I do. It's right here. Lots of awesome custom builds and (of course) lots of places I wish I was right now).  Lot of beaches, I guess you can tell where my mind is at. Love this first shot...

Nature don’t care about what that cactus just did. Nature don’t care what time you got here. Nature don’t care about your tire pressure and your sunscreen. Nature don’t care about your wet socks. Make some new friends, cheers some old ones. Make motor noises on fast and loose descents. Laugh more than you cuss. Drink the whisky, start your fire, pitch your tent, find a new city and start all over. 

This year Surly was able to get some team volunteers pointed in the right direction to set up and maintain Checkpoint 3 aka Ski Pulk at the Arrowhead 135 race this year. Arrowhead is "A 135 MILE POINT TO POINT RUN, BIKE OR SKI RACE ACROSS NORTHERN MINNESOTA AT HOPEFULLY THE COLDEST TIME OF YEAR." Surly has been a sponsor from the beginning.

There are three check points along the arduous trail. The check point Surly manned this year was located roughly at mile 110. The racers on foot, ski and bike are usually close to destruction, those that even make it that far.

In planning for the manning our small group of enginerds, sales, projects and products worked out a plan to take over the joint. We brought the recently acquired (last Frostbike) Kifaru 16 man tipi and the new Four Dog Shepard stove with a 4 gallon water reservoir. The stove was researched and purchased by Master Gray. We also brought along deer boy, some signs of encouragement, tiki torches, fireworks, bikes and Thor's tub of fun.

The first team out was Me, Amy, Thor and Ben. We rolled into International Falls to partake in the volunteer meeting with the race directors and other volunteers. Everyone we met was stoked on the race and doing their part. After the meeting we tucked ourselves in and rested up to the long day ahead. 

Or maybe we bounced around local bars till we couldn't find an open one to serve us. Same same.

The next morning started early. The race kicks off in International Falls, MN at Kerry Park at 7AM. After seeing the racers off and packing up the vans we headed out to the checkpoint to get set up.

We finished up well before any racers were expected to make it into our camp. I think all of us were stoked to be there for the racers so we only had a quick break out for lunch and back we came to stoke the fires and wait. We waited for hours till about 7:30PM when the first group arrived. It was dark and they came in hard and fast. I did not get any pictures. They were a determined bunch who were all obviously there to be the fastest. I was able to snag a few more racer images after that initial rush.

The above is the only picture I got of our Gray Boy. He rolled in shortly after midnight which was when the next team was coming on board to take over. Bob, Steven and Jeff were on for the midnight shift. Amy, Thor, myself and Ben had been on for 17 hours and Amy and I were on deck for the 7AM shift. I set up my bedding on the rug in the tipi. I thought with the stove that it would be pretty cozy but because I needed to stay on the outskirts and was on the ground it was quite cold. Thor loaned me his sleeping bag before he left for the motel so I could double up. I was finally not shivering and fell asleep. I am pretty sure I slept for 2 or 3 hours before the noise of vomiting woke me up.

There was a racer hunched over vomiting next to my head. I rolled away hoping nothing had splashed on me. As I listened to the retching I knew I should get up to check on him. Fortunately for us he had caught all the bile in his cup. A true champion in my book. He didn't have much in his stomach as he said he had been struggling with his nutrition. Part of our responsibility there is to pull people that seem like they may be too far gone to continue. I talked with this racer and he was able to speak coherently and explain what had happened and what he was going to do next. So after a short sit, off he went into the darkness.

I went back to sleep only to wake up another hour or two later to a racer eating our leftover pizza. I heard the word pizza in my sleep and woke up knowing someone was breaking the "self-supported" portion of the race. We were told not to give food or a place to sleep to the racers. So up I got to police the pizza and wake up another snoring racer. Racers can sleep, just not in the tipi. And apparently neither can I. I decided to stay up at this point and just charge forward. Amy and I would be on point until Thor and Ben took over at 2PM. 

This is Ben. He had no problems sleeping in the tipi. NONE.

Mr Roosevelt at his roost.

This man is HARDCORE. He stayed at our checkpoint for 3 minutes. Then went on to win the running portion of the race beating the record by over 3 hours. BOSS.

First true snow beard of the race goes to B.P.R man.

I love the fact that people were complaining about the weight of their cookies and goo packets and this guy brought his teddy with zero fucks given.

The terrain is not only cold, snowy and long, it is also very, VERY, hilly.

It hurts.

Dogs are great.

Harvey!

By the end of the 3 day event we tore down our little encampment and set it on fire. The whole ordeal was a damn good time. No one slept long, everyone busted their asses and it was great to be apart of.

Don't forget to see the sights along the way.

We here at Surly HQ are all engulfed in Frostbike right now (which is mom and dad's, QBP, annual winter mixer).  We'll have things to report next week. In the meantime, more cool bikes, more amazing places.

Hello there. I was just sitting here thinking about the next version of the Surly Catalog cause that is what I do. You may remember my last blog post about the catalog covers. Well, Way back then I promised to continue where I left off. 

Where was I, I believe I left off in 2005 with Grayboy's awesome creepy Jack-in-the-Box clown cover. Here it is again. I love the Grayboy covers.

So I'll start this off in 2007. Would you look at that...a Surly Fatbike in 2007? Wha? "But Treebeard I thought fatbikes came on the scene in 2012?...Nope. We were crazy enough to produce them on a large scale all the way back in 2005.
As Dave says, "It was like seeing a frickin Unicorn back then."  

Here we are in 2007 where the venerable Pug was feautured on the Cover along with a gentleman named Jakub Postrzygacz. Jakub travelled 1,250 miles (2,013 km) on a Surly Pugsley along a desolate tract of land through western Australia known as the Canning Stock Route which crosses three deserts, hundreds of miles of sand dune and grassland. Postrzygacz rode from well to well along the route, successfully finishing in just 33 days UNSUPPORTED. All on a Surly Pugsley which earned its stripes right out of the gea. And here is the 2007 cover. 

Next is 2008. This is where I come in on the scene. I started here in 2007. I can distinctly remember Corson being really excited about this one. Monkey's on bikes. I remember by design school training kicking in and thinking hmmm...odd choice. But as I got to know Corson and the rest of the guys, it just started to make sense. Monkey on a bicycle. Story checks out. 

2009 This is another Corson's Choce. This photo was taken on a trip to Tawan and China.The Surly crew riding cat bumper cars. Pretty sure alcohol was involved. Looks fun. 

I can remember whare this idea came from. Sort of gets to the point of Anti Fancy make shit that works.  Pretty simple. The bicycle industry is continually tyring to push ever fancier ever more expensive toys to make the previous years shit obsolete. I think this quote sums it up.

Enter the age of Wood. My good friend and colleage Andy Wood started doing covers. He is a talented artist and we're lucky to have him. He spent a lot of 2010 redoing our website. Check out what our site looked like before and after the refresh.  After plain Jane it is only natural to do something different.  Wood did most of the design work on this site.  This cover features a deer with a gas mask. Woods' thought on this was with all of the increased pollution what would the animals do in the future? Answer: gas mask of course. 

Stay Tuned for Part 3. Until next time, get out and enjoy winter.

~Treebeard

Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over I'd never want another.

                                                                        – Capt. Willard, Apocalypse Now

            I spent a decade or so weaving my own dreams and nightmares into Surly’s DNA, and in so doing helping to grow the creature called Surly Intergalactic.

            I am proud of the bikes and parts. They work like they’re supposed to, they do lots of good stuff, and they’re full of good ideas. We put a lot of time and thought into them. I am proud of the iconoclasm, from which even now reverberates an irreducible truth under which people may shelter from the uncertainties of life. More superficially, I am unreasonably fond of the puddinglike, emotionally translucent prosy by which we have endeavored to explain, come to grips with, and/or in some way illuminate the prepubescent and early teenage years of this whole dumb juggernaut our hippy lawyer once long ago dubbed Surly Bikes.

            The only constant is change, of course. None of the people here now are the ones who switched the thing on, set its circuits humming, by divine breath enabled it to blink on and come awake in a warm fold of dedicated cyclists, fun seekers, complete whack jobs, angry misanthropes, and what-have-yous. We are only its custodians, inside it gliding silently through the vast empty, to be replaced when our shift is up. Devotion doesn’t come without cost, but one is grateful to carry this sort of weight. 

            There are four hundred billion stars in our galaxy, and ours is just one of billions of galaxies. Stars are an apparently common reaction to something, the glow and glower of happenings whose origins and futures are perhaps meaningless, possibly divine, floating in deep space and infinite indifference. So how is it possible you find yourself here? Bikes. That’s why you were there, with those people. You rode there. You will remember it always and be connected to the bike that introduced you to these people, the bike that got you to these places and got you home. These tiny moments are so fragile. Sadly, you won’t remember most of the details later. Later, what’s left of you will drift on and find a place closer to home, perhaps under a bridge, to have one more beer, the last one in your bag.

            But now my shift is up. It has been for a while, actually, and I must move on. I have been restructured into a new position within the greater whole by the spreadsheet jockies at Universal Bicycle Systems Technologies Diversified Interstellar, a position in which I will remain, as it were, the metaphor in the ointment, a warning, a ghost in the machine. Thank you so very much for listening, for buying, and for believing. It has made all the difference. Commencing countdown, engines on. The moon rules the night. Your bike will get you home.

Sweet shit this week.  More bikes, more amazing places. Here we go.

T$ and I headed out to Jackson Wy. about a month back to hang out with fat bike lovers and haters.  We rode some fun trails, held a demo, soaked in the hottub of doom, and rode some more trails.  Here is the story told in pictures.

Snow King Resort was our home for the weekend

Went and Rode the Cache Creek trails in Jackson.  They got a bunch of rain before we arrived and then it got really cold.  Made for some terrible roads, grippy trails, and awesome frost beards.

We held a demo all day Saturday, and Sunday Morning.  The big hit of the weekend was the Moonlander Ops, nobody had seen or ridden it until the Summit.  Trevor and I brought our Ice Cream Trucks which were perfect for the trails just outside of town.

Most of our time not spent riding or wotking was spent in the hot tub of doom.  It was slopeside, and Snake River Brewing was just down the street providing easy access to hot tub libations.

After wrapping up the demo on Sunday we took part in the industry ride.  Some locals led us up above Cache Creek to the top of the mountain.  Along the way were great trails and views of the Tetons.  Above is resident metal head, QBP demo mechainc, and all around events killer Aaron D.  He and Manderson (lead events killer) ripped around with us for the weekend.

A couple random shots to leave you with....Apparently you can just tow your kid around on skis these days, and order shots at convenience stores in Jackson.

Surly is backing the CycloFemme ride experience again this year and I am stoked. Last year was a grand afternoon of bikes, beer, margaritas, mimosas, women, knives, some men stokers, bike shops and hugs.

This year I want to get dirty and bike pack with some awesome ladies!

Are you in?

Piper and Kate will be joining me for a pre-ride this month to make a final decision on the route.

What we know right now:

What: An easy pace, fully loaded bike pack ride

When: Sunday May 10th (yes Mother's Day in the US) ride to campground to camp and be festive. Pack up and return to start Monday May 11th.

Who: WOMEN who ride or want to ride. Men who want to support and stoke those women.

Where: Starting somewhere in Minneapolis, ending at a campground within ~ 20 miles of start. More details to come at the beginning of April.

Why: CycloFemme

In order to help us work out route and what nots it would be grand to hear from those who feel excitement about this idea. I made a Surly Monkey to help get some answers from you and not blow up my email like I usually do. Take a minute and answer my monkey please?

Click Here for the Surly Monkey

Thanks be to all!

More awesome bikes, in amazing places, visited by people who aren't me. At least I have a job....

So a while ago we put out a whole new rails/deck/bag system for our Big Dummy.

So far with everyone who has procured a set of these, there have been two constants. They love the whole system, but the installation is pretty complex, and the written instructions don’t quite do the trick.

Enter our very own video instructions: Complete with Ben.

As everything should be.

Complete with Ben.

It seems like every winter has its own character in Minnesota. Every year there’s a quality to the winter that seems to lend a personality to the season. I can’t really remember what year was what but the first year winter I lived here it was like an old pal - warm, mellow - it seemed like it wanted good things to happen to everyone. Contrast that with last year, cold and harsh. All of it influences the experiences one has on one's bike. The year the winter was mild, I road a certain type of bike. Without nerding out too hard about how the bike was set up, it was a geared crosscheck and it was pretty ok. Everything worked pretty well and I kept that bike set up the same way until the next winter. The following winter sucked a little harder and I had to turn it into a single speed because I was tired of the shifting not working in the ice and snow. It was a lot of this:

Needless to say the bike has remained a single speed. If you can reach out and touch perfection, why not do it? Since spring is just around the corner, I’ve been thinking about how this winter season has gone and I’ve realized that I’ve tended towards simplicity this year and I have fallen in love all over again with redundant systems. Redundant systems are pretty rad because when one fails, another takes up for the crapped out one. This winter, in the times of super cold, I’ve managed to blow up one freehub and one freewheel. The freewheel was on my steamroller, which has a flip-flop hub and the other on a standard mountain bike. Guess which one got me home? The flip-flop hub. Ergo, redundant systems are cool.

The two drive options for the Pug SS brings up a good point in that we now have offset Pugsley forks back in stock, in a rainbow of disgusting colors. I went with the old design fork because it came in an exceptionally ugly color. I'm into that now because hopefully no one will steal it. Some people still like bikes like this that have swappable wheels. If you're one of those people but don't yet have the fork, you can do that now. FYI. It's pretty sweet. It's gotten me out of a jam on more than one occasion. And by 'Jam' I mean a stick jammed my derailleur into my wheel. They're also redesigned and are vastly different than our old ones but just as offset and even more badass.

See that freewheel in the background? It doesn't work anymore. The fip-flop hub got me home though and that was fortuitous for me because I would have been otherwise bummed out if I would have been forced to walk. The freewheel has been on that Steamroller since I built it - many winters ago - so we'll see if it actually comes off. Get out the HOT WRENCH!

I’ve been digging this sort of thing lately because in the winter, my happy-fun-times bike riding seems to hibernate and dream of utilitarian getting from place to place when it’s really cold out. It begs the question, is having a backup drive system on your bicycle its most delicously condensed gravy or just wretched excess? Bikes, much like people who live in Los Angeles or Florida, tend to break down in the real cold, so I think it’s smart to have some sort of contingency plan or redundant system that can step in and take the place of any part that just so happens to freeze solid. But either way, who cares? Just go ride your bike and fall on the ice.

March is traditionally the snowiest month in Minneapolis. At this point though, who cares, spring is right around the corner. At least for those of us in the Northern hemisphere,  on the other side of the planet they’re just gearing up for winter. Have fun with that.

I really don’t have anything for you. I promised our marketing director I’d have a blog post ready to go up on our website Monday morning and its 4:30 AM Monday morning right now and I've just ran out of whiskey. This happens to be the forth blog post I’ve started since Wednesday night and I still don't have an idea of what to write. It’s not as easy as you might think and I tend to stress out about it more than the rest of the fine Surly folk I work with. I think it's because there's been a few times that my blog posts have gotten me into hot water with the management types. It's not intentional or premeditated, it's more accidental than anything else. We are given a considerable amount of leeway here at the Headquarters and that's always been one of the things I appreciate most. That's a rare thing now-a-days and I like to take advantage of it.

Another perk is the people I get to work with everyday. I have the honor to work with some of the most innovative designers and engineers in the industry that are not afraid to go out on a limb. I know what some of you are thinking; “All Surly does is makes frames out of steel and bikes that are in the middle of the road”. I’d say that you’re moderately right. Surly does indeed make bicycle frames only out of steel and we do price them so they’re not out of reach for most everyone but there is a lot more to it than that. Now I’m going to toot our own horn a bit; something that is pretty taboo in these parts.

Let's talk some about those wonderful designers and engineers. Here's two words that have arguably changed the bicycle industry – fat bikes. That’s right, I said it. Let me say it again and add a couple more words to it – fat bikes, you’re welcome. “Holy crap. Surly is saying that they invented fat bikes. They really are a bunch of jerks.” That’s not what I’m saying at all. Let me explain myself before you start typing that angry email to us or jump on the forums to voice your expert interpretation of what I'm talking about. Surly was the first company that produced a fat bike on a large enough scale to put them into shops across the country. Not only the fat bike itself but Surly had to design a crankset, a rim and tire to go along with it. Surly needed to do all of that at the same time and at the same scale. Our enginerds made it happen and continue to improve the platform. Surly was willing to take a risk on something we believed in and we really wanted to ride when no one else was willing to do it. We were laughed at and ridiculed for spending so much time and money on something that would only be a fad at best. Well I guess "they" were wrong and we were right. You’re welcome.

Then there’s the 29+ and 26+ platforms that the Surly enginerds did happen to invent. Since the whole fat bike thing happened it seems to me that the rest of the bicycle industry is paying a little closer attention to Surly. I say that because it took them 4 or 5 years to recognize that fat bikes are not a fad and jump on the band wagon. Now, with the 29+ and 26+ platform, the industry hasn’t waited so long. We’re seeing some of the larger bicycle companies embrace this new platform and add to it with their own products. It looks like they don't want to miss the boat on this one. If you haven’t ridden a Krampus or an Instigator 2.0 you’re missing out on some outstanding riding.

Now it's time for me to jump down from my high horse and concede that not everything we do turns to gold. Enter the Conundrum. The Conundrum seems to be shrouded in mystery and is only spoken of in soft whispers here at the Headquarters. Then there's the 29+ Dirt Wizards. I fully understand that the delay of the 29+ Dirt Wizards have destroyed your life and your will to ride. Maybe they'll be here sooner than we've let on. Maybe we just canceled them and we're leading you on. Maybe we've been delaying them because it's so entertaining to hear people whine. Maybe I should quit typing before I get into too much trouble. 

Like I said at the beginning; I don’t really have anything for you.

Stay Surly,

BoB

For the past few weeks I’ve been paging through old topo maps. West Virginia, Northern California, Idaho. I have a pile of these maps, but lately I’ve been stuck in Northern Arkansas. Last week I strung together some trails and campsites, grabbed my compass and packed up to venture South.

For this trip I decided to take a Troll, stick a frame and seat bag on it and junk-strap some stuff on the bars. Of course, I rebuilt the thing 3 times and ended with Rabbit holes, Dirt Wizards, front and rear racks. I still couldn’t decide if I wanted to run ‘er single or geared. The morning of my departure I changed my set up one final time and ditched the racks. For good measure, I threw the stock 9 speed rear wheel into the car. I figured I’d give myself the drive to think about it and reinvent trailside if necessary.

Arkansas greeted me with a face full of snow and parade of drivers lining the ditches to wave hello. The forecast had changed drastically from two days of light rain, to an immediate sleet-fest and a few inches of predicted snowfall. After a brief pit stop in Fayetteville to analyze the forecast, I decided to tack on another day of driving and head South of the storm into TX.

Now, if you would have told me to pack for a car camping MTB Texan slog, I’m not sure if the Troll would have been my first choice. With the Krampus and the ECR in the lineup, she’s an easy one to skip over. But what I love about this hobgoblin is the ability to load it up for one purpose and completely change plans without feeling like I grabbed the wrong bike. Roads, trail, loaded, single geared, racked- winner! Change of plans does not mean change of bike. Fully loaded, the Troll felt super balanced, which was extra nice when it inevitably started raining and things grew a bit slick. Ditching my bags for some out ‘n back single track, I didn’t feel like I was steering a bus for no reason. Just a super fun all-around good time all-day bike.

Bronze Rabbit Holes, mmm.

With the change to terrain, I wasn’t too happy with my gearing choice and ended up riding a Rabbit Hole/Dirt Wizard front wheel with an Adventure/WTB Nano geared rear for most of the trip. The recent snow and rain in TX meant some slick drifting- a total blast.

Comin for you next time, Arkansas.

As the weeks go, and the seasons pass the Surly Picture Dump grows and grows.  If you have a bike you’d like us to post on the dump, go here:

http://surlybikes.com/gallery/form

Upload your photo and your info, and (usually) within a week it will show up on the dump.  I go through all the pictures to make sure they’re in the right categories (many folks submit every bike as a 1x1) and to make sure they don’t have any naked people/animals/aliens in them, or naughty swears. After that I post them to the site. Fuck yeah I do.  Here are some of the new ones from last week.

For those of you who don’t know, we offered a Superfan Appreciation Coupon a while back.

The good news is, it’s still active, the bad news you’ve got just over a week to advantage of it.  The coupon expires on April 1^st (no joke), and that will be that.

The original post with all the rules and whatnot is posted here: http://surlybikes.com/blog/post/surly_superfan_coupon

Here is the coupon, print it up and buy a bike.

Or print a whole bunch of them and make a paper maché mask with a balloon (or something similar) and six carrots.

On another note: Because this promotion is directly tied to mom and dad (otherwise known as our US distributor Quality Bicycle Products) it makes our customers in other countries (or “markets” as douchey business types like myself call them) feel like we don’t love them as much.

Sorry. Seriously. Sorry. We're working on it.

The summer of 1976 I learned to ride my beautiful sparkly Schwinn Stingray, and the first thing I did once those training wheels came off is ride off with six other kids from my neighborhood and crush some gravel.

Of course that’s not what we called it, we called it riding a bike.  Growing up in a small city in Iowa (Waterloo to be exact) riding gravel was just something we all did.

ALL THE TIME. 

Everyone I knew had a gravel alley behind their house, and on a bike the safest and quickest way to get pretty much everywhere a kid could want to go was down a long gravel road. Or through a gravel pit that was a short cut. We rode gravel every day, every time we got on our bikes.

My second gravel bike (a Schwinn Scrambler) came around 1980. My third (which was the last bike I would own until I got to college) was a World Sport; which if you don’t know is a “skinny-tire” road type bike. Which I also rode on gravel, cuz (again) it was the only way to get to the places I wanted to go.

Flash forward many years and I’m hearing about riding gravel and gravel specific bikes and I’m all like (that’s right I just said, “and I’m all like”), “Wait a minute dog…” (I say “dog”), “Hasn’t everyone been riding gravel their whole lives like me? Can’t any bike be a gravel bike?” and the cool person who I was talking to, (thankfully) explained to me that while any bike could be used for "gravel crushing", these were special bikes, just for that specific thing. Like space bikes, or bottom of the ocean bikes. Bikes for just one thing.

Flash forward again (cuz flash forwarding kicks righteous ass), and I’m working at Surly and some dude asks me why we don’t make a gravel specific bike, and which bike that we do make is suitable for gravel.  Of course I told him Cross Check, and Straggler (cuz really you can do just about anything you want, so long as the flesh is willing) on those bikes; and I told them another bike too, which I’ll get back to after I swing over here: one of the things I truly love about Surly is that if you put a bunch of Surly riders in a room and asked them all which was the best Surly gravel bike, they’d probably all tell you the name of the bike they rode in on. Last week in a bike shop I witnessed a 10 minute conversation about whether a Cross Check or an ECR would make a better gravel bike. Neither person budged.

Swinging back now.

The other bike I told them is the Pacer, my current "gravel" rig. It's my favorite bike to “crush gravel" on (mostly I’m crushing it, of course, because of my morbid obesity, and not because of my radness; as I’ve said before: I don’t get rad, I get home). The Pacer is perfect for me on gravel. It takes as bigger pair of tires (700c tires that actually measure 35mm or less are compliant) than any other “road” bike out there, and rides like a dream.  All day geometry is all you need for pavement/gravel/fireroads/whereever. This bike is an explorer to be sure, because you can keep going. And also going.

Surly said in their catalog, the very first year the Pacer was built, “Though vertical compliance is definitely a goal when designing a frame, tire clearance is just as important. The casings of your tires flex before your frame and fork do, and wide tires generally flex more than narrow ones, giving you a softer ride. Wide tires can be faster than skinnies on a lot of surfaces that you will encounter on your rig. The durability and versatility of the Pacer make it an ideal commuter, day-tripper, and vehicle for exploration.”

It's just as true today as it was then.

Bottom line is I love this bike.  Try the Paul Racer center pulls and you can slam really big tires in there.

Until next time…

See you out there.

Less words.

More dumps.

Hi there, it's Treebeard.  You may remember me from such hits at Catalog Covers Part 1 and Catalog Covers Part Duex. This is better than Return of the Jedi huh? Ok maybe not. But here is the third and final installation of "Catalog Covers".

The catalog year we left off on was 2011. The deer with the gas mask. It was Andy Wood's first catalog cover for Surly and he has been doing them ever since. That leads me to the MY 2012 catalog. It was the first major re-design of the catalog in years we had also decided to do some minimal color for the first time.

Unicorns are have been a topic at Surlyville for some time and our Brand Manager Peter Redin had an interest in unicorns. He even has a sweet painting of one at his desk.

So, Wood took that and ran with it. Logical right? A unicorn on a bicycle. That was the year the world was supposed to end. We are still here, makin' bikes and parts that don't suck.

On to 2113. The year of Der KRAMPUS!

Andy researched several renderings of the beast and got a certain product manager model to actually become Der Krampus for the 2013 catalog.

2014 is the year of the woodcut. Get it?

We actually had a typeface made for us by Mr Chank Deisel. Andy and I have had the pleasure of working with him in the past which made the project all the more fun. We also expanded to color palette to two colors. I know that is pretty crazy for us. Andy carved many of the letters by hand which is pretty cool. Here is a photo of him doing so.

This leads me to last year.

I thought for sure I wasa gonna die! 
 

But they can't kill me, despite their best efforts. I did think we were maybe going to kill Andy with all those drawings of bikes.

We had decided a new format was need. POCKET SIZE! That is pretty sweet but everything shrinks just a tiny bit, so I got my shrink wrap gun out and that is the result. It was also the first year we actually did full color. We still like black and white but thought maybe we would try color in a slightly different way.  We also were able to print on news print for the first time. Pretty Cool. Andy did a great job with all those bikes and we are pretty proud of that one. Here are some photos of the inside.

Well it has been a pleasure taking you through the catalog covers. I love working on this stuff and it has been a joy to work on them with great people like Andy, Tyler, Ben and all the rest of the Surly crew. What will we do this year? Stay tuned...

Till next time..

~TREEBEARD