Last year we spent a bunch of dollars entering our Krampus into the Eurobike Awards Contest. Needless to say, we didn’t win. I don’t know why but I can only assume that a 29+ bike of this kind was just too much for anyone on the judging panel to wrap their Germanic brains around. (Now all we are hearing is that 29+ is the next big thing of the future! Bahahaha....)
In typical Surly fashion we shrugged it off and moved on.
But this year after arriving in Friedrichshafen for Eurobike I received a text from my friend Thomas letting me know that a Surly bike had won an award this year. The next day I went to Foyer West to see what it was, and lo and behold it was a Surly Moonlander!
As you can see the bike was completely repainted, all Surly branding removed, and it had been converted to an E-bike with a BionX hub and battery mounted to it. Our logos were even removed from the tires and rims. Whoa.
As you can see by the placard associated with the bike there is no mention of Surly anywhere. In fact, the product name is listed as a “BionX Night Crawler.”
This is actually not the first time one of our bikes was repainted, strapped with an electric motor and branded as someone else’s product. A few years ago at Interbike there was an E-bike booth that did something like this to our Pugsley.
As they say imitation is the best form of flattery, or something like that. Not sure what they say about blatant misrepresentation...
Next year we’ll be submitting an electric assist long tail unicycle cargo tall bike fixie for an award. It’s certain to be ignored, but we all know that this is the future, so pay attention all you copycats!
We’re not sure whether you will be able to see our Eurobike award-winning Moonlander at Interbike, but feel free to stop by the Surly dirt demo outpost and ride our bikes (sorry, no electric assist) or swing by our Interbike booth where we will be accepting high-fives and dispensing mayhem.