Adam and I are currently in transit on our way home from Taiwan. We were there for two weeks, enjoying all that is a product development trip for Surly. We kicked off some brand new projects and greased the wheels on some existing ones.
Taiwan is pretty rad. Good people, bizzare food, and a country filled with manufacturers that make bike parts for the world.
Here are some random pictures I snapped during the trip. Enjoy...
Squat toilets... Pretty tough to waist time on your cell phone while using on of these.
Checking in on Krampus production. I do love the look of a raw welded frame.
A whole rack of LHT Disc non-drive side triangles waiting to be welded into frames.
At nearly every supplier there is a quality assortment of candy, coffee, tea, and water. Seeing as I don't read Chinese, eating candy from the bowl is a little like Russian roulette.
I think an unpolished stainless seat collar would be bad ass. What do you think? Also, some top secret 2014 stuff on the table in the background. You are going to like it.
This is our good friend Willy hanging out at the tire supplier. Willy is basically Surly's Taiwan engineer. He keeps tabs on our manufacturers and makes sure everything is going smoothly for us.
Some OD crank arm forgings. It is wierd to think that one day the exact forgings in this picture will be machined, painted, boxed, shipped, shelved, purchased, installed, and then ridden by a Surly fan. This could be a picture of the cranks you buy in the future.
OD crank, check.
I think I saw Jeremy Wade catch this fish on River Monsters.
Chicken feet taste exactly how you would guess, skin and bones. Nummy.
Raw Krampus fork looking good.
That's a whole lot of Krampus forks.
During our trip we had the chance to do some work on a local Taiwan mountain bike trail. Crazy enough, these massive spiders (Golden Orb spiders I think) were everywhere. They had huge webs strung out across the trail waiting for bikers to get tangled up in them. Apparently their poison will only cause some local irritation if bitten, but damn, I was not a fan. Fortunately, we walked the whole trail and cleared out all the webs before riding.
We also found this MASSIVE earth worm out on the trail. When it stretched out it was easily over two feet long. More snake than worm in my opinion.
Whole slew of LHT forks waiting for some paint.
Leeche's advice for driving in Taiwan.... "The rule is, there is no rule."