Bikes Of 2015: Surly 1X1

Current state of the 1X1

Here's another bike that has seen a lot of play- both here on the blog as Project 1X1 and as a rider. Since most of this bike's play here has been fairly recent, I won't get into any technical breakdown on the spec, or what have you. I mean.......it's a single speed with cantilever brakes. What more do you need to know? 

I am not sure I've had a proper image up with these fenders though, so let me talk about that here now. The Extraterrestrial tires on the Velocity Cliffhanger rims set up tubeless has made these tires about 64mm wide or so. The widest fenders I could source within reason are these Planet Bike Cascadia fenders which are 60mm wide. Sooooo......... Mounting the fenders was a bit tricky.

I had to take particular care in centering the fenders over the tires so that the tread area is covered up and what is not is mostly just the casing/sidewall as it "bellies out" on its way to the rim edges. That was tedious, but not difficult. The other thing, which did not become readily apparent until I started riding this bike, was that due to the Cascadia fender's proclivity to twist, I had to modify the hard points where the stays attach to the fenders so they wouldn't bounce off the tires as much. No doubt that the new ALX (aluminum, so stiffer), versions of the Cascadia fender would be better here, but these will do for now.

So, with that done the bike is good to go and performs its task well. The fenders really do keep me dry and mud free despite their lack of coverage in width, which is more than made up for in length here. I will be trying to see if I can fit a rack onto this rig next to further its utilitarian nature and turn it into one of my grocery getters.