Happy Hallow'een Campers, it's Professor Asshair here. I am saddened that this celebration has so reduced over the centuries. At least our neighbors to the south still have Dio de la Muerte, which has some respectable spiritual credibility. Our culture has moved our similar touchstone from Samhain to a fully American marketed holiday 'opportunity' with no real sense of spiritual connection. We've become hollow weenies. Where's the scary? A couple of years ago I was at a halloween party and did not have a costume. A polite woman who was simply trying to make conversation asked me what my costume was. I deadpanned, "I'm a serial killer. We look like everyone else," then stared intensely at her. She got very uncomfortable, left, and would not go near me the rest of the night. THAT'S what I'm talking about. Understand, I'm not talking about actaully putting razorblades in apples or deliberately scaring really little kids...that's not scary, just mean. I'm talking about facing fear, dealing with those things that really frighten us. Dressing up as cartoon characters? Come on. Herewith is a short list of themes to consider that are scary enough to warrant their own halloween costume:

DEATH. Any kind, really. Violent death is good, but some of the more mundane gets overlooked. Heart failure comes to mind. But really I'm thinking of the overall idea of death. The Grim Reaper still has tons of costume opportunity for those willing to try. One of my favorites was a Terry Gilliam design: Death's face was a television.
CORPORATE IDEOLOGY. I mean, come on. This one's easy. Wear a suit and talk about synergy. This goes hand in hand with....
RAMPANT CONSUMERISM. Get that hollow eyed, hollow wallet look. Mumble about losing the last Kiss My Ass Barbie to that bitch in the Escalade.
DOMESTIC TERRORISM. Dress as Dylan Klebold, clear out the party. ("what's your costume?" "i'm Columbine." Then point your finger gun at their head and mouth the word 'pow!')
LONELINESS. One of the levels of Hell.
DEPRESSION is another. Dress up as a suicide victim. Easy and cheap.
PUBLIC EMBARASSMENT. I don't know, use your imagination. Have your pants drop every half hour or so? Or just dress up as any American Politician. And on that subject, something I find really scary...
AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY. Go as an Afghani or Iraqi child. 'Nuff said.
YOUR OWN PARENTS. Go as your parents making sweet love....*shudder*
YOUR SHRINKING PAYCHECK. WORSENING HEALTH CARE. Mostly ignore everybody and occasionally remind them how great they've got it. Or worse, just complain about it all night long.

Well, that should get you started. Remember...it's too late to do a lot with it now, but start thinking about next year, or better yet, make random days throughout the year halloween. That oughta scare the bujeezus out of lots of folks, and isn't that what halloween is really all about?

StuFf ThAt's NEw aT SUrLy

So enough about Interbike already. We have new stuff coming out soon. When? I don't know. Some sooner than later, some is already here, some of it won't be here until mid to late winter. So here's what's new:

After some wrangling with the test tubes, Surly has a new baby coming, the Long Haul Trucker touring frameset. Long stays, relaxed angles, lots of braze ons (including stay mounted spare spoke holder and mounts for front and rear racks). Smaller sizes (42-54cm) use 26" wheels, larger (56-62cm) use 700c. Sage green color. Read more about it in the "New" section of the website.

To go with the Long Haul Trucker, we will be doing front and rear racks. The Nice racks are nickel plated cro-mo (easy to repair, look groovy), and run bags high or low. Rear is height adjustable, front in either 26" wheel size or 700c.

We'll also have the LHT forks available by themselves, 26" and 700c, rack and fender mounts. Black. 1 1/8" threadless. Cantilever mounts.

The Singleator is improved, now forged (stronger) and able to run 1/8" or 3/32" chains. 11t pulley. As Dave mentioned in an earlier blog, there have been and continue to be rip offs of the Singleator. Ours is the original and still the best in terms of quality.

The Large Marge rim is a big, fat (65mm wide!) rim for snow, sand, soft, DH, etc. Derby rated. Final versions will have eyelets (still in prototype stage). 26", with 2 'DH' versions (32 and 36 hole) and a 32h 'XC', which will have some material removed for a bit of weight shaving. Will it fit a standard bike? Not really. You can wrangle them in past the brake studs on a 1x1, but otherwise need to remove the studs entirely (read: grind them off..voiding frame warranty), or have a frame built to run them. A lot of serious DH rigs will already be able to use them.

Hubs. I'm not even going to go into all of the options, but we will have disc hubs new this year (SS freewheel on drive side), plus a whole bunch will have hollow axles, plus there will be some 36h options too. Of note is a new one for the Steamroller and other track bikes. It's track spaced (120mm) and have fixed gear/lockring threading on one side and freewheel threading on the other. Like the one we do now spaced for 135mm, except narrowerand silver.

We are doing some chainrings. No clever name. Stainless steel. Good for single speed, tandem timing rings and will even work as middle rings on geared bikes if you really want. 94mm BCD in 30-36t, 104mm BCD in 32-36t, 110mm BCD in 34 and 36t. We have already had some requests for 130mm BCD too, so we'll probably make a 42-46 run, but nothing finalized yet.

Hip flask. The hippest. Stainless. 6oz. New international standard water bottle size. Good gift item. For yourself, even.

Clothes. Karate Monkey baseball T. Medium through XXL. Sorry, no small unless we can find another source. Merino wool jerseys: mens and womens long and short sleeve. Black. 11" zipper, triple back pocket. Good for cool weather, base layer in cold, and a surprisingly good summer jersey as well. Nothing is as nice as wool.

Extra stuff. KMs will be available in black this season, in addition to green. Pacers in black only until we pick something else out. Orange Instigators are being phased out, replaced with Hot Dog Mustard yella. Crosschecks and Steamrollers get a 62cm size.

That's it brothers and sisters. Check back here for further developments on products, ETAs, or just whatever we thought might be of interest. Let me just pronmise here and now not to talk about my morning's dook.

Leaving Las Vegas.

Apparently, Las Vegas means "the meadows," which makes little sense since even irrigating the desert does not make it look or feel like any meadow I know. That place is an armpit, though a thoroughly surreal one. At Interbike, I find myself wondering about the impressions of people not from the US if Vegas is their first impression. Actually, the best way to see Vegas is from the highway. You see the layer of smog, most heavily over th strip, and the rest of it is this enormous sprawling subdivision-slash-stripmall. Never more than 1/4 mile without a stoplight. No stand alone stores. They're all in some sort of strip mall. And this goes on for miles and miles. Vegas is one of the fastest growing cities in the US, I'm told. Unreal. The taxi drivers are alternately laid back seen it all, done it all pros who know how to chat and laugh and uptight schmucks with no business doing a job involving any direct customer contact. Bartenders are the same way.
Anyhoo, Surly was in Vegas for Interbike 03, the national bicycle industry tradeshow. Overall a good time. We were at Dirt Demo, where dealers, media, and assorted industry hangers on can ride on what I'm told were good trails. We wouldn't know. Too busy to get out and ride. Bummer. The rest of the week was spent inside the Sands Expo center. This place is huge, although apparently it is a small venue for VagueAss. 3 days inside, talking to people about the new stuff, chatting it up. My two favorites of the show this year were the Bike Pipe (which is a chromed plastic tailpipe that attaches to your chainstay and has a spoke thwacker, like a baseball card except plastic, for that full moto sound) and the CyclesLaFemme wool jerseys. Jennifer has a good design eye. Her stuff looks sort of like Swobo. Ah, Swobo, how I mess ye. I also liked all things Rivendell, especially Grant's newest pet project, sidewall colors sections (alternating blue and green on one half, yellow and red on the other or something) for ruffy tuffies and roly polies that when they spin make different colors and patterns, sort of. I spoke with him about doing them with Sweetskins technology so they could have the benefit of being reflective, making for a blindingly trippy wednesday night ride. Funny how I never like any of the new shiny high tech offerings. I like the weird stuff, maybe because no one else is doing it.
Spent a lot of evenings out late. Our boys 4130 played with a few other bands (including the ever loud Lane Eight) at the Double Down Saloon, a dirty little punk bar in the middle of Gay Town. This year the official reason was for BTI's 10th anniversary, although there is always some reason. Last year, 4130 got bumped for Nebula. Yes, really. But not only did our boys throw down and rock the shit out of that place, the MPLS Mafia was in full effect. Gen-u-wine mosh pit, sweaty bodies, lots of alcohol fueled fun. Lots of the usual suspects to reconnect with. Shouts to Spaceman and Drew, Cheevil, Jeff Holt, Chipps (where was Sarah this year, mate?), and many others. Leeche Yang and the band of wild Taiwanese showed, with Leeche getting shoved out into the pit, only to emerge unscathed and shove Grayboy, Surly honcho, into the mass. Leeche is my new hero. More later.

we've just returned from another healthy dose of las vegas and the interbike convention. that wonderful american culture melting pot is still thriving. i guess if you want to get away from talking about bikes all day, vegas has plenty of other things to do.
so you've been asking about our new Long Haul Trucker touring frame for 2004. at this time we haven't even pedalled the prototypes yet, we're not quite sure what the final tire clearances will be, the final geomtery, the tube wall thicknesses, how it rides, how much it will weigh, when it will be available. i'm glad to see your enthusiasm towards this project, but it will likely be 4-5 months before it is available in the bike shops. why? we work on projects until there is no doubt we've nailed the geometry and spec's we desired. we beat the crap out of our prototypes until we know it's tough enough and it rides well.
the initial information on this frameset is on our new website in the new products section. it's also available in a printable catalog format from the website. this website is brand new and is work-in-progress. if you have significant issues with something, let us know. if you're a web designer with too many opinions, lay off. we're still working on it and things will improve.
we also have the new Large Marge rim for snow/sand/whatever riding. this will also likely be about 4-6 months away from final production. the prototypes at the show haven't even been laced up and ridden yet. so stay tuned.

I was riding in today, through Hyland park, when I came across a woman, her bulldog/pitbull mix (the other bitch), and the woman's son in a stroller. They were walking down the paved bike path. The dog was not on a leash.
I stopped next to the woman, and informed her, nicely, that pets are not allowed on the paved trails, and that dogs must be leashed on the designated dog-walking trails....as the dog jumped up on the front of my bike. Sometimes, people honestly don't know the rules, or they are lost, looking for the dog-walking trail. That's understandable, so I find it's best to let people know what the rules are, and I point them in the right direction. Usually, the prevents negative confrontation. Not this time.
She hesitantly put the dog on it's leash and started with the attitude. "Who made you the trail police? I don't feel comfortable walking without my dog." I suggested she walk elsewhere, asked her why the rules don't apply to her, and explained the possible concequences of a cyclist running into her dog. She told me to "F#%! Off".
I reminded her that her son is listening and watching this whole scene. That set her off even more, and she threatened to unleash her dog on me. Idle threat, of course.
I finally said, "You are obviously the poster child for great parenting and setting a good example, keep up the good work", and I rode off. She shouted something like, "Oh, and you're so great". Good comeback.
It's really unfortunate that people like her are allowed to reproduce. What a fantastic role model.

-Dave

Mr. Control (supreme Taiwanese rip-off and duplicate master) is making a cheap, crappy copy of the 2nd generation Singleator. It looks the same as ours, but it sucks ass. It's sloppy (Tolerances? We don't need no stinkin' tolerances!), and it only comes with one spring...push-down. You get what you pay for.

what's the difference between BEER nuts and DEER nuts? BEER nuts are $1.29, DEER nuts are just under a buck.

wednesday. dacquiri night? mmmm. cold here suddenly. ok, not so suddenly. it happens every year. but it was 20 degrees warmer a week ago. frost last night. zoinks.
so the idea came up: wednesday night ride sometime to end as a sleepover in the park up the road from work. wake up, ride in a mile or so, come in to work and catch one in the yarbles. hung over (drunk?) at work on a thursday. ouch.
another idea at lunch today. a sports bar type place that looks just like work. an office with flourescent lighting and work cubes. you order drinks by faxing your order to the bar. you communicate with your friends through inter-"office" email. you sit alone. you drink alone. so sad.