Thursday, October 30, 2008

Excited but Fearful

Surly has announced complete Big Dummy long bikes for next year, supposedly available in December. They also will have a complete Karate Monkey configuration. This is great news for those of us who like to promote the brand's quirky mix of affordability, versatility and performance, but it also means they have more and more inventory in the pipeline. They're getting big. Will they reach an awkward age and get a whole new bunch of cooler friends?

To make matters worse, they've given me dropout envy, too. They're redesigning the dropouts on the Cross Check and the Long Haul Trucker. The Check gets nice, long ones with double eyelets.

The Cross Check has always had some form of long dropout, but some years were longer than others. Initially they only had one eyelet, too, though the past several versions have had doubles. My green one only had singles on fairly long dropouts. The cellist's red frame has double eyelets, but fairly short dropouts.

The Trucker still has VD*, which limits my interest, but the upgrades to it sound nice anyway. I like building them for other people.

Probably many months will pass before I get to build any bikes for anyone. The shop has shifted over to Nordic ski mode. We wait to see how the season treats us.


*Vertical Dropouts

2 comments:

Lazy Bike Commuter said...

It makes me sad that they are not putting disc mounts on the LHT and CC.

Not that it would give me disc mounts, but still.

I can think of zero reason not to have them. (especially positioned like the Salsa Fargo, so that they don't interfere with racks)

cafiend said...

I just can't warm up to the idea of disc mounts on the Cross Check. Disc brakes look bulky down there. Maybe for a loaded tourer they could make some sense. But a lot of riders have logged a lot of miles with loads on bikes with rim brakes.

The stays would have to be beefy enough to support braking loads, too. I say leave that for the heavier bikes. I like the build on the complete Big Dummy.