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Surly don't put any rustproofing inside their frames at the factory
I thought Surly were ED coating their frames now, but it looks as if they've only done it to the ECR, Ice Cream Truck and Straggler.
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It comes with Surly hubs right? At least the QR conversion is just a case of removing the bolts and popping a skewer in...
BareNecessities
atk
@lae
Built up my Krampus Ops at the weekend and took it for a good ride yesterday.
The first thing I did was strip it back down to a bare frame - Surly don't put any rustproofing inside their frames at the factory, which is mighty inconvenient for us, and possibly a bit silly since most people won't bother to do it. So half a litre of linseed oil carefully injected into every hole using an old brake bleeding kit - 99% ended up on the patio but no biggie, I used the natural stuff. I was surprised at how light the bare frame was - the tubing is definitely thinner-walled than my Inbred.
The Surly offset cranks seem good quality and aren't particularly heavy. The modular dropout system is a great idea - the dropouts are held very securely by a couple of what look like chainring bolts.
I tubelessed up the wheels using the split-tube method. People recommend laying down gorilla tape from bead-to-bead before putting in the liner and the tube... well, I didn't see why that would help so I did an experiment, and only put tape on the rear (I used 50mm electrical tape). There may be something in the idea because the front hasn't settled down. I used some old thick blue sealant (can't remember the brand) but my mechanic friend says Stan's works better for ghetto tubeless.
Annoyingly I couldn't fit my Elixir CRs because the hose entry on the caliper fouls the spokes, due to the massive rim width. It seems current SLX and XT brakes run the hose entry on the outboard side so they should fit.
There are a couple of things that annoyed me slightly. The first is the painfully cheap finishing kit - the Salsa bar is fine, but the seatpost, saddle, grips, and stem feel like something off of a Halfords special. I fitted a 60mm Truvativ stem, FSA777 bars, ODI Vans grips, an old BBB seatpost, and a Romin saddle. The second thing that annoys me is the lack of a QR on the front wheel, and the third thing is the rearward-facing seatpost slot (which reminds me of a fourth thing - no QR on the seatpost collar). I know these are only little things, but it's not cheap bike and it would be nice to get them as standard - I can't imagine anyone who buys one not upgrading to QRs!
For the ride we first went to the Switchback Track (in Dunedin NZ). It's pretty rocky and rooty but the bike just absolutely barrels along these sections without a hint of slowing down. There are also a few hucks which the bike responds to well (after some adjustment from my old 9kg singlespeed). As the name suggests there are a lot of very tight switchbacks which the long-wheelbased bike did not handle particularly well, although the amount of grip meant it was my balance and nerve limiting me rather than the tyres. The bars might need trimming as I had to really squirm through the trees a couple of times, too.
The second part of the ride was at Bethune's Gully, which has no tight switchbacks (hurrah) and it quite open. It's fast and rough with a lot of technical drop-offs and roll-offs. The climbs are very steep and super-rooty, but the bike seems to get up anything you can pedal with no difficulties at all. I think the bike really shone here - being rigid you still have to choose your lines carefully, but the long-low-slack geo works really well for this kind of terrain, and I found it so much more rewarding than an FS bike, so long as you don't mind being a little slower.