A Surly collection: Straggler, 1x1, Steamroller and LHT

Part of L's birthday present involved some more sensible looking mudguards. Several weeks later and several hours wrangling with assorted bolts and nuts and fashioning spacers/extender plates we have one crappy indoor photo of the result!

Spacers were fashioned out of unused rack fittings and a bit of broken polo mallet. The seatstay bridge extender is too soft though, so I need to find a bit of stainless steel that would fit instead. She's pleased though as the whole thing does look a lot smarter now.

In other Surly news, the Karate Monkey has had a bit of an overhaul ready for a trip to the Lakes, more on that later.

Cheers for your help ,in cupcakes thread, giving ideas for racks, but having spoken to an engineer friend, have just ordered a nitto m18, and if it dont reach the mid fork eyelets, will use the setup as on your cc, using the supplied fork clamps and bang my light on the fork eyelets. Just wanna get riding the thing now, carring a rucksack for the first time in ages on my commute today was not fun.
Oh, love the trio of surlys, lht singlespeed, yowsers!

Sounds good! I'm getting the guys at 18bikes (Peak District) to braze some hour-glass eyelets on the front of the Cross Check fork 60mm above the mid-blade eyelets. Should allow the Nitto rack to be mounted AND double up as a set of fork-blade bottle mounts. Woohoo!

Nice, pics when you've had it done. And if you don't mind me asking, how much they charging you for that?

I'm getting a few other things done at the same time so I don't know exactly how much just yet (got an expected range), need to pop in and discuss with the guy there first. Will update when I have things finalised.

Also worth checking Neil Orell if you're near Manchester, his prices and quality of work is good but the turn-around can be hit/miss.

how do you like the karate monkey?
considering one atm but they're not cheap so want to make the right decision

Get an ogre. Can run gears in the future.

current thoughts are on one 456 or a kar monkey ops

Get an ogre. Can run gears in the future.

The KM has a rear derailleur hanger too :-)

The KM Ops has those rad switchable dropouts and can run all sorts of cool shit at the back.

I am very happy with mine. I was dead set on getting an Ogre but was offered a good deal on the KM and thought "am I really going to tour across Africa for months on end?". The answer... at this point is sadly a no. The KM + ECR fork is a good compromise, the bike is currently pretty much the same spec/setup I'd planned for the Ogre, cheaper and just as much fun.

I made a few changes recently, nice shiny drivechain, new pedals and bigger tyres. Feels solid, reliable and pretty much bombproof, which is what I want from all my bikes really.

looking really nice, andy!

Looking good, Andy. I expect you do a lot more with your KM than I ever will with the Ogre. I probably would have bought a Karate Monkey years ago, if it was available in my size.

Looking good, Andy. I expect you do a lot more with your KM than I ever will with the Ogre. I probably would have bought a Karate Monkey years ago, if it was available in my size.

Yes, I was thinking the same about my Ogre. I just haven't had time to get out on it much at all!

To be honest, I've not spent half as much time on it as I'd like, polo, brevets and real life getting in the way... I have entered the Bear Bones 200 in October so now I've got to start putting some more miles in...

Got a couple of day trips into Wales on the cards, hoping to ride the Peak ITT route and the PBW before October. Both over 2-3 days each rather than at race speeds...

Downtube shifters fitted to my cross check, rear working, just needs a fine tune fettle. Looking at the position of your shifter while on the front big ring, I appear to have summat wrong, mine sits level with the downtube, runs through almost 180° shifting from outer to inner, any ideas?

Hmm... I have no idea, I don't even know if mine are set right, they just work!

Maybe your front mech required a different amount of cable pull? Or the shifter pulls a different amount of cable, mine are from the 70s...

Cheers. They work, in a fashion, will have a play tonight with cable tension.

Turns out it was just me being a numpty. Set limit screws, adjusted cable tension, final trim fettle, all's well.
Fitted nitto m18, bag fits perfect, plenty of room for hands on the flats of the bars.
Wish I'd bought a cross check sooner. Fookin awesome bike and ride. Cheers for puttin me in touch with Aspio.

Great news and no problem dude! Will let him know you're enjoying it!

Cheers. Will post a pic, soon as I figure out how to.

@andytk - which saddle bag is that?

@andytk - which saddle bag is that?

It's an Apidura saddle pack, really pleased with it so far. Worked well paired up with a small Tangle bag in the frame and Alpkit drybag on the front rack. Rack will go when I get around to getting some wider handlebars, at the moment even an 8L dry bag ends up rested against on the barrel adjusters on the levers when mounted to the bar directly. Got a feeling it'd rub through in minutes on rougher terrain.

A few "detail" pics of the mudguard fittings on L's Trucker...

Front made use of an unused rack fitting, it's stainless steel so nice and strong, double bolt at the bottom stops it wiggling around...

Rear seat stay 'bridge' made use of an extra long bolt and an old polo mallet. Going to pop a washer in to protect the frame when the bike gets a quick clean and fettle this weekend...

The least elegant solution is the rear, this is some flexy aluminum clip or bracket or something, bent about a bit to make room for the bolt and just waiting to snap. Hoping to raid the bike shop's recycle bin over the weekend for something suitable, failing that it'll be off to find a strip of stainless steel and get the drill out.

Some tinkering on the KM recently... new bars and a shorter stem being the main things

Going from relatively narrow, 25.4 clamp swept back bars to 760mm oversize risers feels amazing. The whole front end feels better, the bike climbed wonderfully and gave me more confidence in the descents. Really nice to be riding without luggage and an added benefit to the width... I can finally ditch the mini rack as the brake levers don't interfere with the drybag/harness anymore!

Finally...