I know there is a lot of hype lately surrounding our new product, and I won’t really go much into that at the moment (bummer, I know).  Well, I will a bit, just not any of the frames and bikes.  What I want to talk about is our new 26” Rabbit Hole rims and the Dirt Wizard 26x2.75 tires that we mount to them (for one of those aforementioned new products).  

One of the things I really love about Surly, (and always have, even long before I was grafted onto the collective) is the consistency across their product offering.  I like big tires and have always run the fattest tires I could on any given bike.  I was one of those people who cut the brake studs off my 1x1 so I could fit Marge Lites on it.

Enter Rabbit Holes, these rims are 50mm wide so you don’t have to cut the studs off your 1x1 or even, if you really want to, your (dundunduh) Big Dummy.

Behold and even bigger dummy has arisen.  I fit the Rabbit Hole and Dirt Wizard on the back, then (just cuz I could) put a Marge lite and a Moonlander Fork (front end off the 1x1) and tah-dah.

Clearance is less than ideal for all the things I like on my dummy, like fenders and what nots, but it looks pretty sweet, and it rides great, especially off-road.  Getting the weight low remains the key to steady loaded movement, and that is certainly more of a challenge with this rig.  However the fatter tires offer quite a bit more stability so with careful loading it’s a wash, and over loose sandy terrain it rides a bit better.

Variety is the spice of life, even if sometimes that variety voids your warranty.

Until next time, get out and ride!!

Here's a few things that I've just accepted as truth over the years:

• The decline of the bench seat marked the decline of society.
• Belly button lint is blue no matter what color shirt you wear.
• Never try to stay dry at a pool party.
• It doesn’t lightning in the winter.
• Life’s better if you make a little room for magic from time to time.
• Van Halen’s Van Halen came out in early 1978.  Think about that for a minute.
• Truckers don’t like being passed on the right.
• Casing a jump is better than rolling it.  For the soul anyways.
• The person who is right and the person being stubborn are rarely the same person.
• Purple popsicles are rock hard compared to all the other colors at the same temperature.
• You’ve got a short time between when a t-shirt becomes comfortable and when you lose or ruin it.
• Show me a woodworker and I’ll show you someone who hates sawdust.
• If you waited thirty minutes for that pizza to cook, you can wait another five for it to cool down.
• Using the wrong bait only wastes your time and annoys the fish.
• Black Sabbath sold their soul for Rock & Roll.
• Animals and people rarely share the same problems.
• If an ice cream shop doesn’t have chocolate chip, you’re in the wrong place.
• Some things need to be taken seriously, and those things are few and far between.
• Plumb is always plumb and level is always level everywhere I’ve been.
• Whatever it is you’re good at, there’s somebody out there better than you at it.
• If you take it easy on someone who is operating out of their element, there’s a good chance they’ll do the same for you some time down the road.
• Spend the money and get the good one.
• When a blues singer fires up an upbeat song, better stick around for the whole thing:

Do you wear a pocket protector, bathe at least once a week, and know who Cru Jones is? If yes, then keep reading...
 
Surly Bikes is currently looking for another bike nerd to add to the product development team as Product Design Engineer. This engineer will join the core Surly design group and be responsible for the development and support of all Surly's products. He, she, or it will have the opportunity to be involved with all steps of the design process from conception, to prototypes and testing, to production and support.
 
At Surly we follow a unique design philosophy. Basically, we make what we want to ride. Whether that is 5in omniterra land crusher, an intergalactic touring machine, or a simple seat collar, Surly encourages its designers to think outside the box and explore any new idea they may have floating in their head. This concept has been key to Surly's success over the years and allowed us to develop new concepts and ideas that sometimes other riders didn't even know they wanted.
 
The applicant we are looking for needs to have a mechanical engineering degree or equivalent experience and a strong passion for bikes. He or she should be creative, self motivated, and ready to eat, breath, and sleep bicycles.

***Update 8/23/13: Posting is now closed. Thanks for your interest!

Good luck with your application, nerds.

I have always dreamed of riding my bicycle around Paris.  Well, perhaps not always, but certainly since my very first visit there.  It was about 7 years ago; I came to Paris (begrudgingly) with my wife.  She had always wanted to visit the city of light, and so we did.  We were in England for her to present a paper at an education conference and afterwards we hopped on a train and rode it under the English Channel, all the ways to Paris.

The first thing that really struck me about that city was all the people on bicycles.  Unlike many big biking cities in Europe, Paris looks like a regular city.  There are very few separated bike lanes (like in Amsterdam and Berlin), and many streets don’t even have a bike lane.  But that doesn’t stop people from riding there bikes here. Quite the contrary; this city is full of cyclists.  They ride everywhere.  All ages, sizes, genders and shapes ride in Paris.  I was so taken with it the first time we came that I went home, bought a new bike and went the next two years riding it everywhere, forgoing the use of my car almost entirely.  That was a big deal for a chubby fella like myself.  Paris is the reason that I ride my bike so much now. 

The next time my wife and I went to Paris, we tried to rent the city bikes that they had here, but couldn’t figure it out, so no biking.  The next time, we figured out why we couldn’t use the city bike program and that’s because our pathetic American credit cards didn’t have a “chip and pin” system, which you need to rent a city bike in Paris.

I am in Paris now (taking a small side trip before Eurobike), and this time I had it all figured out.  Packed my travel bike (Trucker Deluxe), packed this wicked cool collapsible trailer and all my clothes and stuff with it.  The plan was to get my luggage, ride the train from the airport to the main train station in Paris, sit on the majestically scenic steps of the station, put my bike and trailer together, pack my stuff on the trailer and ride around until I could check into my hotel.  The goal this trip was to never use public transportation, but to only use the bike.  That’s what this post was going to be about.  Pictures of me putting my bike together eating a baguette, packing up my trailer, my bike leaning against the Louvre and all that such blogy nonsense.

Here’s the hitch.  The airline lost my luggage.

So, no pictures, no trailer, took the subway to the hotel and wondered if the Gods just don’t want me riding my bike in Paris.

Then again, this time I have a chip and pin credit card, so perhaps I’ll get on one of those.

Here is the link to the trailer I was going to include, it's pretty awesome and a perfect companion piece to a Trucker Deluxe.

http://www.freeparable.com/t2

Hopefully my bike (and clothes) will get delivered to the hotel tomorrow and all will be well.  If not…sorry to everyone at Eurobike for how much I stink. 

Wakka

On our last visit to Japan we met a lot of dealers who have done well with Surly and continue to raise the bar for the rest of the world for what it looks like to do insanely cool custom Surly builds and how the brand is co-opted into the culture of that particular shop. As we have stated in previous posts about Japanese shops; they take it to a different level that really impresses us. This time around we also got to meet some brand new dealers, some prospective Surlyphiles and maybe even some skeptics (not really sure about that but we gave this kinda formal presentation to a group of dealers at our distributor’s HQ and some weren’t all teary eyed with adoration. I promise we will work on that next time around) to whom we were able to explain over the course of an hour; what our main brain malfunctions are and why this crazy shit that we make is the way it is. Most walked away happy (a keg of beer and cooler of Chu-hi help) and I think are now harboring a deeper understanding of the brand “essence” (which smells a lot like dead fish and fermented cabbage).

Dave scans the crowd and calculates information arrangement for optimal brand essence penetration. He also pinpoints potential trouble makers for later recourse.

New OD crank is field tested for maximum chicken wing delivery efficiency.

Snacky in mid brain freeze while our drinking buddies discuss something I'm too drunk to understand.

We were told by the MX-Intl Boss Lady, the infallibly insightful Rie Okamoto San, that we needed to check out this new shop in Inuyama . We were told that it was “very unique” and that they were very excited for us to stop by. These omens were easy to wrap my reptilian brain around but the reality of the shop was a whole other mind blowege wraped in a nerd-gasm.  In short this was the first Surly “Concept store” ever successfully birthed...whatever that means.

Started in startlingly recent months by bike nerd brothers Yasuhiro Kawaguchi and Kawaguchi Michiharu, Wakka almost exclusively deals Surly bikes; mostly Omniterra, 29+ and rando builds. There is a well chosen selection of components and accessories from all over the globe, all seeming to circulate around Immaculate Surlys hanging off the walls like sparkling chandeliers or poised like vintage sports cars in their small showroom. The rest of the bikes spill out into the deck and driveway in an array of builds sure to stoke ones appetite to ride off into the woods or simply inspire a custom build of your own.

Shiny bits and leather adorn a British racing green Pacer: Vroom/Meow/Splitch!

Fozzie says: Wakka, wakka!

As I inspected each build carefully I am humbled by the time spent considering the overall aesthetic as well as the care taken in the details to make sure overall function is flawless. These are not flimsy parade bikes, you could drag these things to hell and back and trust every thread, cable and pivot wouldn’t fail you even if Baphomet himself was sucking your wheel in a all out race to save/enslave all mankind.

Consider this raw Moonlander, no really…Do it:

Totally high polish Phil Wood 135mm fix/disc hub, gloss black Clown shoe and silver fabric rim strip:

Retrotech w/ DA 7900, Hope V-Twins and internal cable routing via Ragley Luxy dirt drops. *Ah hem, uhhh…WOW!


 
So to top off their amazing unique view and representation of Surly “oh my god that bike is Hawtness” and integration of our weirdness stirred lovingly into their creatively spiced and unique rich broth….they happen to be super nice and not at all self conscious or smug about what they have done here. Not meaning to stir east vs. west sentiment but honestly if this shop were situated in one of America’s great cycling cities, the shop would be rife with attitude, exclusivity and self congratulatory nausea. Don’t be butthurt dear reader, I don’t mean to injur your delicate feelings here but you KNOW this is true.

Also consider these scrumptious details:

There is a coffee house (Maru Bistro) in an old British double-decker bus!

(Notice the Bill trailer mobile coffee station)

We had a chat and became facebook friends here. Kawaii desu ne?!

Michiharu San fabricates custom frame packs from high quality leather.HAWT!

We didn’t see any Harleys parked in the lot but this is still rad

Thanks again Wakka for having us and we can’t wait to come back and see what crazy shit you have been up to next year.

This is the most sober picture of the three of us…ever.

 

Here a Eurobike

So here we are at Eurobike.  I still don’t have my clothes if you’re keeping track.  Actually that part of it seems okay.  I mean, not great, but okay.  I wash my clothes in the sink every night and ride into the exhibit hall in damp clothes each morning.  Which would have been damp anyway when I finished.  As always the beer here is awesome. 

My personal hygiene and four ingredient beer aside.  Eurobike is a pretty cool tradeshow.  It seems like it’s about ten times the size of Interbike. (it’s probably not that big, but it “seems” like it). 

This year the big trend seems to be brands talking about how eco-friendly or “green” they are.  There are lots of great big signs that say things like, “eco-friendly” and “green”.  When I looked through their booths and checked out their literature there was never really any mention of what that meant.  I mean, I understand the basic concept of eco-friendly and “green”,  I just find myself wondering if anyone else does.

As a consumer myself, who is sometimes in the position to “care” about the planet and the life forms that call it home (sometimes even people), I am fare less interested in hearing that a company is “green” no questions asked, and much more interested how they are “green” and what that really means to them.  I want to know.  It’s not that I don’t trust them. It’s that I don’t trust anyone.

Here are some of our thoughts on it at Surly. 

http://surlybikes.com/info_hole/spew/the_environment

Does this make us better than everyone else?  Hell no.  The fact that we are better than everyone else is what makes us better than everyone else.

Here’s our booth from Eurobike, cuz posts with pictures get more hits.

Also here is a Gnome and Owl that my wife painted at "craft night".

And the beer Adam and I drunk on our first night here.

Cheers.

Now go get “green”!!

Recently, I was able to join in on one of our very own Surly wives' first ever mountain bike experience. She wrestled her Troll down those dirty paths with a smile on her face....until the dirty path karate monekyed her into the air.

I was behind her and saw the whip top, scorpion snap, bike buck action. If I had known how well she was going to take it, i would have snapped a pic, but I didn't so here is my rendition.

I jumped off my ECR proto (don't be jealy) and laid it across the trail to stop anyone else from running her down. She wasn't moving and she appeared to be at least 1 inch embedded into the ground. I rolled her over slowly and started checking her over, assuming she had broken her collarbone. Some gashes and bruising was all I found. So I told her "You look okay, but I have to tell you, you are going to have a black eye." Her response was to open her eyes wide and say with a huge grin "REALLY?? I have always wanted one of those!" This is when I knew this lady was rad.

SHINY BETSY

HER BLOODY EBOW

We got her back to base camp where brats and stuff were cooking and beer was flowing. As you can imagine, they were all so worried about us that they just had to grill some shit. Thanks guys.

So now she has a war story and is looking foward to her next ride. Hell yes.

It’s my first day back in the office since Eurobike.  I’m here ridiculously early (started work at 5:30 this morning)(damn you jetlag) which allows me to see this place when it’s quiet and I’m alone.  I’m going through all my notes and thoughts from Eurobike and my trip to places around/near there and I realize how much I learned (really how much I learn every time I go to one of these). 

Most people I know come back from a trip overseas and talk of the differences in culture.  One of the things I am continually struck by when I take a trip for Surly isn’t the differences, (those are obvious and right out there for everyone to see) but instead the sames.  Which is to say, those things that we/I from our culture have in common with they/them from another. They struck me in Japan last year, and they struck me in France and Germany last week.  The underling themes that are common in so many societies are so buried or engrained that we/I tend not to notice them.  There are a few, but the one that I’m going to talk about a bit today is conformity.

The reason that most of my friends don’t often find themselves visiting non-English speaking countries is because they are stressed out by the ”language barrier”.  For some reason that’s never really stressed me out too much.  When I can’t communicate with words, acting things out has never failed to get me what I needed.  Grunts, gestures, hip gyrations, whatever.  I was very successful in getting receipts for purchases by typing on an imaginary cash register in the air, making the printing sound and tearing the imaginary receipt out of the air.  I even saw my wife once get a French pharmacist in his 70’s (who didn’t speak a word of English, and my wife not a word of French) to supply her with eucalyptus Epsom salt to soak her feet in.

When I do communicate with someone for whom English is a second language, I always find that there lack of understanding of the nuances of the language, allows them to much more clearly convey their actual thinking to me.  When speaking to a native speaker, I find myself so often concerned with the subtext, knowing as I do, that most people don’t really say what they are thinking or mean; but a watered down version that has other meanings stuffed inside, like a holiday Turduckin.

And so at last I get to my point.  (sort of) I met many people at Eurobike who came to the Surly booth and had (what seemed to me) to be the oddest questions they possibly could have asked. 

“Why don’t you try harder to make bikes that are lighter?”

“Why don’t you make bikes out of carbon fiber?”

“Why don’t you make road bikes with taller headtubes and slopping toptubes?”

“Why aren’t you more concerned with race performance?”

“Why don’t you make racing bikes?”

This was the experience that struck the “conformity” chord with me.  All of the bikes that people were asking Surly to manufacture were at Eurobike in spades.  They were all over the place. Light bikes, racing bikes, carbon bikes, slopping toptubed road bikes, bikes that had been “engineered for speed” in every possible way, and all in every category that Surly lives inside of. 

I found myself asking the question, “Why would we make the same bike that everyone else is making?”  I told many of the people I talked to, “You can find that bike all over here, why don’t you buy one of those?”  And most of the time, the answer was that they wanted to buy a Surly. When I asked why, the told me that it was the “brand” that they liked. 

They liked the “brand”, just not the bikes. 

To me Surly is the bikes.  That’s what it’s all about.  (at least after you put it in the middle and shake it all about)

I hope I never live to see Surly take advantage of this kind of thinking.  It would be easy to do just that. It’s so often what companies do.  They build their equity, and then spend it. 

They spend it on tricks and gimmicks to get you and me and everyone we know to buy their shit.  And usually (at least in the short run) it pays off for them.

Surly has been built on making things that the people inside of it (the people inside Surly that is), want to ride.  Or want to make work better.  When we make something there is a process involved.  With the exception of t-shirts, socks and ball caps (okay flasks, and probably a couple other “marketing” bits I’m forgetting about) we don’t find a product and slap our name on it.  If someone is making something that works well, and we like, we tend to use that. Why wouldn’t we?

If not, we design our own, then we test it and then (if we’re happy with it, if it makes us proud) we release it.  We’re not perfect (far fucking from it) and sometimes we make things that hit and sometimes they miss.  Sometimes we refine our work and sometimes we throw it out and start over.  The personnel at Surly has changed over the years, but that basic concept has not.

I love Surly, I’m a huge Surly nerd, and I see how “cool” it might be to have my Surly bike, with Surly fenders, Surly racks, Surly bags, Surly grips, Surly whatevers all over it.  I can see it.  I just can’t think of a reason for it.  Unless we really feel like we can do it better.

There is no reason for us to build/design/imagine bikes that everyone else makes.  If we wanted to ride those, they’re out there, we could. (If Eurobike is any indication, in huge abundance).   There are simply things that the rest of the industry is really really concerned with, that we are not.  And vice versa.

And that’s okay.

It really is.

Eurobike was huge and had lots and lots of neat stuff to look at, and lots and lots of repetitive shit to look at.  I could show you the pictures I took there, but were many really great photographers out there so look at some of these galleries instead. 

http://prollyisnotprobably.com/2013/08/eurobike-2013-uber-gallery-02/

http://urbanvelo.org/eurobike-2013-day-3-gallery/

http://urbanvelo.org/eurobike-2013-day-1-gallery/

http://urbanvelo.org/eurobike-2013-day-2-gallery/

http://dirt.mpora.com/news/eurobike-2013-product-photo-gallery-part-4.html

http://dirt.mpora.com/news/eurobike-2013-product-photo-gallery-part-1.html

http://dirt.mpora.com/news/eurobike-2013-product-photo-gallery-part-2.html

http://dirt.mpora.com/news/eurobike-2013-product-photo-gallery-part-3.html

Now here’s a cool picture of Skoglund, riping through the snow from last winter.  Soon we’ll be able to ride like this, so get out and ride while it’s warm, and now is the time to start thinking about getting your winter gear ready.

It’s on.

There is a path through the forest that leads to the Surly headquarters.  It is a path that runs along the Minnesota River and it's my favorite route to take when I come to work.  The only bad thing about it is that in the summer it takes me about two hours to get from my house to The Wheel so I don't take that route too often because I actually think I'm allergic to the mornings.  I don't know why else I'd thow up so often when I wake up....  It's the answer that makes the most sense to me.  Anyway, I'm taking to the Blog on this boring ass Friday-before-labor-day-and-no-one-is-in-the-office-including-our-customers because this ride taught me a lesson and gave me something to think about that I think bears repeating to the 3 people that read this blog. 

I think the saddest thing I ever saw riding a mountain bike probably took place about ten or twelve years ago for me.  In the grand scheme of things it probably wasn't all that terrible but it was one of those strange situations you can find yourself in where your path arbitrarily crosses the path of another living thing and your mere presence causes the loss of life.  Ultimately it's just the inexorable march of time and we're all just trying to ring the bell and get a nut so there's no point spending too much time pondering the greater implications of these occurances but mindfulness never hurt anyone. 

So there I was, training for a 100 mile mountain bike race on my favorite trail.  I was with a few other friends of mine that had signed up for the same race and we were giving it some stick, trying to  whip ourselves into shape and were probably about 50 miles into our ride when we decided to stop and have some refreshments.  We had barely been stopped for ten seconds when all of a sudden there was this strangely loud thud on the forest floor, like someone dropping a rock of significant size from a considerable height.  I looked over towards said thud and saw that a porcupine had fallen out of a tree.  I didn't even know porcupines could climb trees.  Now, I've had a lot of wilderness encounters in my time because I was raised by wolves, but let me tell you, this shit sucked.  I'll skip the gory details because those gory details are why I still remember something so relatively trivial a dozen years later, but I'll say it again, this shit sucked.  Total bummer when your happy fun times intrude on something going about its daily business and cost it its life in a mildly horrific manner, which brings me to the gentle reminder I want to give the 3 of you.

Fast forward twelve years and not much has changed.  I'm riding my bike like I always do when I have to get somewhere, and I'm on this lovely trail that takes me to the Surly Mothership and what do I see?  Baby Snapping Turtles.  A shit load of them.  I thought back to what a drag it was when that a-hole porcupine fell out of that tree and totally harshed my mellow and thought, "I certainly don't want to have this blood on my hands too" so I just hopped off the bike and found all the turtles I could and moved them off the trail towards the river.  I didn't manage to hit any sweet jumps or get much sideways action while I was doing this, but I think it ended up being a worthwhile pursuit all the same.  When you get on your bike it's really, really easy to get lost in the ride and lose yourself to the fun you are having but it's also worth remembering that even though the trails might be man-made, the forest is not; so pay attention, jackass.  It could mean the difference between having fun at someone else's expense or simply having fun, which I think is a better way to go personally.  All in all I managed to find 8 of the little buggers and put them near the river so hopefully that will even out my Karma.

My husband and I went out for drinks and eats the other weekend. I grabbed a Pacer from the demo herd to spice things up. One thing to know about our demo herd is that they are stored with the headset loose and bars turned for easy hanging. Excited to get out on the road and distracted by my whirling toddler I did not quite do the best job putting this bike together for the ride. I admit failure here.

Our ride started out clear and sunny. We stopped at multiple locations to really get a good handle on what libations were up for the offering in St Paul, Minnesota.

Rasta Hydrant

Hillbilly Husband

As the night went on we found ourselves weaving through the city and back out to the river banks.

Things got a little weird. I'm not a very cool drunk.

So needless to say our last stop at the local swan dive bar resulted in a few more pints, lots of laughs and believe it or not an entire bar cheering on an escaped zebra. I love that bar.

On the road again and feelin' fine, out of no where came a few cop cars with lights blazing tearing down the road. I kicked into high gear, yelling back at JJ "They are coming for us!" Powering up and looking over your shoulder while, yelling, pedaling and laughing.....yeah....could cause problems. I swerved into the grassy patch and when I went back to correct, my lack of attention to putting the bike in proper order caught up with me.

Over the bars I went face first into the concrete path. The bike was kicked lovingly into the grass and unharmed. I on the other hand took the full force of my fall on my face. Not a scratch on the helmet. Just my face.

Artist rendition

I wasn't able to assess the damage until I made it home. It felt like I had lost several teeth and I could feel the warm blood. I was not in any pain though. It was all very funny to me at the time.

Not pictured is my jagged front tooth.

The next day I was a little less amused by my injuries. The picture below does not do justice to the size of my fat upper lip, the hole in my lower lip and the road rash on my face.

Here is my selfie to show my friends my new to me glasses. I am still wearing these as those lens were expensive as shit.

Over the next few days I walked around with a thickening, yellowy green scab forming on my face. Herpes jokes were popular. I thought about what happened but could not muster up regret. I did something stupid. I hopped on a borrowed bike without a thorough check over and rode off feeling like the details didn't matter. I will admit it. It was stupid. It was also one of the best rides of my life. It was an experience. A scarring one that will probably cost me a couple hundred dollars if I ever get that tooth repaired and that lens replaced but I'll be damned if it didn't super charge my engines.

People can and will throw judgment about this but I have to say, it's not going to stop me from going farther and faster on my next ride. I'd rather not be physically scarred again so soon. Maybe a little emotional scraping next time. I do know that I learn from getting out there, getting stupid, having experiences and then recalling that story as a damn good time. You don't have to fall on your face to enjoy the ride but it could make you appreciate it more depending on how you look at it.

(Happy anniversary husband. Thanks for lovin me bloody. 09.09.09)

So, last week I wrote a bit about why we make the products that we make. And why we don’t make some of the products we don’t make.  That got my brain rolling about who we are here at Surly.  And how we present ourselves in compared to other brands.  I know that there are people out there who think that the folks at Surly spend a great deal more time drinking beer than riding.  I’m here to say, that’s true.  Well at least for some of us it is.  Surly (at the moment) has 16 dedicated employees (plus a handful of people that we couldn’t do it without who don’t directly work for Surly but for the parent like company QBP, who signs the checks). 

My, hands down, favorite thing about working with this group of people is that all of us give a shit, in a big way.  We all care about Surly.  None of us clock in, hate our jobs, clock out and then spend the rest of our days and nights trying to forget why we’ve sold our souls.  Also everyone at Surly loves bikes.  We all love them, some of us more than others.  We all ride bikes, some of us more than others.  Some of us ride on weekends, some of us ride to work every single day (even if we have a bunch of shit to bring in or take home, so we have to use a trailer), some of us ride to work some days and drive the other days, some of us take the bus part of the way to work and then ride the rest of the way and some of us drive to work and spend the weekends with our families and squeeze in riding time whenever we can.  It’s true that some of us spend more time drinking beer than riding.  But does it surprise you to learn that some of us don’t drink beer at all.  Some of us eat bacon and some of us are vegans.  Some of us only ride Surly bikes, and some of us ride other bikes as well. Some of us have kids, some don’t. Some of us play Dungeons and Dragons, and others of us laugh and point at those who do that. Some of us really do get amazingly rad on a bike, others of us (like me) are just too chicken. 

Are you getting the picture?  It actually doesn’t matter if you are, cuz I’m on a roll.  When you sit us down in a room, the one thing we all tend to agree on is ...well, nothing.  We all have a different idea of what a bike should be.  We all have our own idea.  We are a group of individuals not a team of likes.  We all have our own ideas about everything. It's our varied approach to what a bike can be that is represented in the varied kinds of bikes that we manufacture and sell.  We make all kinds of bikes, for all kinds of riders, and coincidentally we are all kinds of riders.  Each with our own ideas.  Sometimes they overlap and sometimes they don't.

As a group, as Surly we stand together for the bikes and parts that we make, and we stand apart on most everything else.  We all ride bikes for our own reasons and in our own ways. Sometime look at all the different kinds of people out there who ride our stuff and I think you'll see that sentiment reflected quite powerfully.

I have people ask me: why we don’t sponsor riders, or why we don’t seek out the best/coolest/radest riders out there to ride our stuff and talk it up?  Why don’t we feature people like that in our ads and on our website?

The reason is simple, and it ties in with the reason that we make the products we make, and why we believe what we believe.

When other companies get the fastest/radest/coolest people riding their stuff in pictures and on their websites, there is an unspoken promise that if you ride their products you will be like those people. That you will be cool/rad/fast/whatever.  Like it's your free ticket to the cool kids table.

Honestly I find that line of thinking to be incredibly condescending.

The only thing that riding a Surly will make you is a person riding a Surly.  It won’t fit you into any special camp, you won’t be awarded any special ring, or handshake, there will be no playhouse key-code given out.  A Surly bike won’t make you anything.  It certainly won’t make you like any of us (and you should thank heaven for that). There is no cool kids table here, cuz we all sit at our own tables. Hopefully a Surly can help make you a better you, but that’s really the power of the bicycle and not the power of Surly.

So remember this, if you see someone out there on a Surly, chances are they bought it. (I would be lying if I told you we didn’t give any way. We do, just not that many).  If someone only rides things, wears things, eats things, talks about things or loves things because they are given the shit to ride/wear/eat/talk about/love, then why the hell would you listen to them in the first place?  That's not love, that an attitude bought and paid for, and again why would you listen to someone like that? Those people can go screw.

Sidebar: I spelled Andy’s name wrong last weak, and he get’s sensitive about that.  So I'm sorry Andy, and for everyone out there who might be spelling his name in the future: it’s Skoglund, and here’s another picture of him getting rad. 

Also here is a picture of me getting rad (in the only way I know how).

Now I’m going to go ride my bike.

Hello, My name is Andy Wood. I work for Surly Bikes. You are probably thinking what kind of crazy weird shit am I going to show you this time. Well, I decided to take a break from my groundbreaking videos and show you a project that is a bit more serious while keeping the Surly fun. As you know we do a print catalog every year that features almost all the information you need to know about our products. As a graphic designer I look forward to this project every year. I actually look forward to all Surly projects. This place is fun as hell. Even though I am capable of designing things that are so tight and rigid you could skin a coon with them, Surly jobs are quite the opposite. We have standards but our standards are loose and organic. That’s what makes working for Surly unique and fun.

This year’s catalog featured some of the most ambitious artwork I have ever done and it all started on a picnic table. Most of the work I do is done on the computer. Towards the end of this project I used the computer to scan the in artwork and change the colors but 90% of the job was handmade. I have a huge appreciation for hand carved woodcut printing and wanted to give it a shot for this project. Actually I've made lots of linoleum prints in the past but never with wood.

At our Surly camping retreat I brought along a small slab of ply wood and my carving tools. After staring at the blank slab for hours not knowing what to draw, I decided to make some blocky letters that read Surly Bikes and Parts. Pretty original I know. This is how it all began. One thing to note is that you actually have to draw in reverse so when you print, so it reads the correct way. Kind of challenging to draw letters backwards.

Once I got home from the retreat I was anxious to ink this bad boy up and see how it printed. Most woodblock printers use an oil based ink. I used a water based one that was leftover from my litho printing days. It does not print as well because it soaks into the wood a bit but is easy to clean up.

It takes lots of tries to get the perfect print, plus I wanted to use up my ink.

I didn’t want to stop at just carving the words so I decided to make woodcuts for several other parts of the catalog. For the cover I wanted to use the words as a background image, and then have a second woodcut print over the top of that. That would be the picture of the clown riding the Straggler with the monkey on his back and his little rabbit buddy. This illustrates the fun and chaos we deal with on a daily basses. Next step was to scan all these into the computer then colorize and design.  In addition to using the woodblock letters on the cover, I created the alphabet and numbers then had a local font maker create a custom font for us that we used throughout.

Finally you can see all the different pieces of art integrated into the catalog. Historically we’ve always made a black and white catalog and we still kind of do, however last year and the year before we used  black and an additional color. This year in order to pull off these designs we went with black and two other colors. You might say to yourself, "I want to see what colors your bikes are." Well, go to our website and you will. 

I hope you get a chance to see the catalog in person. It's not only a great resource that was put together by our amazing team of talented bike nerds; it's also neat to look at.

So a couple of weeks ago I wrote about my luggage being lost on a trip to Eurobike.  It’s still lost.  I keep talking to the airline and they keep telling me that they’ve found it, or that they’re going to find it. My hopes are not high for that.  There were two things in that piece of luggage that I was really sad about loosing.  One was my favorite hat that I thought I had lost a couple of years ago that I found two weeks before I left for my trip.  Moral: If you find your favorite hat that you thought was lost and then decide to take it to Europe, put it in your carry on.  Even better, wear it (it’s a hat dip-shit).

The second thing that I lost was this really cool trailer that I conned the folks at

Free Parable Designs (http://www.freeparable.com/) to give me.  As soon as I saw this thing I new it would be the perfect companion to my Trucker Deluxe.

The trailer breaks down into a pretty small and light package, and comes with a carrying case that will fit the trailer the bag, and other luggage.  The plan was to pack the bike in a soft S&S case and my clothes, some product samples, my business cards and precious hats in the T2 carrying case along with the trailer.  Then once I was at my destination, I would assemble the bike, take the hard plastic sides out of the soft case, put them under the bag on the trailer and throw everything in the bag and off I would go.  Off the plane (or train or whatever) and everything I brought I could ride, or pull behind.  It really is quite an ingenious system.

So after my lost baggage the amazing folks at Free Parable decided to take pity on me (stupid American oaf that I am) and send me a new one.  I just got it yesterday and I thought I would write a quick bit about it.  There were some comments after my last blog that people wanted pictures and were curious how well it works.  The airplane/train long field test will have to wait just a bit longer, but I can still ride this bad-boy around town.

Here is the trailer in its case with its dry bag, my backpack and a box of stuff all zipped up.

Unzipped.

Without the backpack and box and the dry bag on the side (plus my shoe).

All put together, with my shit in the dry bag.

And on the Ogre.

Perfect for the Trucker Deluxe, but that's still in the case from Eurobike. Sort of calling to me to get on the road again. I’ll ride the Ogre (with the trailer in tow) home tonight, and long for my next chance to take it all on the plane, train or bus.

Maybe I’ll take the bus down to see my folks for a weekend soon to test it out. 

Time to go ride.

Dirty Old Monkey

I don’t know what it is about trade show season, and Vegas in particular that makes me want to get up on my soapbox and bitch (okay, I know) but sometimes I just can’t help myself.  One of the problems with Vegas is that there are no “regular” sized soapboxes.  Everything here is either really really big (who’s gotta ladder to get up on a soap box?) or really tiny.  It’s a city in the desert (hot, dry, you know, you’ve seen pictures), with giant fountains,  absurdly large swimming pools, a pirates bay and (best of all) little signs in your hotel room that let you know that you can help them be “green” by not asking them to wash your towels or sheets.  You know, cuz it’s a waste of water. It is a place that it clearly in tune with sustainability.

To me, that’s such a perfect instance of the lost feeling of Vegas to me.  It feels like a person who has lost their way.  They’re not really sure what to do.  They started down a road and that road just isn’t leading them where they thought they would go.  In the beginning there was this great feeling (like being a rock star) everyone thought their path was so cool, they themselves thought it was cool, then one day the ugly truth started to rear its head. Shit changes, people change and keeping up an act is really fucking hard work.

What lost little Vegas can do much easier than a lost little person is the old, “out with old in with the new” gag.  Dump the geezers who started the whole thing, tear down the monstrous irresponsible casinos that they lived in, and replace them with young dudes with new ideas of how to take your money, and brand new monstrous irresponsible casinos that live up to a much more “modern” idea of what something like that should be.  Complete with little cards to remind you just how much they care about…well, everything.

They really do care. How could they not? It’s Vegas baby.  It’s bricks, mortar and foundation is love.

Just like the old Lennon and McCartney tune, “love, love, love.”

Or conversely as my man Ad Rock said, “Well just plug me in like I was Eddie Harris/ You’re eating crazy cheese like you would think I’m from Paris/ You know I get fly, you think I get high/ You know that I’m gone and I’m-a tell you all why.”

If you’re here, see you in the booth.

And now some gratuitous pictures.

This year I vowed, while I was at Eurobike, that I would take more time and enjoy my ride into work every day.  I tend to be a rusher, get up, get packed, cram food and ride to work without stopping. It get’s old.  A bike ride is supposed to be fun and let you experience the world in a different way than you would using other modes of transportation.  To this end I have stopped in a park and am having some tea.  Right now, at this very moment (though probably not when you read this, but I digress).  I’m sitting in the sun on this beautiful cool day, watching the light peel through the treetops and cover the landscape in green, and it makes me think back to Eurobike and also Interbike.  Or “E-bike” and “I-bike” as I believe people will call them in the far-off future. 

The thing that separates the two in my mind has mostly to do with location.  It’s true that the two of them are of vastly different size and scope, but it really is the geography that makes Eurobike such a great time and Interbike (at least for me) not.

At E-bike, you begin each day with a gentle 9ish-mile ride up a gradual grade through pair orchards and fields of hops.  At I-bike you begin your day stumbling through a noisy, smelly, dimly lit and very smoky casino.  At E-bike you finish your day riding back down through the orchards and fields toward the lake that separates Germany from Switzerland and on the other side of that lake are the majestic Swiss Alp’s looking down on you as you ride through the little hamlets past clock towers and over the motorways.  At I-bike you finish your day stumbling through a noisy, smelly, dimly lit and very smoky casino.  It’s the ride that’s missing, and all that the ride brings with it.

So that’s what I’m going to attempt to add to my ride each day: peaceful beauty, tea, a snack and maybe a blog in the park (or perhaps just a beer or three, drunkeness and a accidental dip in the creek)(who knows?)(could be both).  When I add all of that, I don’t have to worry about subtracting anything. The experience takes care of it all.

On a separate note, at Interbike (and Eurobike for that matter) we got all of the ETA’s on our new bikes completely wrong.  Our production was pushed back because of means way beyond our control.  It sucks and we’re sorry.  I wish we were perfect but really I don’t because that would be boring and predictable.  I’ll write more on this tomorrow, and give you all an update.  Now I have to actually get to work.

Really enjoy that ride today, I know that I am.

Okay, so we’re not perfect…

At Interbike, Eurobike and other points abroad and at home.  Several of us here at Surly (including my(rathercharming)self) gave people what we believed to be the ETA’s on many of our new products, that we’ve been talking about and demoing for a couple of months now.

Pretty much all of the ETA’s that we gave out were wrong, for one reason or another.  When we gave them out, we thought they were correct.  As it turns out, we were wrong about that too.  We are sorry for this. (As a point of clarification, when I say we, I mean us at Surly HQ and not our distributors, domestic or abroad)(it’s not their fault).  We are sorry.

Let me say that again.

We are sorry, we suck, we are not perfect and we sumtimes make mistakes. (and by sumtimes I mean often)

Apparently our mistake has made some people out there very very angry.  Again, sorry, our bad.  Not perfect (us).  I know how shitty it is to have well laid plans and then have someone/something/Surly/the universe screw it all up with a big lesson in reminding me that I’m not really in control of anything at all. That lesson sucks.  It comes often, and it comes loudly.  You would think that I would learn. But I don’t.  I just can’t shake the idea that I should be in control, and yet (alas) I am not.

This whole thing has blown up on some forums and some folks email boxes are overflowing.  Personally it’s brought a few things to light that I want to yammer on about. So let the yammering begin. Sorry in advance. (for the yammering)

Yammer 1:  We don’t control the universe and all it’s properties.  If we did, things would probably largely be the same; wherein sometimes great things happen and sometimes terrible things happen.  I mean look at us, you should see the pile of beer cans on my table after a night of D&D. Seriously there are six of us, and my wife has asked on repeated occasions if there were twenty or more. Contrary to what you might think, or what you’ve heard, we’re not perfect and we can’t control every variable. Oh that we could, then we’d have no excuse (other than the mountain of beer).

Yammer 2: From my point of view, it is insane to think that we wouldn’t be selling our bikes to you right now if we could.  We are a business and money helps a whole bunch with the “keeping the lights on” thing.  Also, we’re a bunch of giant nerds who don’t like to wait for things either (though we are often forced to). It’s not a plot (I can see how it might feel/seem like one, but it’s not) and it’s not a conspiracy. I swear.  Of course if it was, that is exactly what I would say to you about it not being one. Let that swim around in your fishbowl.

Yammer 3: I’m not sure what this whole thing has to do with us being giant corporate sell-outs, but if that’s how you want to think of us; that’s okay. There’s really not a whole hell of a lot I can do about that. I’m comfortable with my manhood. I like where we are as a group and I am proud as hell of the bikes we make.

Yammer 4: We are doing the best we can.  Well, really…is anyone every really doing the best they can??  Yes, sometimes they are, and this time that’s us.  It’s important to us that people get to ride our shit, why on earth would it not be?  What could we possibly have to gain? Other than lulling you into a false sense of security only to slowly take over your life through consumer product pamphlets and/or QR codes at some specified date, later in time that lines up with the lost Celtic calendar of Thothlec lord of darkness and buzzards. Also, cuz we’re giant assholes.

Yammer 5 (the final yammer):  If you wanted to buy one of our new bikes, and you don’t want to buy it anymore because you won’t be able to buy it by October the 7^th, then probably you shouldn’t buy it in the first place.  If the allure of that bike will wear off so quickly and completely, I’m not sure that having one will change that reality.  We don’t build our bikes for the fickle or for the resale value. We build our bikes to ride and we build them to last. As Dave sometimes says, “you’ll have to get your placebo somewhere else.”

I don’t mean to come off as a complete prick (that’s just the gravy), it’s just that sometimes…no wait….as it turns out, I’m done.

See ya next time.

This year I vowed, while I was at Eurobike, that I would take more time and enjoy my ride into work every day.  I tend to be a rusher, get up, get packed, cram food and ride to work without stopping. It get’s old.  A bike ride is supposed to be fun and let you experience the world in a different way than you would using other modes of transportation.  To this end I have stopped in a park and am having some tea.  Right now, at this very moment (though probably not when you read this, but I digress).  I’m sitting in the sun on this beautiful cool day, watching the light peel through the treetops and cover the landscape in green, and it makes me think back to Eurobike and also Interbike.  Or “E-bike” and “I-bike” as I believe people will call them in the far-off future. 

The thing that separates the two in my mind has mostly to do with location.  It’s true that the two of them are of vastly different size and scope, but it really is the geography that makes Eurobike such a great time and Interbike (at least for me) not.

At E-bike, you begin each day with a gentle 9ish-mile ride up a gradual grade through pear orchards and fields of hops.  At I-bike you begin your day stumbling through a noisy, smelly, dimly lit and very smoky casino.  At E-bike you finish your day riding back down through the orchards and fields toward the lake that separates Germany from Switzerland and on the other side of that lake are the majestic Swiss Alp’s looking down on you as you ride through the little hamlets past clock towers and over the motorways.  At I-bike you finish your day stumbling through a noisy, smelly, dimly lit and very smoky casino.  It’s the ride that’s missing, and all that the ride brings with it.

So that’s what I’m going to attempt to add to my ride each day: peaceful beauty, tea, a snack and maybe a blog in the park (or perhaps just a beer or three, drunkeness and a accidental dip in the creek)(who knows?)(could be both).  When I add all of that, I don’t have to worry about subtracting anything. The experience takes care of it all.

On a separate note, at Interbike (and Eurobike for that matter) we got all of the ETA’s on our new bikes completely wrong.  Our production was pushed back because of means way beyond our control.  It sucks and we’re sorry.  I wish we were perfect but really I don’t because that would be boring and predictable.  I’ll write more on this tomorrow, and give you all an update.  Now I have to actually get to work.

Really enjoy that ride today, I know that I am.

I’m not sure how many of you out there are familiar with our little image dump, but it’s become my favorite part of our website.  The deal is you submit your sweet custom (or not custom) Surly ride, say whatever you want about it, give us your credit card number and Social, and we post the picture if we want to.  We get new submissions every day and many of the bikes are totally awesome, and some of them are totally weird.

They are all totally something.  Here are a few of my personal favorites

Now it is Friday so you should get on your bike and ride it some.

Last year we had this crazy idea (right around Frostbike) that we would create a limited run Pugsley for our friends who came to Frostbike.  So that’s what we did.  We ordered a very small number of these (around 500 world wide).  The bike has an Surly OD crankset, SLX shifters, front derailleur and hydraulic brakes, with an LX rear derailleur.  Also it's got polished silver Holy Darryl rims and shiny bits all over the place. Plus those snazzy two-tone 60tpi Nates (baby!).  Many of these were presold to dealers who wanted them, and we have a few on hand for everyone else.  If you want one, you better hurry.  The bikes aren't in stock just yet, but they should be soon.  So line up.

Of course , if you miss it, you can always build your own dream machine.