Surly Bikes
My computer hard drive is full of pictures. It’s the only way I can remember anything these days, so I take lots and lots of pictures. And, since it might not be so easy for you folks to know who us folks are, I have compiled for you some photos that I have taken of the Surly brand peoples.
Greg is our sales manager. He has been doing this job for over two years. He likes ballroom dancing and underwear wrestling.
Trevor is in sales too. You might have spoken to him on the phone. He rarely wears pants and does not take “no” for an answer. If he calls, you better buy something from him.
Bob handles customer service and social media. You will recognize him by his red beard and sunny disposition. He likes shooting things in the woods.
Ben is our newest FNG and customer service goob. He talks real good about our bikes and stuff, and openly accepts Rohloff as his personal savior.
Sov lives in Decorah, Iowa, which is not in Minnesota. He talks real loud even without the megaphone and recently revealed the fact that he wears trifocals. You’ve likely spoken to him on the phone or email.
Tyler is the Surly marketing manager and started about 1.43 years ago. He writes blogs about how he likes to drink beer and ride his bike. He also likes to drink beer and ride his bike.
Christina is our marketing coordinator and started about 5 months ago. She’s married to a guy who works for Salsa but she is way more Surly than most of us. She makes sure the guys in Marketing are getting their shit done.
Verdoorn is our production artist. He can grow a full beard in less than a day, and is responsible for making sure our print and web stuff always has a pretty mouth on it.
A-Wood is our art director. He enjoys making movies of himself dancing in his garage and rides his bike at night, through your yard while you are asleep, when you might have forgotten to lock your doors.
Corson is the oldest of the marketeers, and you may remember him as previously having done Tyler’s job. He now makes sure that the words on Surly’s website and print catalog don’t suck. He had nothing to do with writing this blog (duh).
Jim travels to Single Speed Worlds when we let him, and otherwise remains in his cage where he grows his beard and sees to it that our stuff gets forecasted and ordered. He has the hardest job in the company.
Adam is our product manager. He enjoys working on the addition to his house and when he’s not doing that he spends a lot of time planning our products for the future and managing projects. This might be why he looks as though he hasn’t slept in months.
Thor is our engineer and wheelie rider. He is responsible for making our stuff work real good and safe. He does not actually have a huge hammer that he uses against his nemesises, but he might be getting one as soon as they go on sale at JC Penney’s.
Dave is the guy who used to do the job I do now, and has been here the longest. He continues to design product for us, and when he’s not doing that he enjoys surviving on crickets and tree bark while riding his bike in extreme places.
Skoglund is our newest product engineer. He always wears flip-flops and drives a VW Eurovan. He gave me a ride in it once. He is currently working on a tire and a frame that you might like. If only I could tell you about them.
The Surly brand has evolved a bit since I started working as the brand manager seven years ago. Many of us have more gray hairs, a few of us can no longer bend in places we used to bend, and the folks who have been added to the herd have generally made the average age of the brand younger. When I started here it was just five of us; now it is 16. What surprises me the most about this growth is how we have not allowed it to affect Surly in a negative way. We still make what we want to ride and do things the way we want them to be done. Oh sure, we don’t always get along and in fact sometimes fight, but this has always been the case. Back when we were just 5 we constantly argued about what the next color of the Cross Check should be or what to name the new crank. I guess the more things stay the same the more they change, or something like that.
As for me, I’m the brand manager. I am responsible for keeping the brand between the guardrails. This has never been easy but it has always been interesting. I am the guy who works mostly behind the scenes and who most of you don’t recognize when you meet, and I like it that way.
The team I have assembled and introduced to you here is the best team in the bike industry, bar none. They are the reason Surly is such a great brand, and they are the reason we will continue to offer the best steel bikes money can buy. My mission is to make sure that we never stop doing that.