im - 9/22/2006 06:02:00 AM

Several friends, family and beings from other worlds (ZEKE) have approached me, emailed me, sent telegrams, death threats, love letters, and ransom notes to ask me what is the new “thing” Surly is introducing at Interbike. First, let me say that just because I am the newest and most vulnerable (not to mention the cutest) one around here, doesn't mean that I'm gonna spill. I will tell you this much, though. Our new project almost didn't make it here in time for Interbike. In fact, the prototype didn't show up at the Surlyville garage door until 8:36 a.m. Wednesday of this week. Our trucks for Interbike were leaving at 11:00 a.m. on this same Wednesday, and we thought the DHL man wasn't gonna show up until about then, so we were sweating it. The second it showed up we pulled down the blinds, fired up the blow torches, and Andy set the dials on the Surly Central Processing Command Center computer masterboard to eleven. The lights in Surlyville dimmed a few times before the record player started up automatically and the room was filled with the sounds of David Hasslehoff. I looked over at Dave and he was dressed in full kimono and his face was made up like a maiko. Sov was dressed as a wizard and kep't uttering something sounding like “…must.. protect…the…ring…” Swervy's body was the same as usual but his head had been replaced with Rosie O'Donnell's, and Andy, well… Andy… yeah… Let's just say Andy is one of the other “special” new things we're gonna be showing at Interbike. It's just too precious to spoil the surprise. Kinda brings tears to my eyes just thinkin' about it. Without giving anything more away, you should know that we had a crack staff of Nascar pit wrenches on hand to take over and shake this muther out just in a nick of time so that it made it on the truck. We had to send one of our special agents along so that he/she could accompany it (handcuffed to the thing, nonetheless) on its way to the windy city (bet you didn't know this is Las Vegas' nickname, didya?). Bottom line is, we will have one of the coolest things at Interbike this year. If you want to see what we came up with you'll need to stop by our booth next week. We can't wait to meet ya. -----