Surly – Long Haul Trucker

Now a small article about our new bikes. The Surlys are famous touring bikes in North America and are well known. Robust touring bikes. A plain welded frame without any sockets welds. Made in Taiwan and cheap. Nothing special and heavy. Until the frame size of 54cm there are no 28 inch wheels. So we have 26 inch. What have only the advantage that you get spare parts all over the world. That’s it. The hubs are Shimano LX like the back gear shifter. The front one is Shimano Sora. As rims you get 36 hole Alexrims with normal spokes. All this is not to bad, but the Tektro bar end shifter are really ‘old school’. If someone is used to STI/Campagnolo its hard to change. But where is nothing, nothing can fail. So what. The Tektro Cantilever brakes are ok. But why no classical V-brakes? They use also the old style of bottom brakets. So it looks like a stable bike for cheap price. But if you want to have a classical touring bike you have to mount front and back racks, a different saddel (not this cheap plastic one)… At the end it’s not a ‘cheap’ bike anymore because you have to order all the extra stuff by itself… and pay the normal prices. So Surly sell a touring bike without racks… what I should do with it…?