A late-season snow gave me an opportunity to ride the Long Haul Trucker in a few inches of the white stuff, and the bike (and fenders) worked great.

The same wasn’t the case a week later, on a Miami County gravel ride. The ride started off nice enough, despite stiff wind and relentless hills. This picture was taken just west of Paola, on a hill with Osawatomie in the distance:

East of Paola, I led us to the abandoned bridge across Victory Road. Once we’d dodged the barricades and picked out way across the old structure, which was missing a few too many deck boards for comfort, but otherwise sound, we took to the old road leading north.

It was solid enough for about a quarter mile, then it turned into a mud pit, an absolute quagmire. The center of the road was covered with water and gooey mud, and only the shoulders were solid. I took the left shoulder while my riding partners took the right shoulder.

After a hundred yards or so, my shoulder all but disappeared, while theirs was still solid. Oh well, soldier on.

Ultimately, I ended up walking on a soggy shoulder and pushing the bike through the mud. The knobby tires proved adept at catching and holding mud, and the fenders were soon jammed full, and the wheels would no longer turn. I had to stop at least twice to clear out the fenders as best I could, but I eventually made it to the end of the mud.

The picture below doesn’t begin to do it justice. That was after cleaning off everything I could…

The rest of the ride was a slog. I just couldn’t get all the mud off, and my bike felt about ten pounds heavier than normal.

The picture below is from the next day, just before I gave the dirty mudder trucker a bath:

So in this case, the fenders, although they kept the rest of the bike reasonably clean, didn’t really work out. They’ve worked well otherwise, and I don’t plan to take them off, but I’ll try to stay out of mudholes in the future.

• Though I’d read some poor reviews of the WTB Slickasaurus tires, they haven’t been a problem so far. No flats, and they seem to roll reasonably fast with no handling problems. I’ve ridden them on both pavement and gravel (though I had to let some air out of the tires on gravel to soften the ride a bit).

• The WTB SST saddle has likewise been trouble-free. Reasonably comfortable, no saddle sores, no numb bits. Granted, my longest ride is still only 30 miles, but so far so good.

• I’m not terribly happy with the Tektro Oryx cantilever brakes. Yes, they work, but I really have to squeeze the levers hard to get much braking power. I was going down a steep, curvy, and muddy gravel road the other day, and had to ride the brakes all the way down, and if I’d had to really stop — and not just slow down — I’m not sure if I could have. I was squeezing the brakes really firmly as it was, and it was rather wearying. Not sure what the answer here is — get used to it?

• No mechanical issues at all, other than some normal stretching in the rear derailleur cable, which I’ve been able to fix with the barrel adjusters.

• The drop handlebars have taken some getting used to. Coming from a flat bar, they just felt weird at first. That feeling has faded as I’ve become acclimated to them, and they’re starting to feel more natural.

• I may want to add some extra padding to a few key points on the handlebars, though. Even with padded gloves (plus another layer of fleece gloves over the top) I’ve felt the need for some extra cush. Mostly this occurs in two locations — when my hands are in the drops, with my weight near the shifters, and on the hoods, when my weight is on my palms right at the curve of the bars. The problem has improved a bit over time, so this may just be another incidence of acclimation…

• The bar-end shifters have also taken some getting used to, but I think I’m going to be happy with them. They shift cleanly smoothly, and are easy to access. I like the friction shift on the front derailleur, which lets me tweak out chain rub at the extremes of the cassette.

• Frame sizing seems good. I rode with a guy who’s very knowledgeable about these things, and he said the bike fit me well, that I appeared comfortable, with good form, and good power. That’s encouraging.

• I swapped the frame bag for a rack trunk. Since I had the rear rack installed anyway, the trunk was only 5 oz. heavier than the frame bag, and it can hold a lot more, plus allows me to get rid of the fanny pack I was using for my phone and camera. I mounted my safety triangle reflector on the rear of the trunk, which worked out great — it’s in an optimal position, and doesn’t interfere too much with opening and closing the bag. The bag is an older REI Basic Rack Trunk that I picked up last year off eBay.

• I still want to add fenders. I hate getting snow melt and gravel road mud splattered all over the frame and my legs. Still not sure which fenders I want yet. 60mm width or 45mm? Planet Bike or SKS? Silver or black?

• Speed — I don’t feel particularly fast on this bike. It rolls well on the flats, but I don’t think it climbs particularly well. How much of that is the bike, and how much of that is my still recovering fitness from having ridden very little for a month? Still too early to really say for sure…

I’m looking forward to riding more, and giving another report, perhaps at 500 miles or so.

I got this on January 3rd, and have had it out for two rides so far, a 9-mile gravel grind on its maiden voyage, and a 17-mile paved ride today. On the ride today, I intended to get a good picture, but the sun disappeared as soon as I hit the road, and this was the best I could come up with. If it wasn’t for the guardrail, the bike would almost disappear into the brown grass and leafless trees.

I’ve been thinking about this bike for quite a while, at least since late summer. Here were my selection parameters:

• A bike I could ride on both paved roads and gravel roads
• A bike I could ride on weekly club rides
• A bike I could ride on longer events of 100+ miles
• A bike I could ride with on cross-state tours
• A bike I could ride on self-supported tours
• I didn’t want to spend more than about $1000 (hopefully less)

The mountain bike I’ve been riding hard for the last six months handled all of that, to greater or lesser extents, but it really wasn’t the right tool for the job, and for some of the tasks, such as the cross-state tours and long single-day events, it was particularly ill-suited.

Looking at different types of bikes, I could dismiss some immediately. Recumbents were out because they didn’t handle gravel roads well. Pure road bikes were out because they didn’t handle gravel or loaded touring.

I seriously considered a cyclocross bike. It would be light and fast, well-suited for club rides. It could handle gravel with ease. It could handle light touring. I could get a basic model for just under $1K. I could even use ir for racing, if I wanted. But it wasn’t really the right bike for extended tours or loaded tours.

One bike that piqued my interest was the Salsa Fargo. It could handle the loaded touring, it could handle gravel and even some pretty rough singletrack, it would be great for long single-day events. It had disc brakes.

However, it wasn’t available (as a complete bike) until February. It used 29″ wheels (which meant having to stock another size of wheels, tires, and tubes). It was a brand new design (i.e. not heavily field-tested). It was $2000.

So I ended up with the Surly Long Haul Trucker, a touring bike that could take skinny tires for reasonably fast local rides and supported touring, or could take fat tires for gravel and dirt roads. It could handle a heavy load for self-supported touring. It has been field-tested for at least a half-dozen years, with nearly unanimous positive reviews. It used 26″ wheels (in my frame size). It listed for $1100.

On the downside, it used cantilever brakes — OK, but not as solid as disc or V-brakes. It was heavy — about 26-27 pounds stock. And while it could take fat tires and handle gravel and perhaps even some easy singletrack, it is primarily a road bike.

On the balance, the positives far outweighed the negatives, and the decision was made.

At that point, the main issue was frame sizing. Not having ridden a road bike since I was a teenager (and that just a department store 10-speed), I had no clue what size I needed. People of similar height rode everything from 50cm to 56cm frames, and every brand of bike seemed to measure their frames differently, so that a 54cm from one company wasn’t the same as a 54cm from another company. And even worse, I no longer knew what felt right.

In the end, I was fortunate to find two Long Haul Truckers in stock locally — a 50cm in Kansas City, and a 54cm in Lawrence, and both shops were kind enough to let me test-ride them and ask a few questions. Both sizes felt foreign to one degree or another. But I got the impression that the 50cm was too small, and the 54cm too big, so that gave me the answer right there: 52cm frame.

I placed the order with my most local of shops, Bike America in Olathe, on my birthday, just before the end of the year. Thanks to Kevin and, especially, Mark, for getting me a great deal.

Not having any particular preferences on specific components, I went with the Long Haul Trucker “complete”. My understanding is that most of Surly’s component choices are pretty decent, and should serve me well until I learn more about my road bike likes and dislikes.

That’s enough for now. I’ll discuss the particulars of the bike, and what I’ve added so far, in the next post…