Midnight Special

Today’s road bikes are tricky little buggers. Sure, there’s still a place for super narrow, pizza cutter-esque tires that save watts and shave grams or whatever. There’s probably still even a place for a road racing bike. Those places still exist. We just don’t know - or particularly care - where they are. When it comes to road bikes, we just want to toss a few bananas into our pockets and see where the road takes us. We seek out varied surfaces on our rides and frequently go from pavement to gravel to shittier pavement.

Enter: The Midnight Special - a Road Plus bike designed to provide comfort and speed on those all-day rides that extend well beyond fresh pavement. It rides like a cloud on smooth pavement. but that’s expected. Any bike can do that. Where it truly shines is on pot-holed, deteriorating pavement and the occasional long stretch of gravel. The Midnight Special’s 650b Road Plus tires eat up road chatter and absorb all the bumps in the road like the champion it was designed to be.

If you’re some masochist who is unfazed by the thought of a bumpy, chattery eight-hour road ride, you should know that the benefits of Road Plus go beyond just comfort. They also create a wider contact patch, thereby increasing your traction. And traction is a good thing. Additionally, higher volume tires allow you to better fine tune your tire pressure on varying surfaces. Let a little out on bumpier roads and pump those suckers up on smooth ones.

At first glance, you might notice that Midnight Special has fewer bells than some of our other models. But don’t you fret, it still chock full of whistles. It utilizes modern road standards like flat-mount disc brakes, 12mm front and rear thru-axles, and a 44mm head tube. Couple all that with a 650b x 60mm or 700c x 42cm tire clearance and you have a bike that will withstand evolving trends and standards. We deliberately kept the Midnight Special a little leaner on the braze-on side of things. Well, lean for a Surly. It has mounts for racks, fenders, and three water bottles so you can bring what you need for a long road ride, keep your keister dry, and still pee a healthy clear at the end of your ride.