Let's Talk About The New Surly Straggler

Image courtesy of Surly Bikes

 Last week a new version of the Surly Straggler was released. It had been quite some time since the Straggler was released originally, so it was long overdue for an update. This is also one of the issues with the new version, ironically. 

When the Straggler was set to be released originally I was onboard at "Twentynine Inches", the website which covered 29"ers from 2005 until 2015. I was in attendance at the 2013 Outdoor Demo for Interbike, the former big-time bicycle show once held in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was where I met and rode the Straggler. 

The bike, to my mind, should have been called the Disc Crosscheck, which would have followed what Surly had done with the Long Haul Trucker/Disc Trucker models. But anyway..... Straggler it was. My intial take on the bike was that it was heavy and the rear drop outs looked clunky. As with all Surly bikes up to that point, it was single speed capable, so this was the reason for the weird rear drop outs. Okay....moving on.  

Wait! Is that a Vaya? No! It's a Surly Straggler in "Shaggy Carpet" (Image courtesy of Surly Bikes)

 Of course, in 2013/14 there weren't many choices yet for gravel bikes, and I knew the Raleigh Tamland was also debuting in 2014. There was no doubt in my mind which was the better of the two for gravel, and the Raleigh ended up in my clutches for this and other reasons some of you long-time readers know all about. But this is another story.... 

There were a few things about the original Straggler which  were missed opportunities, but again - It was 2013, and gravel bikes weren't an established category then. In a few years this would be a different story, but Surly chose not to direct any efforts into the Straggler. Maybe the brand had sunk resources into other projects, and could not afford a redesign of the Straggler at that point in time. Maybe Surly has something against the whole "gravel" thing. It is notable that Surly does not have any gravel category listed on their site for its bicycles. (Although it recommends the Straggler for gravel on its page for the model) Whatever the case may be, the Straggler probably should have been redesigned five years ago, at minimum, and it would have been really good had they done it in the 2017 - 2019 window when gravel went bananas. 

A first generation Straggler I built up for "Duluth Dave" many years ago. 

 So, back to 2025 and the current Straggler. This newest version of the model has no single speed capabilities native to the design. This has been pointed to as another issue with the current version of Surly Bikes which built its reputation upon the ethos of single speed biking. Yes, this is pretty much just another example of brand identity being purged. 

One can pass off the single speed thing as being unnecessary and say it makes the Surlys of the past overly-complicated, but brand identity does help with perceptions. When you abandon something which made your reputation and made your brand unique, well it means something. Usually something not good.  

So, when I saw the new Straggler I was not very impressed. Honestly, it looks like a poorer version of the Salsa Vaya. A bicycle which was axed from Salsa's line earlier in this year. So, a not very impressive "update" in my mind, and certainly not very "Surly Bikes" of them when you consider Surly's past reputation. 

Those are my thoughts, but what do you think? Could Surly have done something truly remarkable and kept the single speed thing?  Am I just not understanding what has happened here? Let me know in the comments. 

And as always, thank you for reading Guitar Ted Productions, (if you are actually human).