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| Image courtesy of Surly Bikes |
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.
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| 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.
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| 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).
15 comments:
I got a Straggler in 2020 as a frameset that was on clearance and built it with spare parts. Loved the fork, soooo much more appealing than the generic new unicrown fork. Loved the baby blue color. Rear dropouts drove me nuts at first, but once set up it was fine. I get it.
The two things that I never reconciled were the pretty low stack (for me) and the short rear end that could not accommodate a rear fender and a front derailleur at the same time. Not enough clearance between the tire/fender and seat tube. I’m a 2x or 3x person, and living in the Pacific Northwest fenders are a necessity.
This was a COVID project, it was on a super sale (despite supply chain issues early in the pandemic), and I built it wholly from my parts bin except for a couple of new cables. For me, a Vaya or Gen 1 Disc Trucker would have probably been a better practical choice but they were not on sale, the Vaya fork never inspired me, and they certainly were not in that beautiful glossy baby blue or chlorine dream or whatever the color was.
@tntmoriv - I always thought the CrossCheck had a very low stack height and Surly carried this over to the Straggler v1. Unfortunately I wasn't enamored of having THAT many spacers to accommodate me. Had Surly sacrificed a little more stand over to get a taller head tube and keep the classic look I probably would have purchased a CrossCheck in 2011.
The stack height issue is what drove me to getting my Black Mountain Cycles Monstercross. It did everything else the Surly did and it had a pretty cool fork as well.
Character and style are something in bicycle design, and Surly seems to have jettisoned all of what made them stand out in the past. Sad.....
I have to agree with you 100%. It would've been a better received bike in 2018.
The fact that it runs those stupid pseudo thru axles is another bullet wasted. Just make it QR or thru axle. Their 'solution' isn't one. It's just cheap.
@tntmoriv
Side Swing Derailleur is the answer.
@MG - Yeah, I find that all-in-one axle solutions typically are frustrating. Both the Gnot-rite and this weird through/QR axle thing seem like poor choices.
You know, Singular's EBB is really something Surly should have picked up on. It would insure every model was single speed capable and would have given the designers the choice to use real, time-tested drop out designs.
I've been a Surly enthusiast for awhile. I own several karate monkeys, a krampus, xcheck, steamroller (at least until the chainstays cracked ;D), midnight special, ice cream truck, and a big dummy. I bought into the Make-it-your-own philosophy. I'm a tinkerer, and it's rare that any of my current bicycles stay in the same configuration over the course of an entire year. I bought into the no-fuss, reasonably priced steel frames that surly offered. They give the rider insurance that they can more-or-less ride them in garbage peanut butter gravel conditions without trashing a frameset. That's important for me, as I ride year round in the midwest.
Of all the surly's that i've owned, I've ran each of them in both geared and singlespeed configurations (except for the big dummy and midnight special). I even put a 3-speed IGH on my 120mm spaced steamroller for a short period of time. On my karate monkeys, i've run both 142mm and 148mm spaced rear wheels with no issue. I suppose you can say I've got a dissenting opinion on the gnot-boost, pseudo thru axles and track-end dropouts. Riding singlespeed on my KM, i've never had to worry about slippage of the rear wheel with those threaded thru-axles. They're simple and effective. Furthermore, Surly also offers adapter washers so you can even run QR wheelsets on those pseudo thru-axle KM frames.
That being said, when Surly discontinued the steamroller and xcheck, I started to lose faith in the Surly brand. Furthermore, I've also heard that they cut the steerer tube on their complete offerings, which limits opportunity for those that need a little more stack to dial in their bike fit.
While I never really planned on purchasing a straggler, it's giving me even more resolution into the direction of the brand. With the new straggler, there's no opportunity to singlespeed or run IGH without fussy chain tensioners. From an aesthetics standpoint, the previous lugged fork looked much more appealing than the unicrown fork.
That being said, I'm honestly no longer interested in any of their newest offerings. There are too many options and framesets out there offering simple solutions to run geared and singlespeed configurations. In my mind, that's what made surly special. No frills steel frames that you can do whatever you want with them. This new Straggler is none of that and is not the same brand I bought into 10 years ago.
I am looking for someone to explain to me what the difference is between the new Straggler and the Midnight Special. They use the same fork and tube set, and they have added the additional water bottle mounts on the downtube. So, besides the sloping top tube, what sets these two bikes apart? They now have three very similar bikes in the Midnight Special, the Straggler, and Preamble (I know it uses QR only). I have to imagine something is going away.
This is going to sound super lane, but the sloping top tube and odd fork really kill that bike for me. Honestly the only interesting Surly for me right now is the new Moonlander just cause it gives me early fat bike day "thats weird....I wonder what it rides like" vibes.
Both Surly and Salsa feel like they have lost their way, and thats kinda sad.
@Tomcat- Coming from a formerly passionate Surly bike fan, this sounds rather damning. But I would agree with what you are saying here. This is not the Surly Bikes we came to know, but what it is now is baffling.
Who is this brand for now? Besides the Moonlander, which reeks of what the old Surly would be like, they may as well change the name of Surly Bikes to "Vanilla Bikes". (No offense to the flavor, I happen to like vanilla ice cream, for instance!)
@txroadie - I feel Surly has diced up the "fat tire road bike" segment into such niche slices they are nearly indistinguishable from each other, as you are saying. I 100% agree with you here.
@Tyler Loewens - N.Y. Roll and I have said similar things about Salsa and Surly for several years now. Totally lost what they had in terms of cache' with consumers.
Salsa is launching a FS drop bar bike soon at the Mid-South sign-up party. Judging from the silhouette they are teasing I am not very hopeful this will be anything but a drop bar slapped on a FS trail bike, but hopefully I am all wrong about that!
Salsa and Surly could pull out of their somewhat self-induced tailspin, but the bikes are only symptoms of the bigger issues with each brand, in my opinion. I'll leave it at that for this discussion......
I was really hoping for the gnot-boost MTB style dropout to show up on the revised Straggler, but I guess if you want to spec a gravel/road drivetrain on complete bikes, flat mount brakes are what's happening and it's probably too costly to go to some kind of two piece adjustable dropout to make it feasible.
For the brand that came out of making components and frames for single speeders and drivetrain experimentalists, they seem to be falling inline with what OEMs want, not their loyalists.
If UDH shows up on the MTB side and gnot-boost goes away, well there are other brands ramping up production that may be of more interest to some of us.
@Ron S - As I stated in another response, an eccentric bottom bracket solves all the issues. Coulda, woulda, shoulda......
New Straggler? Who cares? I'm savin" my duckies for a Kookaburra. Shhhh, don't tell the wife!
Surly, at least in the road & touring world, was the bike you bought when
the couldn't find a Peugeot PX-10 or Centurion Pro Tour at the Goodwill.
Pacer was the ersatz PX-10, the Long Haul Trucker was the Pro Tour.
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