Friday News And Views

S-Phyre SH-RX910 (Image Courtesy of Shimano)

Shimano Offers New Range-Topping Gravel Racing Shoe:

Shimano quietly introduced a new range-topping gravel racing shoe this past week called the S-Phyre RX910. S-Phyre is typically reserved for all-out racing performance footwear in Shimano's nomenclature. 

Shimano gave the RX910 a slightly curved sole for better walk-ability.  Enhancing pedal stability was done by adding Shimano's "pontoon" plate under the cleats which features two rubber stabilizers adjacent to the cleat pocket. These stabilizers contact the SPD pedal body to give riders a better platform for pedaling. These also enhance off the bike walk-ability. 

The RX910's have a TPU upper, two drain holes in the soles to allow for faster drying of feet in case of wet weather, or water crossings, and on-the-fly adjustable BOA closures. The new SH-RX910 S-Phyre gravel shoes come in White, Black, Deep Sea Blue, and Blue. The RX910 has a suggested retail price of $480.00 USD. 

The Guitar Ted Podcast Episode #86:

A new episode just dropped this week where N.Y. Roll and I discuss the new Trek Checkpoint, new Surly Straggler, and that new, upcoming Salsa Cycles FS drop bar bike which should debut in a month. 

You can check out the Guitar Ted Podcast on most any podcast platform, or find the latest episode HERE on the Spotify page for the show.  

 I had a thought, which I expressed on this episode, which was about this new drop bar FS Salsa rig. I was wondering, "Is this going to be the Cutthroat FS?" 

If the image is true to the bike in the teaser, it is pretty plain to see this bike is no gravel bike. There is a decent amount of travel, a high bottom bracket, and beefy looking tires there. A bikepacking FS rig in carbon? To me this makes sense if it is a FS Cutthroat, but Salsa has probably decided upon some other name for this bike. 

We only have to wait one more month to find out.... 

Found On Ratio Tech's social media

Ratio Technology To Introduce T-Style Rear Mech:

There are many stories out now concerning Ratio Technology and their development of a T-Style mount rear derailleur. Ratio Technology already offers kits to convert SRAM components to have more speeds, or to be compatible with wide-range, 1X cassettes and drop bar levers.  

Digging a little further it appears as though this rear derailleur will also be compatible with regular hangars by removing the direct, co-axial mount and swapped out for a bit which will make the rear derailleur mount like traditional rear mechs. 

I also read on another post where this rear derailleur will be compatible with several drive train formats, making this perhaps the most versatile rear derailleur in existence. As long as you are pulling a cable, that is! 

There is even a hint of this thing being made in a silver color. That would be pretty radical! I'll be keeping my eye out for more about this system and I may get some Ratio bits in for testing for next season.  

From the GCHoF social media post

Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame Seeks Nominations:

The Gravel Cycling Hall of Fame soft-launched their window for nominations on October 1st. This will be open until November 30th according to a social media post put out by the GCHoF. 

The GCHoF does their nominations by a democratic process wherein anyone can send in a nomination with the following guidelines: 

"Your submission should clearly describe the nominee’s achievements and contributions, including specific examples such as events they have organized, races they have competed in, advocacy work, or initiatives that have helped grow and shape the gravel cycling community. "

Nominations must be at least 200 words long and up to 600 words in length, according to the GCHoF site. Click the link above for more details. 

Comments: It is no secret that (a) I am in the GCHoF, (b) that I have criticized their nomination process in the past, and (c) there is a glaring omission amongst the inductees. I will continue to hold my positions on these points until something changes to help me understand why certain alternatives are not explored for nominations. The way they do things now is a recipe for inclusion of folks at the exclusion of some who should be in the GCHoF from a historical and influential background. The Board knows my position, they know how I would like to see this handled, and this is all that matters. They can decide how this goes from this point on. 

But unless things change I don't see how there is any possibility for several seminal, pioneering gravel folks to ever see inclusion. It will become a "who's who" of gravel racers and promoters from the last ten years and forward. And I will leave it at this...... That is a sad state of affairs. 

Image courtesy of Canyon Bikes

Canyon Enters Wheel Market With Carbon Gravel Wheel Set:

Canyon, the direct-to-consumer brand, has just announced a new gravel wheel set. This complete wheel set will feature DT Swiss Spline 350 hubs, hookless rim design, and a 30mm deep rim profile. Boasting a 27mm internal rim width, these wheels will be good for the wider tire trend sweeping the racing fields at gravel events these days. 

The Canyon wheels, called the GR 30, will retail for around 1K here in the States but list for 899 Euros on Canyon's site HERE. Total weight for the set is claimed to be 1,600 grams by Canyon. 

Comments: You know Gravel™ is the hot ticket when a brand starts out by rolling out a new product and does so in the Gravel™ category first. This was my first impression. 

Secondly, these are not all that lightweight. There are alloy rimmed wheels which match this weight, so I'm not all that impressed by these wheels. Besides this, the entire hookless thing has me spooked and I'm not buying into the design. I just don't see why we need this and I'd rather stick with proven technology if the benefit is negligible or cancelled out by failures, which have been reported with hookless bead wheel sets. Finally, not all tires are hookless compatible, but all tires can be used with hooked design rims. I know which I'd rather be using. 

That's a wrap for this week! Get out and ride those bicycles!

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).  

Building From Scratch

Chase And Face

It isn't every day that you get to build up a bike from the "frame up", but I was given that opportunity at the shop the other day by a local rider. He was keen on doing a gravel/touring/any road bike and since he is also a Minnesota Vikings fan, the obvious choice was Surly's Straggler model. He got the frame, fork, and a box-o-parts and brought the whole shootin' match down to the shop where I began the long process of making it all a bicycle.

Now if you are an older bicycle mechanic like myself, you get all excited when the frame you get to build up is a steel one. Why? Because you get to "chase and face", that's why. It all involves a nearly antiquated tool that is made of machined steel cutting bits and a heavy, steel shaft and handle apparatus. This hand run thread chaser and bottom bracket facing tool was made to clean up the threads in a metal bottom bracket and "face" the outer shell so that both "edges" of the bottom bracket are perfectly flat and perfectly parallel to one another. This makes for a nicer, smoother, aligned bottom bracket. Is it all really necessary? Probably not as much as it used to be when serviceable bottom brackets were still being used, but I'll tell ya what- those cups threaded in so smoothly it was uncanny after the machining operation. So, yeah.....it makes a difference.

After that was accomplished I always move on to what I consider the next essential step in building up a bicycle. That's installing the head set and fork. To my mind, it isn't a bicycle to build until the head set and fork are joined to the rest of the frame.

Chris King, Gevenalle, Old Edge wheels, and Cowbell bars.

The owner chose a gold anodized Chris King headset for this project and so that was carefully pressed in and then it was on to the matching Straggler fork. This is where things can get touchy since you never know how much steer tube is too little. So, after I consulted with the owner, I chose to err to the "too long" side and added three 10mm spacers in addition to the spacers provided by the owner for the build. That should be enough, right? The thing is, Surly Cross Checks and Stragglers have notoriously short head tubes for their size. It's a good thing I added those three spacers!

Well, now I had a bicycle. The rest went pretty well until I ran into a missing couple of bits that were essential to getting this build completed. The old style shifter bosses that Surly uses needed cable stop adjusters. Bah! The owner hadn't thought of those, which is completely understandable. Those little gubbins are easy to forget about until you need them! Fortunately, I am something of a pack rat when it comes to the essential gubbins, and after a half an hour search, I came across a pair of old Profile cable stop adjusters in black ano. Perfect for this build. Now it was on to stringing up cables in some blingy gold Jagwire housings.

Finished build- (Image by Andy)

Fortunately, Jagwire sent its brake housing in one, giant length because I needed a full run housing to the back of the bike. The rest was easy-peasy, and then it came time to mount a Brooks Cambium c-17 saddle on a vintage Dean titanium post, wrap the bars with some synthetic Cinelli tape, and dial in the Gevenalle GX shifters. The chain is a blingy gold KMC ten speed chain and that wraps around a 11-36T cassette and a Shimano 105 triple crankset for a big, wide range of gear ratios.

The owner was pretty stoked when he saw images of the bike on the shop's Facecrack page, and was only a bit ambivalent about the tires, but those may be swapped out soon. Otherwise the build was dubbed a success.

Anyway, building a bike up like this with quality parts is always a fun thing and definitely a good respite from the typical "MalWart" bike tune ups and neglected road bike refreshes that normally populate my work stand.Thanks to Mr. Z for the opportunity and I hope the rig brings you joy for many years to come.

Building From Scratch

Chase And Face

It isn't every day that you get to build up a bike from the "frame up", but I was given that opportunity at the shop the other day by a local rider. He was keen on doing a gravel/touring/any road bike and since he is also a Minnesota Vikings fan, the obvious choice was Surly's Straggler model. He got the frame, fork, and a box-o-parts and brought the whole shootin' match down to the shop where I began the long process of making it all a bicycle.

Now if you are an older bicycle mechanic like myself, you get all excited when the frame you get to build up is a steel one. Why? Because you get to "chase and face", that's why. It all involves a nearly antiquated tool that is made of machined steel cutting bits and a heavy, steel shaft and handle apparatus. This hand run thread chaser and bottom bracket facing tool was made to clean up the threads in a metal bottom bracket and "face" the outer shell so that both "edges" of the bottom bracket are perfectly flat and perfectly parallel to one another. This makes for a nicer, smoother, aligned bottom bracket. Is it all really necessary? Probably not as much as it used to be when serviceable bottom brackets were still being used, but I'll tell ya what- those cups threaded in so smoothly it was uncanny after the machining operation. So, yeah.....it makes a difference.

After that was accomplished I always move on to what I consider the next essential step in building up a bicycle. That's installing the head set and fork. To my mind, it isn't a bicycle to build until the head set and fork are joined to the rest of the frame.

Chris King, Gevenalle, Old Edge wheels, and Cowbell bars.

The owner chose a gold anodized Chris King headset for this project and so that was carefully pressed in and then it was on to the matching Straggler fork. This is where things can get touchy since you never know how much steer tube is too little. So, after I consulted with the owner, I chose to err to the "too long" side and added three 10mm spacers in addition to the spacers provided by the owner for the build. That should be enough, right? The thing is, Surly Cross Checks and Stragglers have notoriously short head tubes for their size. It's a good thing I added those three spacers!

Well, now I had a bicycle. The rest went pretty well until I ran into a missing couple of bits that were essential to getting this build completed. The old style shifter bosses that Surly uses needed cable stop adjusters. Bah! The owner hadn't thought of those, which is completely understandable. Those little gubbins are easy to forget about until you need them! Fortunately, I am something of a pack rat when it comes to the essential gubbins, and after a half an hour search, I came across a pair of old Profile cable stop adjusters in black ano. Perfect for this build. Now it was on to stringing up cables in some blingy gold Jagwire housings.

Finished build- (Image by Andy)

Fortunately, Jagwire sent its brake housing in one, giant length because I needed a full run housing to the back of the bike. The rest was easy-peasy, and then it came time to mount a Brooks Cambium c-17 saddle on a vintage Dean titanium post, wrap the bars with some synthetic Cinelli tape, and dial in the Gevenalle GX shifters. The chain is a blingy gold KMC ten speed chain and that wraps around a 11-36T cassette and a Shimano 105 triple crankset for a big, wide range of gear ratios.

The owner was pretty stoked when he saw images of the bike on the shop's Facecrack page, and was only a bit ambivalent about the tires, but those may be swapped out soon. Otherwise the build was dubbed a success.

Anyway, building a bike up like this with quality parts is always a fun thing and definitely a good respite from the typical "MalWart" bike tune ups and neglected road bike refreshes that normally populate my work stand.Thanks to Mr. Z for the opportunity and I hope the rig brings you joy for many years to come.

Randomonium

Another disjointed blog post with the only real thread  holding this together being cycling.......

Not now.....but soon.

 Surly 650B Straggler:

Smaller statured folk rejoice! (Well.....if you've always wanted a steel bike for bombing around on that looks like this) Surly has let it be known that a smaller wheeled version of the Straggler is on the way. This may be good news to you or someone you know.

It will also be good news to tinkerers and those who want more 650B tires that aren't all "frenchy". It looks as though this bike will have 650B Knard 41's. I don't think "knard" is a French word, so this is why I find that it is different from most of the fare for this wheel size which seem to try to evoke some sort of higher brow, continental flair with their monikers. I don't think anyone will accuse Surly of being "refined" in that manner!

Lions, Tigers, and.......Bears? 

The Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational may be traveling through  black bear territory. A recent news story circulated around this week indicates that near one of the pass through towns on the route a black bear and possibly two cubs are roaming freely around the countryside.

While I think the likelihood of our small band of riders coming across such critters is small, it is a possibility since we will be riding in some of the more remote areas in Clayton County. I find this development incredible since during my time living here in Iowa we have gone from almost no wildlife beyond rabbits, racoons, birds, and muskrats to having abundant amounts of critters that were the furthest thing from my mind when I was a child. Bobcats, mountain lions, turkeys, and Bald Eagles are just a few of these that simply didn't exist, or were so rare as to be legendary when I was a younginz. Now we're talking about black bears? The DNR says that if this bear does have cubs it would be the first such instance on record in 140 years. Amazing!

Mumbo Jumbo- Fat bikes are mainstream now.

Fat Avalanche Of Rubber:

Back in late 2010 the fat bike riders were stoked to the gills because there was going to be one other fat bike tire available. There was the recently discontinued Endomorph, (a moment of silence, please), and the new "Larry". It was party time for fat biking as we knew it then. 

Now, not five years down the trail, there are so many tire announcements and models coming online to purchase that it is almost easier to say which companies don't make a fat bike tire than to name those who do. It used to be something of an inside joke to talk about when Schwalbe might make a fat bike tire. You know, if they did, fat biking would be done and gone mainstream. That would never happen, right?

Right. Well........apparently fat biking is "over" then. It looks as though Schwalbe is actually going to be producing a fat bike tire, or at least have one branded. In typical Schwalbe fashion, it bears a ridiculous name.

All this seems so much like "cashing in" and manufacturers basically admitted to as much when the 27.5" bandwagon was cranked up a couple of years ago. No one wanted to "miss the party" like many did due to dragging their feet on entering the 29 inch mountain bike game in the late 00's. Certainly, by the looks of it, no one could be blamed for doing such with regard to tires for fat bikes! All I know is that in my simple mind the power of economics should sway prices to the lower end of the spectrum. I just do not see how the fat bike market can sustain the growth and with so much new product coming online, it would seem that supply will be bigger than demand. Good for fat bikers, hopefully, that want new treads.

Randomonium

Another disjointed blog post with the only real thread  holding this together being cycling.......

Not now.....but soon.

 Surly 650B Straggler:

Smaller statured folk rejoice! (Well.....if you've always wanted a steel bike for bombing around on that looks like this) Surly has let it be known that a smaller wheeled version of the Straggler is on the way. This may be good news to you or someone you know.

It will also be good news to tinkerers and those who want more 650B tires that aren't all "frenchy". It looks as though this bike will have 650B Knard 41's. I don't think "knard" is a French word, so this is why I find that it is different from most of the fare for this wheel size which seem to try to evoke some sort of higher brow, continental flair with their monikers. I don't think anyone will accuse Surly of being "refined" in that manner!

Lions, Tigers, and.......Bears? 

The Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational may be traveling through  black bear territory. A recent news story circulated around this week indicates that near one of the pass through towns on the route a black bear and possibly two cubs are roaming freely around the countryside.

While I think the likelihood of our small band of riders coming across such critters is small, it is a possibility since we will be riding in some of the more remote areas in Clayton County. I find this development incredible since during my time living here in Iowa we have gone from almost no wildlife beyond rabbits, racoons, birds, and muskrats to having abundant amounts of critters that were the furthest thing from my mind when I was a child. Bobcats, mountain lions, turkeys, and Bald Eagles are just a few of these that simply didn't exist, or were so rare as to be legendary when I was a younginz. Now we're talking about black bears? The DNR says that if this bear does have cubs it would be the first such instance on record in 140 years. Amazing!

Mumbo Jumbo- Fat bikes are mainstream now.

Fat Avalanche Of Rubber:

Back in late 2010 the fat bike riders were stoked to the gills because there was going to be one other fat bike tire available. There was the recently discontinued Endomorph, (a moment of silence, please), and the new "Larry". It was party time for fat biking as we knew it then. 

Now, not five years down the trail, there are so many tire announcements and models coming online to purchase that it is almost easier to say which companies don't make a fat bike tire than to name those who do. It used to be something of an inside joke to talk about when Schwalbe might make a fat bike tire. You know, if they did, fat biking would be done and gone mainstream. That would never happen, right?

Right. Well........apparently fat biking is "over" then. It looks as though Schwalbe is actually going to be producing a fat bike tire, or at least have one branded. In typical Schwalbe fashion, it bears a ridiculous name.

All this seems so much like "cashing in" and manufacturers basically admitted to as much when the 27.5" bandwagon was cranked up a couple of years ago. No one wanted to "miss the party" like many did due to dragging their feet on entering the 29 inch mountain bike game in the late 00's. Certainly, by the looks of it, no one could be blamed for doing such with regard to tires for fat bikes! All I know is that in my simple mind the power of economics should sway prices to the lower end of the spectrum. I just do not see how the fat bike market can sustain the growth and with so much new product coming online, it would seem that supply will be bigger than demand. Good for fat bikers, hopefully, that want new treads.

Withered

Fatback Carbon

The crazy Sunday that turned into an overnighter at the airport in Minneapolis turned into a fry pan hot day at Bootleg Canyon and then a wilted Guitar Ted wobbled off to a seedy dive in Las Vegas with visions of food and bed in his addled brain.

Yeah.......so what's cool at the show? Fat bikes, 27.5"ers, and .....and...blah! It's funny this year, but there seems to be a distinct lack of enthusiasm for much of anything. Maybe it was the seeming lower attendance. (I wasn't the only one mentioning this, by the way.) Maybe it was the fact, as I have said on many previous occasions, that we've already seen all this stuff, (for the most part), already.

But you know what? When it is cloudless, 100ºF outdoors, and the wind starts blowing, it is not fun to be out there at Bootleg Canyon. Not fun at all.

But yeah....the fat bike thing is getting ridiculous. Carbon rims, carbon frames, carbon forks. It's crazy expensive, and obviously lighter than metal. I did see the new Fatback tire, Industry 9 fat bike hubs, and a double walled, drilled carbon fat bike rim on a Felt fat bike with a Bosch electric motor. Wait......wouldn't that make it a fat-motorcycle? Yes it would- with pedals!

There was also the Giant Revolt gravel rig. I like it, but the down tube guard they put on wasn't very well thought out. Let's just call it a "mud collector" and leave it at that. The Surly Straggler is a lilac, sparkly beauty, (not really purple at all), and heavy. Maybe it should be renamed the "Tankler". 

Oh yes, there were a few good things floating about. 36"ers, and adult sized "big wheelers". And $370.00 Shimano mtb shoes you can mold to yer tootsies. I'll have more on the shoes here later. And I'll have more on other gizmos and bicycle shaped objects coming your way soon.......

Withered

Fatback Carbon

The crazy Sunday that turned into an overnighter at the airport in Minneapolis turned into a fry pan hot day at Bootleg Canyon and then a wilted Guitar Ted wobbled off to a seedy dive in Las Vegas with visions of food and bed in his addled brain.

Yeah.......so what's cool at the show? Fat bikes, 27.5"ers, and .....and...blah! It's funny this year, but there seems to be a distinct lack of enthusiasm for much of anything. Maybe it was the seeming lower attendance. (I wasn't the only one mentioning this, by the way.) Maybe it was the fact, as I have said on many previous occasions, that we've already seen all this stuff, (for the most part), already.

But you know what? When it is cloudless, 100ºF outdoors, and the wind starts blowing, it is not fun to be out there at Bootleg Canyon. Not fun at all.

But yeah....the fat bike thing is getting ridiculous. Carbon rims, carbon frames, carbon forks. It's crazy expensive, and obviously lighter than metal. I did see the new Fatback tire, Industry 9 fat bike hubs, and a double walled, drilled carbon fat bike rim on a Felt fat bike with a Bosch electric motor. Wait......wouldn't that make it a fat-motorcycle? Yes it would- with pedals!

There was also the Giant Revolt gravel rig. I like it, but the down tube guard they put on wasn't very well thought out. Let's just call it a "mud collector" and leave it at that. The Surly Straggler is a lilac, sparkly beauty, (not really purple at all), and heavy. Maybe it should be renamed the "Tankler". 

Oh yes, there were a few good things floating about. 36"ers, and adult sized "big wheelers". And $370.00 Shimano mtb shoes you can mold to yer tootsies. I'll have more on the shoes here later. And I'll have more on other gizmos and bicycle shaped objects coming your way soon.......

News Season: Part 4- Saddledrive

Image via "The Bicycle Hub" from Saddledrive

Saddledrive: The dealer only event that Quality Bicycle Products puts on at their Ogden, Utah facility, is kicking off today. No doubt all the big news fro Salsa, Surly, and the other sundry QBP brands will be spreading wide and far across the web today.

Much of the Salsa doings I have known about for months, and it will be a relief to be able to talk about it all openly here soon. But for now, here is a tidbit from Surly that I find quite interesting.

There have been very well planted "spy photos" leaked over the past two months of this bike dubbed the "Straggler". No doubt, Surly will have some crazy story behind the name.    What for Surly has to be a "no brainer" bike to finally put out, the name is maybe the biggest news after all here.

Obviously, the profile of this bike calls out Surly's long running and very popular model, the Cross Check. The obvious name for this bike in people's minds will be "Disc Cross Check", but less obviously, Surly doesn't quite see it that way. Or maybe it is obvious that Surly wouldn't see things the way "we do"? Hmm........well anyway.

I'm also sure there will be a Surly blog post explaining this in the typical Surly manner. Stay tuned for that, or not....... For me, none of that matters as much as what Surly shod the Straggler with. I've seen an earlier image that looks like the tires are a form of Knard, only skinnier yet. If so, this might be a pretty cool tire. I'm sure later today this will be confirmed or we'll find out it is something else.

 Stay tuned for more commentary from me here on the Saddledrive news......

News Season: Part 4- Saddledrive

Image via "The Bicycle Hub" from Saddledrive

Saddledrive: The dealer only event that Quality Bicycle Products puts on at their Ogden, Utah facility, is kicking off today. No doubt all the big news fro Salsa, Surly, and the other sundry QBP brands will be spreading wide and far across the web today.

Much of the Salsa doings I have known about for months, and it will be a relief to be able to talk about it all openly here soon. But for now, here is a tidbit from Surly that I find quite interesting.

There have been very well planted "spy photos" leaked over the past two months of this bike dubbed the "Straggler". No doubt, Surly will have some crazy story behind the name.    What for Surly has to be a "no brainer" bike to finally put out, the name is maybe the biggest news after all here.

Obviously, the profile of this bike calls out Surly's long running and very popular model, the Cross Check. The obvious name for this bike in people's minds will be "Disc Cross Check", but less obviously, Surly doesn't quite see it that way. Or maybe it is obvious that Surly wouldn't see things the way "we do"? Hmm........well anyway.

I'm also sure there will be a Surly blog post explaining this in the typical Surly manner. Stay tuned for that, or not....... For me, none of that matters as much as what Surly shod the Straggler with. I've seen an earlier image that looks like the tires are a form of Knard, only skinnier yet. If so, this might be a pretty cool tire. I'm sure later today this will be confirmed or we'll find out it is something else.

 Stay tuned for more commentary from me here on the Saddledrive news......