If you live in or near the UK, or plan to be in or near the UK, with your bicycle, the weekend of June 9/10, and particularly if you like to toss back a few (dozen), then you should probably read what Shaggy has to say:

"As of today entries for the 13th annual Single Speed UK championships are open.

A lot has changed since the inaugural championship in Stow on The Wold. Back then ten racers fought it out with Bristol local Steve Worland taking the win. The result could have been different if it hadn't been for the bullmoose bars falling off of the bodged Klein road bike that, early leader, Cookie was racing. This years event is expected to sell all 200 entries in advance of the event, but the racing is bound to be of the same calibre- ranging from terrifyingly fast to slow, inept and hung-over!

The tradition of singlespeed events is that the race isn't necessarily the focus of the event - just something to do to slow down your drinking!
Suffice to say there will be plenty of other things going on:

As free camping is provided Friday until Sunday there is no reason not to make a weekend of it.

Entries are £25 and available online at www.SSUK07.com. Subscribe to the mailing list to keep up to date with any news.

Hope to see you there,
Shaggy"

Right, so there's that.

I think this is pretty interesting.

SSAZ07


One of the smarter things I've done this winter was commit to doing a race in Arizona in early February. That didn't really mean I had to race, since racing can often take the fun out of a good ride and the last race I did was an 8-beer DNF four years ago, it just means riding on dirt without getting frostbitten.

"I can't support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it's their own fault at the end of the day."

-Rob FordToronto City Councillor
Email: councillor_ford@toronto.ca

HELP US FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT

We urge all friends of the bike to send a message to Mr. Ford explaining why he is way off-base. We recommend that you don't use any threatening terms or obscenities, as hard as that may be to do.

This message was forwarded from our friend Dale at Kona Bikes.

Japan

Let's just start by saying that Japan is a wonderful country. Hands down, they are the most polite people I've ever met. The cities are clean, the crime rate is low, the food is good, the mass transit infrastructure is very efficient and there is a beautiful landscape to back it all up.

Since a good chunk of Surly's business is done in Japan, all 5 of us embarked on a trip to find out why so many like-minded people exist in a land so far away. We visited our distributor in Nagoya and bike shops in Kurashiki, Hiroshima, Kyoto and Tokyo. All said, we probably visited 15 bike shops. Most of what we saw was quite different from American shops, in that they had about 1/2 or 1/3 the space to work in. That meant you could stand in one spot for about 5 minutes looking at all the stuff hanging on the walls and ceiling. The amazing thing was that these shops had more old American mountain bike stuff from the early 1990's than anywhere else. When is the last time you saw brand new Mantis Flying V's (plural)? Or brand new Paul's front derailleurs (plural)? Or brand new 1st generation XTR ?

The highlight of the week for me was in Kyoto, where we met about 100 messengers for an alleycat event called Chie Matsuri. For one, I'm no messenger. For two, I'm no racer. Fortunately, all it required was the ability to not get lost in a foreign city with a severe language barrier where they drive on the opposite side of the road. No problem, gimme that manifest and map.

My first stop was literally about a 9-minute bike ride, had I known exactly where it was. But it took me about an hour because I was lost and riding in circles. But as long as I was going to be lost, it may as well be in a beautiful city that is very bike friendly. Eventually, I spotted a guy riding a Steamroller that I'd met earlier in the day. I flagged him down and asked by pointing at a map if he could help. He rode me straight to the location I'd been circling for the last hour and I found my marker, a pig statue water fountain. I was so happy to have found it, I offered him the last swig of real Absinthe I had in my flask. He downed it real fast and the look on his face was priceless. The rest of the day went as usual, we finished only 2 of 5 manifests, started drinking beer early, found some food, went to the afterparty, taught people to play Bear/Ninja/Cowboy, then had a memorable rain ride back to the hotel.

But perhaps the best thing about the whole trip was that we met and rode with good people, who are just like American versions of our best friends. Thanks to everybody who took us into their homes and showed us the Japanese way of life.

I could tell a thousand more stories, which might be better told through our 60 pages of photos found here Surly's Japan trip

Attention new Steamroller complete bike owners

We got our first round of Steamroller complete bikes in stock recently and noticed the cog and lockring was installed without grease on some of them. I know, we're saying the same thing, "why the fu<%?"

So please remove your cog and lockring, apply some good grease, then reinstall. As always with fixed gears, ride it once, check the lockring, ride it five times, check the lockring, then check the lockring once a month.

We apologize for the inconvenience and want you to know it's been addressed at the factory.

Thanks

Brother David is Hometown Hero, Patriot. Young Man Brings Pride to Waconia.

Do you want to read about the time little Dave added a motor to his skateboard? Take a look at "Beyond the Breaking Point", the Waconia Patriot's nearly 3,000 word story about Dave and his Arrowhead adventure.

http://www.waconiapatriot.com/articles/2007/03/14/waconia_patriot/news/news03.txt

In other news it was 81 degrees here yesterday. The handling on my road ride has been really sketchy since I put on a new stem and handlebar a couple weeks back. I was starting to think that I had lost any semblance of handling skills over the long winter. On the insanely beautiful ride home last night I realized it's because the handy centering stamp in the middle of my new bars is about three inches to the left of center. You'd think I would have noticed this earlier, but no. Apparently I trust the automated stamping process more than my own sense of balance. After I moved the bars to their actual center, I regained the ability to steer my bike.

I'd love to take a week off every month and go camping somewhere, but it's not possible with my work and family responsibilities. I have, however, found a way to keep my out-of-doors skills sharp and use some of my camping gear....The bike-camping overnighter.

On Saturday, I rode 36km to the Arrowhead 135 Survivors Party in White Bear Lake, a suburb of the Twin Cities. Not wanting to ride home after the gathering because of the forecast of impending thundershowers, I packed to camp out after the shindig instead of riding all the way home in the rain and stream of buzzed motorists.

I have a new lightweight single-pole tipi-style tent, a Golite Hex 3, that I needed to test somewhere other than the backyard. It's big enough for me, my gear, and my bike. It's nice to have room for the bike when the weather turns foul. Eventually, I'll sew in a stove jack (for cool-weather camping with a woodburning stove) and snow flaps, but those projects will probably wait until fall. My Kifaru 4-man tipi is sweet, but it does weigh more than the Golite, and it takes up more ground space. When I have limited room in my bags and potentially limited area to pitch a tent, the Golite is a better option.

An overnight doesn't require much gear, so I didn't need much carrying capacity. I packed up my fixed Pacer (built with Karate Monkey track ends), fitted with a lowrider rack, waterproof front panniers, and a large Jandd seat pack, and headed out in the humid 60-degree air. I had a great ride; I was really happy that I'd opted to take the bike instead of driving the car.




When the festivities ended, I rode a few miles south to a somewhat hidden area in a small wooded park. Very light rain was falling. I set up the Hex 3, put all my gear (including my bike) inside the tent, and squared away my home for the evening. I was tired from the ride and evening's events, so I got into my 40-degree down bag and fell asleep soon after. I woke up when heavy rain started falling at 3am. The heavy showers continued for a few hours.

I got up around 7:30am and inspected the inside of the tent for leaks and condensation. There was condensation on the inside of the tent, but that would have been an issue with any tent in the humid, rainy conditions of Sunday morning. Overall, I was happy with the Golite's performance. I'm looking forward to using it on future warm- and cold-weather adventures.




I broke camp and was on the road home by 8:15am. My campout was short and sweet...exactly what I needed. And it fit almost seemlessly into my weekend schedule.

This year, I'm going to make an effort to camp out more, mid-week, along my commute routes. Over the last 9 years of riding to and from the office, I've noted dozens of sites where I can camp comfortably and discreetly. Stealth, leave-no-trace city/suburb camping is a great, efficient, inexpensive way to get a quick camping fix when there isn't enough time to travel outside of the city for extended R and R.

Surly Employee of the Month



One of the behind-the-scenes guys here at Surly for the last 7 years was Josh "Yafro" Yablon. As head engineer, he designed almost every Surly frameset, as well as many of the other products. He had a hand in almost everything we've ever produced and helped us all with the intricacies of engineering, design and manufacturing. Aside from the geeky stuff, he was always been one to banter about anything, be it politics or punk rock.

But all good things must come to an end. He accepted a position as engineer for Fox Racing Shocks in Santa Cruz, California and is moving in just a few days. The first day he wasn't here in the office, I overheard three other people besides myself utter the words "I wish Josh was here". It's true, you never fully appreciate people until they're gone.

Yafro, we'll miss you, thanks for all the great work you've done for Surly and thanks for being a friend and fixture in the Mpls bike scene. Stay pissed off.

Product ETAs

Boring boring ETAs, I know, you want a trip report from Japan last week. That'll have to wait until we compile our photos. Soon, my pretties, soon. Until then, here is what is coming in stock soon.

• Steamroller complete bikes- Maroon/Chocolate color, all sizes in stock today or tomorrow.
• Cross-Check framesets- Misty Mountain Grey color, all sizes except 62cm in stock now. 62cm coming this summer.
• Cross-Check complete bikes- Misty Mountain Grey color, all sizes except 50 and 52cm coming early April. 50 and 52cm should be ready mid-April.
• Pacer framesets- Silver Bullet color, 42, 54, 56 and 58cm in stock now. 46, 50, 52, 60 and 62cm coming mid-April.
• Karate Monkey- Hüsker Blü color, all sizes in stock now.
• Long Haul Trucker complete bikes- Utility Blue color only, all sizes coming mid-April.
• Pugsley- Thunderhead Grey color, coming mid-April.

Also

• The Mr.Whirly crank is still heavily in the developement stage and we're riding prototypes now (no, we don't need test riders). So at this point, it's looking like at least August before they are available.
• Larger sized stainless chainline production is just beginning in the next few weeks. So it won't be until May, or more likely June, until they are available.

If there is anything else we missed, let us know.

Surly vs. Godzilla

You might have heard we were in Japan for the past couple of weeks. Or you might have thought we were dead, as the blog was not maintained while we were away.

Anyway, we went to Japan, thought about kicking Godzilla's ass, but in the end were won over by the sadness in his misunderstood gaze. We damn fell in love with the little guy, truth be told.

There will be long blog reports posted in the coming week(s), but we are all now trying to catch up on all the stuff we didn't get done while we were away.

I figure I'd better share at least one picture I took during the trip.



Perhaps if you never saw another picture from our trip this one would tell you pretty much all you need to know.

If you want to see more pics, we just started a Surly flickr page. Find it HERE

A lot of pictures have been uploaded already but there will be tons more uploaded in the near future, and we will be adding comments and stuff too, so check back often. And, if you wanna leave your own comments you are welcome to do so, just so long as you promise to keep them clean. This is a family show afterall.

Big Dummy Progress

It's looking more like August until we'll see the Big Dummy here in stock. Why?

We originally had one single prototype built before the Interbike tradeshow in October. This bike ended up getting ridden by Dave and myself for about 6-8 weeks before we decided to make some changes. Dave is still putting huge miles on this 1st proto, despite t-boning a car and raking the headtube a few months ago.

Those changes ended up on the second round of prototypes, which we started riding in January. Having 8 prototypes altogether, there were enough to go around the office so we were all able to give our input on performance, geometry and any other small or large thing that needed changing. As it has turned out, they rode great and exceeded my personal expectations. But there were a few more things, mostly subtle, that we wanted changed.

So now we're having a third round of prototypes built soon and will likely start riding those around the end of May. It takes this long because there are tooling changes necessary and it simply takes that long to build, paint and ship.

The most important thing is that when we approve this bike for production, we're 100% positive it's exactly what we want in a longtail cargo bike. We hope it's worth the wait.

As for color, we still don't know what color it'll be. But barring the unforeseen 4th round of prototypes, these monsters should be in stores around August of this year. Thanks for being patient.

I decided to work from home yesterday, because a snow storm was looming large over my 'hood. I've done plenty of 2+ hour, 16-mile snowy slogs to and from the office over the years. It can be fun, but I wasn't in the mood to play that game. Shoveling snow, alone, would be enough exercise for the day.

Today was a different story, however. Most of the storm has passed, many of the roads and paths have been plowed, and most of the metro-area schools are closed...meaning breeders are at home taking care of their kids, instead of being on the roads. It's a perfect day to be a bicycle commuter on a Stoke'd, Large Marge'd Big Dummy.



Minneapolis and the surrounding areas have seen about 30cm (12 inches) of snow from this last storm. The snowplow crews have been anticipating Old Man Winter's blustery money shot, and they've been working throughout the storm to move the snow off the main roads and bike paths. Most roads are in surprisingly good shape, overall. I got to work in 65 minutes. That's faster than my average winter commute.

I attribute my speed to a tail wind, the aforementioned good roads and lack of traffic, and a little snow under my tires. Most of you know what it's like to roll knobbies on the road. Aggressive tires tend to add resistance to a vehicle and slow it down a bit. The thin layer of snow under my tires dissipated the pressure to more of the area between the knobs, diminishing my rolling resistance. Or, maybe, I was just pedaling a little harder because I was enjoying my ride a little more than usual.

There was postive energy in the air, today. People were shoveling and blowing snow from their driveways and sidewalks as I rode along my route. Neighbors were helping neighbors. Kids were playing in the drifts and snowbanks, building snowmen, and packing down the runs on sledding hills. It brought back fond memories of my childhood...when snowstorms were a regular part of a Minnesota winter. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

As you may also be experiencing, Minnesota is getting knocked up side the head with a blast of snow. Big, heavy snow -and lots of it- falling, or more properly, being blown at us from big, heavy clouds, the northern part of a system producing killer tornadoes down in the southern U.S.
The really big stuff came down yesterday afternoon and after a short respite picked up again in the evening. Many people rode bicycles in this because it still beats being in a car. One of them was our big friendly bearded hippie lawyer Matt Moore, who sends this ride report:

My ride home. I would say top five toughest. Old Shakopee still has some of the inch thick ice surface from yesterday although they are hitting it with a three plow conga line this morning (Airport!). Basically I rode on the ice for about six miles before getting to packed snow on Portland and 12th Avenue. Not so bad as cars were few and gave me the whole right lane, plus they were only going about five mph faster then me anyway. Four flashers gets it done!! No honkers but a couple rebel yells. Last half was basically a whiteout but 12th was pretty well plowed and good traction in the areas where nobody had driven (or was driving at the time) even though there was a couple inches of snow. Going over 494 - felt just a tiny bit sorry for the motorists parked there. Most people I saw were driving snowblowers. Hey don't throw that stuff out here! The wind finally wore me down the last mile or so but I knew I was almost home so I just kept 'em turning.

Got home in just under an hour (11-12 miles) with a big snowdrift in my beard and probably the longest beardsicle ever - maybe 5 inches. I'll bring in a photo next week.

Tough way to get a couple commuter credits but fun to joust with Mother Nature. No I am not doing the Arrowhead 135. I might be crazy but I'm not nuts.

********************************************************************************

Beardcicles are cool. Matt's tuff.


I'd like to plug a magazine. Wend (as in: to go your own way) documents those living the active and in many cases difficult lives of global travelers, adventurers, and various other of life's flotsam. In the two issues I have so far read, Wend has printed riveting narratives, well written, with good photos and a minimum of fluff. Part two of the Vancouver-To-Vancouver 'round the globe by human power story in the latest issue in particular is a fascinating read. I was especially taken by the accompanying photos, almost looking melted, which turned out to be some of the photos recovered from the film after the camera had been accidentally dunked. They are eerily techy and trashy, fuzzy but light, awash in greens, and evocative in feel of the narrative: unique, colorful, somewhat difficult and not altogether accessible but worth examination. Very cool stuff.

ETAs

Misty Mountain Grey Cross-Check framesets should be in stock for the 1st time later today, all sizes except 42 and 62cm at this time. Those two sizes should just be a few more weeks.

Long Haul Trucker complete bikes should be in stock in about 6 weeks. All sizes will be available, Utility Blue color only.