Surly Bikes
Okay, we’re not perfect. Sometimes we have a beer or two too many and things happen that we regret. Sometimes the morning after sucks ass. We wake up, the smoke has cleared, and however awesome we thought we were the night before, it turns out we screwed the pooch. And now we’re sore, really sore, in our secret spots, and we’re sorry. We’re sore and we’re sorry.
Recently one such event happened in the Surly Camp. We woke up one morning after a night of beer, brown liquor, fancy shirts and alleyway dancing dressed as giant stuffed bears, and this is what we found.
We screwed up the Karate Monkey. The new version, which we love, has a flaw in a couple of versions. If you bought or want to buy a 20” Karate Monkey and want to run rotors larger than 160mm, you can’t. If you bought or want to buy a 18” and you want to run a 185mm rotor, you most likely can’t. 22” can’t do 203mm.
Well, you can, but only with some modification of the adapter for the brake caliper or the rear rack braze-on.
We never think it’s a good idea to go cutting things off your Surly, though that’s never stopped anybody in the past (I do it all the time). However we often think it’s a great idea to take a Dremel tool to other people’s stuff, so shaving bit of the corner of the brake adapter could work it for you.
That all being said, if you want more stopping power, and you ride a Karate Monkey, we suggest 185mm rotors on the front and the 160’s on the rear. Most of your braking power comes from the front, so we find that this provides sufficient stopping power. At least for us (the real advantage of bigger rotors comes from better modulation and heat distribution. This becomes prevalent when you’re going downhill fast and braking a lot. Otherwise it’s less of an issue, or so say the nerds who design our bikes.).
However, if you want them big brakes for even more stopping power, or other reasons we may not have thought of or don’t want to think of cuz we’ll think they’re gross or just plain unnatural then you’ll have to take extreme measures, and take them into your own hands to boot. Consider yourself warned.
All in all, what I’m really trying to say is, “Sorry we screwed up.” We’re not just sorry, by the way, we want to fix it. We’re working on just that for future production lines.
That’s pretty much it, and thanks to Guy.Ford on mtbr.com for pointing this out to us.
Back to drinking now.
Go ride your bike asshole!