Surly

I have a good friend that came up with the idea that he and I ought to do a hundred mile ride each month of the year. I think I might have been dizzy from cough syrup when he mentioned it, or actually I might have been in the middle of that soaking wet 200 mile ride we did in September (yes, the 200 miler was also his idea). Well, I don't recall what my weakness was at the moment he mentioned it, but I let the idea pass without telling him that he was talking as though we lived a lot farther south than Minnesota. I can't say that I really reacted to the idea at all, but anybody in Minnesota will tell you that doing a century ride in January is out of the question... Downright Crazy!

The average low AND HIGH are way below freezing for the month of January. Well, no surprise then that our January century ride turned out to be cold...Really cold. We met at -5° F and at lunch time we were still in single digits (I think it was 7° by then). Thanks to both of us being purebred Minnesotans and me carrying an extra layer we managed to knock off the 100 miles without suffering hypothermia, or even frostbite.

To be honest, it was a blast. I saw a  gorgeous sundog (cold weather rainbow from bright sun and ice clouds) in the morning. The sky was a beautiful, bright blue and the snow was pure white. The farm houses looked cozy and the farm animals huddled together giving off clouds of steam from their breathing.

Check out the movie of the ride below. Sorry I didn't get more pictures, but I was definitely risking frostbite every time I took off my mitten to snap a couple pics, or videos.

The Details:

I rode a Bacchetta Giro 20TT and Derek was on is Surly Cross Check with Moustache bars. I used Schwalbe Marathon 1.5" tires and Derek ran 1-3/8" IRD Crossfire tires. Derek used clipless pedals/shoes while I opted for platform pedals and some thicker boots. We both suffered a bit from cold feet.

I started with 6 upper layers and 3 leg layers and Derek started with 5 upper layers and 2 lower layers. At the half-way point I had shed one layer and Derek needed one. Teamwork. While Lobster Gloves are pretty darned warm, they don't match the warmth of a pair of choppers (old school leather mitten outers with a pair of wool mitts inside). We switched these around a bit.

The Surly Karate Monkey is a well known machine in the world of 29ers (bikes with extra large 29" wheels). The horizontal dropouts are great for single speed, fixie or internal gear set ups, yet a derailleur hanger on the dropout makes it easy to add gears.

Chris digs his Karate Monkey a lot and came in ready to add a sweet rack and get some nice panniers for hauling a bit of his world around with him on his bike. The Tubus Logo was his rear rack of choice, but it looked like it would barely clear his rear tire (too low!) and being that he has a pair of bigger tires at home (to say nothing of fitting fenders to the bike) this tight clearance cannot be ignored.

Lucky for him he is well versed in a software program called Solidworks. He created a drawing of the hardware he needed to extend the height of the Logo Rack and then sent his drawing (as a digital file) to a machinist that made the hardware (and even anodized them blue to match his bike).

The disc brake side (pictured above) is using a 17mm Disco Rack Spacer (a Perennial Cycle custom product) as a way to clear the disc brake.

Very Nice work Chris!