I know, I know. More than one blog post in a month? Are we on speed or something?

Here's the sitch:
The 1x1 Rat Ride, later renamed the Surly 1x1, was our very first frame. Holy crap. When was that? A lot has probably happened since then. We thought about it for a while with our tongues sticking out, sat down, chewed on our pencil stubs, did the math, and discovered that in the universal language of mathematics there is a simple equation to explain it.

1x1=11.

Hard to believe but Surly turns eleven years old this year.

Hardened blackhearts though we are, we nonetheless felt that a little nod to our staying power and your support over the years was in order. No, we're not buying you all drinks. In fact you'd need to buy this bike with real money. Still, we think many of you will take one look and agree it is fully rad. Consider, for example, 24 x 3" slicks on Large Marge rims. If that don't rev your deal you might need to check your pulse.











Though I am linking the associated webpage where you will find all you need to know about the Rat Ride 11 year anniversary bike, I feel the need to highlight that this is not necessarily a collector's piece. It is super fun to ride. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up and not letting it rot away protected from harm. Ride it. Love it. Go here for specs and and text. Please note that the photo is of a prototype and shows silver spokes and white hotpatches on the tires. The production version has red hotpatches and black spokes.

They are in stock now. Call up your local shop. Remember: there are not a ton of them available, and once they're gone they're gone.

Alright, back to my whitecross.

We need to talk. I'm going to get this off my chest or else I will harbor resentment for something you probably aren't even aware you're doing (maybe not you, but someone you know). Unawareness is what mistakes are all about. I make mistakes all the time. I type too fast, don't proofread, etc. I get it. But seriously, when you use our name in print, like for an ad or something, try to get it right. Here is a short list of common errors. Print it out and keep it handy the next time you log on to praise or complain about us, and especially when you write to ask us for free stuff. It'll make you look smarter.

1) Surly, our name. No E. Not surely (surely you jest), not shirley, not surley (you're thinking of Burley perhaps?). A quick check of the definition of the word that is our name may help you understand things better: [sur-lee] –adjective, 1. churlishly rude or bad-tempered 2. unfriendly or hostile; menacingly irritable 3. dark or dismal; menacing; threatening. Get it? Got it? Good.

2) Mr. Whirly, our crankset. Same rule applies. No E. Not Whirley.

3) Pugsley, our snow/sand/grandpa's face frame. I can see where this might get confusing, but there are no variations of the spelling of this word that I am aware of, except perhaps for misspellings. Frankly, how people arrive at 'Surley Pugsly' is beyond me. Oddly, I have never noticed a single misspelling of Big Dummy. Ironic, isn't it?

Learn it. Know it. Live it.

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This may be more of a command than a warning.

It's humpday. As Wednesdays are neither here nor there anyhow, and since my brain is flummoxed by a lingering cold simultaneous to an impending visit from a local media luminary, which I hope will result in a 'marketunity', I offer up the following with no particular purpose in mind.



Yup. And here's one more from offcenter. I have no explanation exactly, but again: it's Wednesday. I just think they all go really well together. Have a real good day now.

"You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody's crazy."
-Charles Manson

"I don't like food that's too carefully arranged; it makes me think that the chef is spending too much time arranging and not enough time cooking. If I wanted a picture I'd buy a painting."
-Andy Rooney

“I had a horse in Mexico one time that I rode. He was just bones when I got him. I started feeding him bread and everything else. I called him Bimbo after the bread down there. "Here Bimbo," and he'd come running. He knew me, God bless him. I often wondered what happened to him."
-Ernest Borgnine

Don't pick fights, but stand up for your rights.

If good is the enemy of great, then what is better:

greater good?

or

gooder great?

Which begs the question, why isn't gooder a word?

Don't hurt yourself.

Word-for-word parody of early 90s Susan Powter excercise video made by the utterly surreal Nagi Noda.



More Nagi Noda:




You're absolutely right. Go for a ride.

Curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to test the viability of using Co2 cartridges to fill Endomorph tires. So I fully deflated both Endomorphs on my Pug after last night’s ride through the slush-filled park. Then, I used the entire contents of a 40 gram Genuine Innovations CO2 cylinder, with a Planet Bike Red Zeppelin inflator head, to put 6.5 PSI back into the rear tire. Two 16oz Planet Bike CO2 cartridges brought the front tire up to 6.5 PSI using the same inflator head. I prefer to run 18 – 20 PSI on the road, so I assumed the position and put 240 pumps, from the Topeak Mountain Morph, into each tire to get them up to road pressure for the remaining portion of my commute home.

CO2 is not a great option for Endomorph inflation UNLESS you are really lazy, have money to burn, broke your pump, are in a big hurry (competitive racing for a huge wad of cash or late for a fancy dinner with Celine Dion at Olive Garden), or absolutely have to find out how foolish it is to carry CO2 cartridges in lieu of a good high-volume pump. At a retail level, one would have to spend $12.00 - $15.00 to get off the trail at 6.5 PSI. That’s damn squishy and slow on anything but soft/loose snow or sand. 6.5 PSI sucks on hard surfaces. It would cost $25 - $30 to get up to a reasonable road/hardpack pressure. Though the price goes down a bit if you buy cartridges in bulk, CO2 is a poor substitute for a decent pump or reliable riding partners who carry decent pumps and whiskey.

Lay it down, clown.

I think this event falls under the category of The Duck Getting It On With The Weasel, and that is one show you don't want to miss. If you live in, near, on, around, under, beside, toward, below, across, within or among Bellingham, WA, go to this event with your favorite sweetheart bicycle this weekend. Unless you are a drafty uptight codger you will have fun. I know this because I know one of the guys putting this on, and he knows a lot about having fun.

And oh yeah: dress like a clown. Go Bozo, it's your birfday.

Also happening in the world
Our man in South Africa, Paul, sends news of his latest outing, proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is some serious riding happening in his little corner of the world:

"Just got back from a three day race in KwaZulu-Natal, starting at the foot of our largest mountain range, the Drakensberg, and ending 260km and nearly 5000m of climbing later at the seaside resort of Scottburgh. The 1x1 was hassle free through plantations, cane fields, rivers and forests. Best of all, probably half of it was singletrack. We descended twice into the Umkomaas valley down switchbacks like saddle leather, polished by indigenous cattle. We carried our bikes through the Umzimvubu River four times and waded through calf-deep mud more often than I care to recall. We climbed a hill called ‘Hlekabafazi’ which translates literally as ‘Cackling Women’, but is nothing more harmful than the Zulu name for a red-billed hoopoe, one of which we saw right there. As we approached our destination the signs of human habitation were disappointingly obvious – a small sand-mining operation, concrete weirs, roads, and worst of all litter. We eventually spilled out onto the beach where the organizers had kindly made a path from forklift pallets. Before we were home we crossed a lagoon on one last floating bridge. Unfortunately the guy ahead of me was a triathlete, so he went off the right and his departure sent a sine wave straight at me and I took a dive off the left. I’m stripping the bike down now, and while the frame’s like this I’m thinking of a new paintjob. My buddy suggests ‘Hakkalugi Green’ but I’m tending towards ‘Laguna Cola’.
There you go."


Red-billed Hoopoe

















And how.

The 3.8 liter paint can was purchased to become a woodstove project...at least a year ago. A little pestering from my son, Noah, was the incentive to finally make it happen.

On Friday morning, Noah helped me modify the can to accept a chimney (a 30cm x 130cm sheet of stainless steel rolled into a tube) and my .8 liter stainless steel Klean Kanteen water bottle. A Dremel tool, with a flexible shaft and an assortment of bits, was the ticket for this particular operation. At 1:00pm we pointed east toward the Mississippi river with the stove, tarp, short sleeping pad, food, extra clothes, and my survival kit in a Golite Jam 2 pack. The temperature hovered around 10C, but it seemed warmer while the sun laid down a fat swath of bright light through the cloudless sky.

After a 12-block march, via sidewalks and streets, to the river valley and a 30-minute hike upriver in 15cm of fresh snow, we found a spot that was perfectly suited for a simple tarp shelter. Noah hunted for wood while I set up our home base for the afternoon. It took 10 minutes to construct a reliable windblock, from the 150cm x 218cm reflective emergency blanket, and assemble the stove.




Little time was needed for my firestarter, a Vaseline-covered cotton ball, to coax a pile of small twigs into a respectable blaze. Once the chimney starts to draw heat upward, it pulls oxygen into the firebox and perpetuates the combustion process. I eased the stainless water bottle into its warm home in the top of the stove and inserted the cap without threading it in. 8 minutes later, we had 700 ml of boiling water to rehydrate some noodles for lunch. In another 8 minutes, the Kanteen provided more hot water for making cocoa and coffee and washing dishes.

After lunch, Noah played in the snow while I stoked the fire and made notes about the stove’s performance. I designed a door and made the decision to remove the can handle to shave some grams and facilitate easier packing.

On Sunday, the hinged, latchable door was fabricated from the bottom of a coffee can and some common hardware bits. The door doesn’t make the stove airtight, but it does create a beneficial venturi effect that fans the flames when the door is shut. And it keeps glowing embers from jumping out of the firebox onto one’s clothes and gear.



Steel brake cable, attached to a section of 1.5mm rope, is used to keep the chimney anchored and upright between the shelter and a tree or stake. A stainless steel drain strainer is placed on top of the chimney and used as a spark arrester.



I suspect that heat and corrosion will eat away at the thin steel of the paint can and create holes and cracks after a dozen uses. But it’s an easy, thrifty way to experiment with lightweight, portable woodburners. Eventually, I’ll create my ideal firebox out of stainless steel. Until then, I’ll utilize free and/or inexpensive materials to test my theories and fine-tune my designs.