It's that time again. The Interbike cycle industry tradeshow once again looms large over the skies of Lost Wages, Nevada, which means that we'll be out for a week or so. We won't be checking voicemails or email, so you're just going to have to sit and stare longingly at the Pugsley until we're back, unless you're going to Interbike, then you can see it in person.
Feel free to write or call us with questions, insults, astonished gasps, etc. just be prepared to wait a while for an answer. Cheers!

More photos of Pugsley...

I can recall riding the Large Marge rim prototypes last winter through some snow and thinking, we need bigger tires and a bigger frame to ride through this stuff. Since the 1x1 I was on only fit a 3.0" tire up front and a 2.7" on the rear, these were the limits in which we tried to ride with. When I got to work the following monday, Brother David Sunshine shared the exact same thoughts. Bigger would be better.

Just to let you all know what we've been working on and inform you that we, at Surly, have all gone off the deep edge, this is our very first sneak peak of the prototype frameset we snappily call, Pugsley. It has tire clearance for 4" tires, which we're also working on. Pictured here with the Large Marge rim with a Nokian Gazzaloddi 3.0" tire and there is plenty of clearance for something with more girth.










In order to get that much tire clearance, we had to use a 100mm wide bottom bracket shell. But since this created poor chainlines issues, we offset the rear hub 17.5mm to match up the front and rear chainlines. The other thing odd about this bike is the matching 135mm spaced offset fork. This allows you to interchange front and rear wheels for gear changes on singlespeeds or if your freewheel/freehub froze up. We are going to make 17.5mm offset adapters for wheelbuilding ease as well.

What's the point? The point is, bigger tires float over stuff, allow you to ride lower pressures and achieve major traction through soft things like snow, sand, loose gravel, downed branches, ball crawls, little brothers, or whatever gets in your way. We plan to get rideable samples in the near future and test them this winter on the snow and ice.

When will it be available and how much will it cost you ask? We have no idea at this point. At the very soonest, we'll have framesets available next summer. We expect it to be the most expensive Surly in our line up due to all the weird shaped tube bending tooling and jig fixturing equipment we need to buy. It'll be available in 16", 18" and 20" sizes. The color is not definite, although the metallic Barney purple is growing on us.

I know what you're saying: "where is the motor?" "how much does it weigh?" "that's the most stoopid thing I've seen since 3.0 standard headsets". Well, you are the motor, it weighs .017310 tons, and it's only stoopid in a good way.

This is what happens when you live in a climate with 5 months of winter and alot of frozen lakes. Hopefully more photos will surface on the internet after the Interbike tradeshow next week.

Since I moved into our new house 8 weeks ago, I've had three bikes U-locked inside the garage. Since our house is still a pig sty and we're living out of boxes, I cannot find the key to open the lock and bring the bikes inside. What? You can open U-locks with a Bic pen now? If you haven't already heard, some creative people found a way to open tubular shape keyed U-locks with a bic pen. Seriously, I'm not kidding, it's a big deal!

So I go to the hardware store and buy a pack of Bic pens to free my bikes. But I soon realize the angle at which they are locked, it's nearly impossible to get a good grip on the pen to jam it in there.

Plan B: Dremel tool. Since the U-lock is now useless, why not hack it off with a dremel tool? I've always wanted to see how easy or hard this was. To my surprise, the dremel lopped it off in less than ten minutes and used one cut off wheel.

-Side note: You know those non-reinforced cutoff wheels that cut well but crumble to bits if you put a sideload on them? I found putting two of these together, side by side, totally makes them stiff and prevents them from crumbling to little pieces, love that!).

Now that my bikes were free, what should I do, NO, what should the whole world do with their useless U-locks? I say we use them for a nice game of horseshoes. Think of it, there could be leagues of U-lock horseshoe players based on the size and shape of the U-lock. The beginners could use the big wide sizes, while the pros would use the mini/courier/back pocket sized locks. I can't wait!

Usually I'm a pretty upbeat person. But I'm mad today. In fact, I've been mad since the last Presidential election. Perhaps you should be mad too. Sure, your life may not have been affected by 9/11 or the diminishing pristine forests in Alaska, but there is some serious shit happening with our government and it seems we Americans the only ones that aren't noticing. I don't like to preach, but we ALL need to start paying attention to more than income taxes and varied religious beliefs when it comes to voting this November 2nd. We need to listen to other people, get involved in political discussions with people who disagree with your viewpoint, get to know the enemy, gather your knowledge from other news and internet sources. If you listen to Al Franken everyday, try listening to Rush Limbaugh, or vice versa. Knowledge is power, apparently we are very smart.

Sorry for bumming you out, but this is reality, you need to start getting your friends and family to think about this.

OK, I'm laughing now because of this:
another pissed off person who is paying attention

It's on.

Yo, two things:

1) St Cloud MN has a small but vicious single speed culture festering like a large boil on the ass of the midwest. They sent this flyer for their Upper Midwest SS Championship. Timing sucks for those going to vegas for interbike, but should be a good time. These kids kow how to have fun. Remember to play Ninja/Grizzly Bear/Gunfighter for me fellas, and take photos.


2) Phaty, head bitch in charge of SSWC04, is putting on another race. He sends us this link. It is a single speed race below the surface of earth. And there's a bar down there. And a hotel above. 20% humidity, surface like that of Moab, 3000 ft below ground. If you're in or around Germany end of March or early April 2005, get in touch with Phaty by writing to phaty@gbbc.de and he'll hook you up, if there's still room. Sounds like there's a LOT of interest already. Maybe this is why. Eerie, huh?


That is all.

Please excuse us from our normal phone and e-mail answering duties for a bit. We're really busy and out of the office trying to get our crap together for the Interbike tradeshow. If you leave a message, we'll call you back. If you send an e-mail, it may take a day to get a response. Thanks for being patient. We'll think of something funny to say as soon as these big ass wood crates are on their way to Vegas.

If your liver hurt, would it feel worse than a pounding headache?

The dates are set for Singlespeed World Championships 2005 in State College, PA. August 20-21. More to cum...

Just an update on some stuff we just got in stock:

• Cross-check framesets in stock now
  
• Cross-check complete bikes in stock sometime today
  
• 1x1 framesets in stock now
  
• Long Haul Trucker framesets in stock now
  
• Large Marge 32h and 36h DH rims in stock now
  
• Stainless steel chainrings in stock in most sizes now
  

We've been out of stock on some of these for a while, mainly the Cross-check complete bikes, due to difficulties in getting components from the manufacturers. It's tough to sell a complete bike that isn't complete. So thanks for your patience and enjoy the upcoming 'cross season.

Kenny and Swervy paint an accurate picture of the SSWC week of events below.

There was, indeed, nakedness, late night/early morning hijinks, skidding, derbying, and non-life-threatening bloodshed....all in good fun. The riding is always good, but the diversity of attendees makes the event great. It's a world championship...meaning, once again, we got to party with single-speeders from different parts of the globe. Granted, many countries were not represented, but eventually we'll corrupt the entire planet and get everybody onboard. It's just a matter of time.

So, you SSWC virgins, plan on making the trip to Pennsylvania for the 2005 SSWC. You won't regret it. I'm confident that the planning and execution is in very good hands. A good time will be had by all who are not too serious. And, to all you international lurkers, it's time for you to show us your special flavor of whoopass. Japan? Where the hell have you been? Mexico? South America? Africa? C'mon. You need a vacation, anyway.

I, too, would like to thank the Germans for organizing a great 2004 SSWC event. Well done, friends.

I got a phone call this morning that put goosebumps on my arms. The 2005 Singlespeed World Championships are officially going to be held in State College, Pennsylvania, USA. As of now, a website and contact information are in the works. Once we find out more, we'll post it here on the Surlyblog. Now go start your training!