Surly Bikes
Buns don't get enough credit these days.
The bun: hard working, loyal, low maintenance, and can make or brake any sandwich out there, yet they all-too infrequently enjoy the limelight. But not today!
Today let's talk a little about our newest bike, the Wednesday, our rear racks, sandwiches, buns, condiments, and what it all might mean.
Our rear rack is big, bad, sturdy, and very adjustable. It’s steel and it comes in silver or black:
http://surlybikes.com/parts/cargo/rear_rack
Our new bike is big, bad, sturdy, and very adustable. It's steel and comes in blue:
http://surlybikes.com/bikes/wednesday
Early studies have shown that our rear rack fits better on the new Wednesday than any of our previous fatbikes, but what would a Surly product blog be without a few footnotes? If you're planning on putting a Surly rear rack on your Wednesday, read on. If not, I suggest using the picture above as your desktop background until you've changed your mind.
OK, here we go:
I used the dropout eyelet as my lower mount to keep the rack low and back, which lends itself to the stacking of sweet, sweet stuff on top - and isn’t that what we’re all here for anyways? This is the setup I recommended because the other, higher mounting option pushes the rack up and forward and directly into your business. But hey, it’s your bike and whatever blows your hair back is cool with us.
Using the rear dropout mounts, I needed a spacer between the lower strut and the eyelet on the non-drive side to clear the brake caliper. A chainring nut worked for me, but anything about 7-8mm long will work.
The rack fits the frame well (You’ll have to pull the bottom struts apart a little, but it’ll be OK) and clears even a 4.6" tire, but the 185mm long top struts that are included with the rack are only long enough for the XL and L size. Good news is that we do sell longer struts that are 240mm long (QBP Part# RK0135) as an accessory:
http://surlybikes.com/parts/cargo/rear_rack_upper_tubes
So. Depending on the size you’re running, please note:
XL-L. You should be good to go with all the included parts, but ordering a set of our 240mm top struts will give you some added flexibility for rack placement and leveling. This one’s up to you.
M – You will need to order a set of our 240mm struts to get everything nice and level.
S-XS – Even our 240mm struts look to be too short for the S and XS sizes. Short story is we don’t offer a solution for this yet, so you if you want to run a Surly rear rack on your S or XS Wednesday you will have to get creative in finding or making struts about 300mm long to get where you want to be. We’re sorry about that for now.
What about front racks?
As you can see, my Wednesday currently has a Bluto suspension fork on it, and mounting a rack on that thing makes breeding cheetahs in captivity seem easy. We do love ourselves a challenge, though. Maybe I'll have to settle for some fold-down highway pegs. I'll keep you updated.
See you out there
Xoxo
Surly
PS notice how it's getting darker earlier and earlier? Probably a good time to start harnessing the power of DARKNESS in your day to day: