the tires.  I had some older Tioga Psycho Genius tires in 26 x 2.3 sitting in my garage.  They’ll do, until they don’t.  Then I’ll try something else.

I also have this Titec H-bar, designed by Jeff Jones.  It’s a great multi-position bar that’s comfortable.  It’s a known quantity and perfect for my Troll in an off-road touring/camping configuration.

Here we have a wonderful pair of Moto-lite Rim Brakes, courtesy of Paul Components in anodized blue with silver trim.  I’ve been saving these brakes for something special and I’m happy to report that it was worth the wait.  Setting up the Moto-lite Brakes was therapeutic. Aside from two very minor complaints, my initial impression is, that these brakes are CNC’d works of functional art.  There are lots of good reasons to use rims brakes on a mountain bike, even in this disc-brake-crazy world.  Personally, using rim brakes affords me the opportunity to get in touch with my inner-bike-grouch.  Behold.

I finished off the evening by installing a shiny-silver Thomson seat post topped with a San Marco Concor Saddle.  I like the contrast the silver brings to the table, and friends, I don't really care if you agree!

I also scored a Surly Framebag made by Revelate Designs to fit my Troll.  Pic of the mounted bag to follow...

I’ll button up my rig this weekend and do a few things like remove the discs from each hub, run shifter cable and housing, and maybe swap my crank from the stock triple to a double or even 1x.  We’ll see.  Below are a few fun photos of the progress.

Do anyone of you have bike packing or stealth-bike-camping experience that will help me along the way?  Please let me know!

Stay Squirrely,

Surly Greg

Greg@Surlybikes.com

Commenters took them to town for posting a waifish pair of legs in strappy high heels leaning up against a toe cage clad fixie. I copied some of the comments below for context:

 “Or riding a bike”

“You get legs like those from not eating”

“I would look stupid with legs like that.”

“If you WANT a woman with legs like that you must never want to ride bikes with women. Real cyclists have real muscles. Not toy Barbie legs.”

“Your Art Director needs to go back to Cosmo.”

“Those are not cyclist legs, nor is she gonna ride that bike with toe cages and high heels. I'd actually like to see her on it, and see what happens when a slight grade appears. That would be funny.”

“Cigarettes and cocaine”

“I suppose she rode that fixie to the shoot in those heels too right? Give me a break. #chickenlegs”

Needless to say this was a pretty big swing and a miss on connecting with their intended audience.

I could go on about the tiny thighs, unforgiving-plastic-looking-painted on pants, strappy high heels and such but in all reality, does it really matter? Being someone who has ridden a dirt bike in a mini skirt and strappy sandals, I am not one to judge someone else’s choice in ride gear.

I did feel moved to gather my very own collection of rider legs since I am swimming in material on a daily basis.

Here are a few pics of my co-workers, friends, and random cyclists who happen to work close by. Some are thin, some are thick, some are short, some are tall, some are hairy, some are smooth, some tattooed, some with freckles, some scarred, some are oddly unblemished, but one thing I know for sure – all ride bike

Now untangle from the internet and go ride your bike. There is nothing to see here anyway.

Last week I was lucky enough to attend Single Speed European Championships in Spain.  I went there with Greg.  For him it was his first time, and for me my third.  The first time I went was in 2007, held in Piolenti, France.  Then, after a five-year absence, Tyler and I attended last year when it was in Floressas, France. 

SSEC has now become an event not to be missed for me.  The single speed events I have been to have almost all been great, because they’ve tended to not take themselves too seriously.  Single speeding as a discipline is about fun rather than competition, and the single speed “races” I have been to have not often veered away from this rule.

This year, SSEC was held in the village of St. Gregori, near Girona in the autonomous community of Catalonia.  Flying into Barcelona, you can get there in about an hour and a half via automobile.  Greg and I were picked up by David, partner and owner of Espai Bici bike shop in Barcelona.  He and his partners also own a sister company that distributes Surly products throughout Spain, so we were lucky to be able to combine a business trip with the fun of attending SSEC.

I have traveled to Europe many times but never to Spain.  The first thing I noticed when we arrived was the bright, warm Barcelona sun shining down upon us.  This was much welcomed in contrast to the blizzard we had left behind us in Minneapolis.  We soon realized that we stood out as tourists in our short-sleeved t-shirts and shorts.  The locals were still wearing winter coats even though the temps were in the upper 60’s.  One thing was for sure, we had arrived to simply perfect riding weather, and it remained like this for our entire one-week stay. 

After arriving in St. Gregori, the other Gregory and I took brief naps to shake off some jet lag, and then rode our bikes down to the camping area to see what was shaking.  We found that many of our friends from France, Belgium, The Netherlands, The U.K., Northern Ireland and Spain were already there.  The Belgians brought with them a truckload of their finest beers, making them instant best friends of all of us.

We went to a party and a single speed race broke out.

There was no planned dinner on Thursday night so a bunch of us pitched in some cash to make a grocery run so that the local Catalans could prepare us their traditional Catalan style supper. Fresh baguettes rubbed with the pulp of fresh tomatoes and garlic, local sausage and cheese, olives and garbanzo beans, and cheese pot made by Toby from the NL.  

On Friday, David, Greg and I went for a ride on the sweet local trails.  After about an hour of climbing we finally made it to the top.  The descent was well worth the climbing.

On Saturday the race began at 10:00 a.m.  A group of about 300 of us rolled out behind the organizers car, about a mile down the road where we were told to leave our bikes and hike up the hill to the courtyard of a local church. 

You all know the drill.  A classic Lemans start requires shenanigans, and this year the organizers did not disappoint.  Usually I can find my bike pretty quickly at these races, but this time it took me about 10 minutes because someone placed it in a ditch about 50 yards down the road from the lot where I had left it.  No big deal though, I had no aspirations of doing any actual racing, and by the time I got on the bike and started riding I was soon stuck in the bottleneck of the entry to the singletrack.

Once we got rolling we were treated to some really sweet trails.  The terrain was varied between twisty single track through forested hills, to mountain fire roads, to stream crossings and finally roads crossing scenic farmland of St. Gregori.  There was plenty of climbing and some really steep descents.  The old saying, “Single Speeders Get Off More” was never more true than on this course.  There were many long, steep climbs that forced even the strongest riders to get off and push their bikes.  Each lap was about 5 miles, and the first rider to finish five laps was the winner.  I have no idea who won, and none of the people I asked knew either.  I call that a success.  The majority of folks who attended had the right attitude about what a single speed event should be, and this contributed to one of the best events I have ever attended.

When the race was done we were escorted back to the campground.  I took a nap and after I woke up I groggily made my way over to where a crowd had gathered for feats of strength.  The main event was a bike toss. 

When the bike toss was done, the competition between Northern Ireland, The Netherlands and Italy was held to determine who would be hosting SSEC 2014.  I could tell you the dirty details but I’d prefer to keep that a special little secret for those who were there in person to tell you at their discretion.  Go ahead and google the word swaffle to get an idea and picture in your mind a Moonlander with a permanently soiled to tube.    In the end it was decided that Northern Ireland was the victor.

Needless to say we had the times of our lives and cannot wait until next year.  Special and heartfelt thanks to Carolina and Marcal, who organized this great event, and to Narcis for building such incredible trails for us to ride. 

Many many others also deserve thanks.  We made a ton of new friends and created great memories and stories to share.  Thanks to all of you who played a part in this.  You know who you are. 

Here is a smattering of other pictures I took during the week.