Why the Surly Disk Trucker?

There were a few aspects that I knew right away that I wanted in a touring bike. Firstly it had to be designed for touring – this may sound like a daft comment to bother making but a friend was insistent that I would be better off with a mountain bike frame. ‘When you get somewhere cool you’ll be able to drop the panniers and go offroad!’. Maybe so but for the remaining 95% of the time when I will be cycling road or trail with a loaded bike I don’t want to be wishing I had something which was better designed for touring.

Other requirements were;

A steel frame – simple tried and tested material with good longevity and repairable in the field if you really really need to.

Disk brakes (Mechanical) – Why disks? Simple I like to stop when I need to. Also I won’t wear out the rims, and if a rim does go massively out of true it won’t affect the brakes. It is harder to source parts and pads but the pads are so light and small it will be nothing to travel with several spare sets.

26 inch wheels – I’ll discuss this more in my next post but basically it comes down to worldwide availability of spares (inner tubes, tyres, and rims). 26 inch should be available pretty much everywhere there are bikes but 700c may not. There is some discussion about which type is stronger, I don’t see this as an issue, the actual size difference is pretty dam small, I cannot see this making any impact on strength, lots of folk get hung up on the small size difference somehow having a great bearing on strength, by that argument penny farthing bikes should have folded as soon as a rider got aboard – but they didn’t.

Finally, I was very taken by the Shimano Alfine 11. This shouldn’t have an impact on my frame choice but it was something to consider.

 

Dawes Nomad - A 26inch wheel possibility

Planet X Kaffenback - Second favorite 

So with my requirements clear I went shopping and very quickly ran into the Surly Disk Trucker, it ticks all the boxes – literally the only negative I could come up with was that it has vertical rear dropouts and so I would have to run a chain tensioner if I use an Alfine hub – a pretty minor issue really, but not wanting to buy the first frame that I came across I shopped around, read reviews, blogs, and forums. There was the Planet X Kaffenback, this is probably my second choice bike, almost perfect even having replaceable rear dropouts so I could convert to horizontal dropouts and run an Alfine hub without a chain tensioner, but it only comes in 700c wheels. The Genesis Day One and Croix De Fer also look great, as do the On One Pompetamine and Pompino, Dawes Ultra Galaxy (rather extravagant name though don’t you think?), and Trek 520 - all great looking bikes but all take a 700c wheel. The Thorn Raven Enduro was briefly considered but far too expensive for my budget and built far more around trail touring with its MTB style frame and front suspension, so the Dawes Nomad perhaps? - 26 inch wheels yes, disk brakes no. So back to the Surly Disk Trucker - it seems to be everything I am after and even taking wheel size out of consideration it appears to be the only frame out of the ones I have mentioned here that is truly designed for touring (with the exception of the Dawes and Thorn) the others are road bike frames with some adaption and modification to suit touring. The Surly sells itself as a touring frame with its long chain stays creating a long wheel base for more stability which also puts the rear panniers further back to keep them away from the pedals, it has a lower bottom bracket to increase stability further, accepts wide tyre sizes (fatties fit fine according to the sales pitch) so I can use big tyres for a comfy ride or for off-road use, and finally its loaded with braze-ons; there is a place for your pump, spare spokes, three water bottles, and more importantly, decent and thought out attachment points for front and rear racks. I have yet to find fault with the specifications of this frame which in my opinion make it the ideal all round tourer, Long Haul Trucker; the name really does say it all!

Surly Disk Trucker - Exploded View

I have a bedroom scattered with pretty much all the parts to build a fully functional bike so it looks like it is about time to pull my finger out and start putting it all together. First though I cant help myself but lay all the bits out and take a picture, as unless I get hit by a bus its unlikely to look like this again. (and what else are beds for?)

Also, I got a comment on my last posting from Robert Wells who is another individual of dubious sanity, embarking on the rubble strewn path of building his own Surly Trucker. Check out his progress here;
http://www.wellsimages.com/blog/2012/6/new-bike-surly-you-jest

And here's the science bit - slightly geeky bit too. I have been keeping track of exactly what I have been buying, where from, and how much. Since I haven't been rushing to build and finish the bike I've had the luxury to shop around and get some items a bit cheaper than I might have done on the high street. A lot of components came from the On One website as they have had some good sales on and the German bike-discount website has some great deals when the euro is down!
As you can see I have gone for an Alfine hub - I'll do a separate short posting on the wheels later as I think an entire book could be written on the choices to be made and the pros & cons of each set-up, clearly I'll be wrong in the choices I have made and there will be hoards of people telling me I should have one for carbon fiber rims with two spokes per wheel.
If you do have any questions or comments I would be very happy to hear them.

Item	Component Name	Cost	Source
Frame + Forks	Surly disk trucker 54cm	£375.00	Edinburgh cycles
Hub Gear	Alfine 11	£266.00	www.bike-discount.com
Front Hub	Shimano XT centre lock	£27.00	On One
Rims	Sun-Ringle Rhyno	£40.00	On One
Spokes		Inc.in build costs	-
Wheel Building	Wheelcraft	£45.00	http://www.wheelcraft.net/
Chain	KMC S1	£4.99	On One
Chain tensioner	On One Doofer	£14.99	On One
Front Cog	On One	£50.00	On One
Crank Arms	On One		On One
Pedals
Bottom Bracket	Shimano UN55 68x113mm	£15.00	On One
Gear Shifters	Versa 11	£149.99	On One
Brake Leavers
Brakes	Avid BB7 - Road	£89.00	www.bike-discount.com
Rotors	Shimano LX	£8.00	On One
Seat	Genesis	£0.00	Had it already
Seat Post	On One Twelfty 27.2mm	£10.00	ebay - second hand
Headset	FSA Orbit XL II	£19.99	On One
Handle Bars	On One Midge	£19.99	On One
Riser
Spacers
Tyres	Schwalbe marathon plus 26x1.35	£25.70	ebay - second hand
Tubes	Schwalbe	-	Came with tyres

Surly Long Haul Trucker - Construction Begins

I am now in the early stages of building a touring bike based around a Surly Disk Trucker frame with a Shimano Alfine 11 geared hub. With the start of my bike build I have also decided to revisit my blog and record progress for all to see. Why? Well I have taken a lot of advice from other bloggers and so I would like to give something back - also I want to show off what I hope will be my snazzy new wheels. When I am finished it should look something like this (colour may vary);

 

There has been an awful lot of agonizing on my part about what I am building, it might seem a simple project but deciding on what I want out of the bike had a massive impact on what I was to build (obviously!). What frame - MTB or road? Wheels - 700c or 26''? Long tours or fast & light. The list of choices and questions was seemingly endless. I'll try to make my blogs fairly snappy and as interesting as possible but on occasion I can see already that I am going to have to get long winded and technical, but hopefully this will also prove to be informative to anyone else on the long road to building a touring bike. 


That's all for now but soon I'll blog some pictures of the build, lists of parts used, and why I have made the choices I have. I'll also tell you where I got everything and how much I paid.

Uspallata and over the Andes

From Mendoza my destination was Santiago in Chile ready for my flight to New York, but by this stage in my travels I was way ahead of schedule and had plenty of time before the flight so I decided to stop at the little town of Uspallata. This is right on the edge of the Andes and only a short distance from Aconcagua, South Americas biggest peak and the bigest mountain outside of the Himalayas.

Uspallata by night

I had looked into a joining a tour to climb the peak but it was the end of the season and climbing permits had ended a couple of weeks earlier so I will have to save the climb for another visit. From Uspallata though I was able to make day trips into Aconcagua park and do some short hikes. On my first day in the hostel I met a Greman girl called Heidi who was planning to do the same as myself, so we headed out together the next day by bus to the park and did a short walk before heading down to the nearby town of Puente del Inca to see a natural stone bridge over the river (also visited by Charles Darwin so I learned).

Inca bridge

Then a quick visit to the cemetary for all the climbers who have died on Aconcagua and we thumbed a lift back to the hostel.

Aconcagua cemetery

The next day we hired bikes from the town and cycled into the desert to see a feature called 7 coloured mountain. I didnt excpect it to be too amazing but I was surprised to find that it really was very colourful. It was an hour and a half cycling uphill to get there but barely twenty minutes of racing down the dirt road back into town.

Desert Biking

Most of this stuff really needs pictures so I will update this post once I am able.

Heidi left the next day so I went for a walk into the desert nearby the hostel on my own, I was aiming to climb a peak and get views across the valley to the Andes, the peak I chose was a lot higher than I was expecting when I started and it took a full four hours of hard climbing to get to the top but the views were amazing.

View from the top - Uspallata valley and the Andes.

From the top I had hoped to find an easier route down as the one I had taken up was not suitable for descending and I was pretty much through all the water I had taken with me. I was out of luck as there were no easy routes down and so it took me another two hours to descend. After reaching the hostel I was told by the owner that I had walked into a military area, he was a bit anoyed as he said he was responsible for his guests, I told him that it was traditional to put up signs and fences as I had passed none, he wasnt too pleased. I am still trying to find out how high the mountain I claimbed was.

My last day of adventure in Uspallata was a return to Aconcagua park for a longer walk, this time up to Confluencia Basecamp, this is the first campsite for climbers on their way up Aconcagua and sits at about 3500meters, not too high but since Uspallata is only at about 1900meters it was a big height gain for the day and got me breathing a bit harder.

Looking towards Aconcagua

The views from here are amazing and just a short walk from the campsite is the end of a glacier that snakes its way along one side of the mountain. Unfortunatly there wasnt time to explore further and I had to head back down, even so I had missed the bus and faced with a long wait for the next one I thumbed a lift again and got back to the hostel a lot faster.

High altitude traffic jam

My next destination is Santiago and to get here I had to cross over the Andes, there is a road winding its way into the mountains and through a tunnel which eventually spits you out into the neighbouring country - the high altitude boarder post is interesting but what is far cooler are the 29 switchbacks that take the road down the mountain on the other side, at times I could peer out of the bus window and see the road looping around below me again and again as it headed down the slope. There are no barriers to the roads so if we had gone off the edge we wouldnt have stopped for a long time.

Long descent

Buenos Aires

I am falling behind a bit in my blogs so I will keep them short and try and catch up. I am already back in Santiago Chile but I have yet to write about most of Argentina. I still can´t add any pictures yet, either because the hostel PC´s wont let me or because I dont trust them not to be riddled with viruses and I dont want to loose my pictures so I will update some of my blogs once I am back in the UK and add pictures then.

Anyway, back to BA. I spent about a week in the city and liked it more than I expected, I am not into big cities but BA is a lot of fun with plenty to do. The hostel I was in was great with other interesting travellers to chat to, which helped a lot.

One of the stranger tourist activities I got up to was visiting a cemetary, it sounds odd but it is a must see for anyone in BA. First up it is packed with many of Argentinas rich and famous (and dead), a few presidents, some great military leaders, and probably most well known to the world Eva Peron (known by most people as Evita). The cemetary isnt full of gravestones as the caskets aren´t burried, instead they are placed in morseleums, each family having its own little building, the richer the family the more ostentatious the tomb. The cemetary is massive, like a town with little streets running between the tombs.

The nightlife of Argentina takes a bit of getting used to, they often dont eat dinner until 10pm and head out for the first drinks of the evening at midnight, so the clubs dont even open until 2pm and kickout time is generally when most people are getting up for work the next day, I managed a couple of nights but couldnt get into the locals routine without tuning into a vampire.

On one of the nights out I went to a drumming session called La Bomba del Tiempo, a kind of folky drumming band who were on stage for a couple of hours of fast and lively music.

The city has plenty of museums and architecture to see so I had a bit of culture and saw some of the modern and fine art galleries. The rest of my time was spent being a tourist, visiting areas of the city like the working class area of La Boca which is famous for its colourful tin buildings and tourists getting mugged. I wasnt all that impressed as it seems like the neighbourhood has been done up for tourists and was way too much like a theme park for my likeing. A far more enjoyable activity was getting a coffee in one of the sidewalk cafes and watching the people go by.

Resistencia

Well I was due to stay in Paraguay for about six weeks at a voluntary job but the organisation at the place was lacking to say the least so I only spent two weeks there before deciding to head out for a bit more travelling. With an extra months travelling to play with I headed south out of Paraguay in the direction of Buenos Aires.First stop was Resistencia just over the boarder into Argentina, The town is very easy to sum up - dont bother going! Its a relatively pointless town to visit as a tourist with no attractions, it is in no way geared up for the transitory traveller. There are no hostels that I could find so I stayed in a cheap but nice enough hotel but this isnt a great way to meet other people and there was no internet for me to plan my next destination. In most towns this wouldnt be a problem, just find an internet cafe, it wasnt until my third and last day in town that I finally found one, and it wasnt working. I never did manage to track down the tourist information either! It rained seemingly consantly here, indoor activities are few, activities in general are few. I did spot what appeared to ba an art museum - closed. On the plus side there are a limitless amount of pharmacies here, practically one on each corner, there are only slightly fewer shops offering all manner of printing and photocopying services.

Street sculpture in rainy Resistencia

The memorable highlight of my couple of days here was a crash outside my hotel between a motorbike and a car. The bikerider lay in the street motionless in the rain for quite some time with police and bystanders milling about and not a single person giving him any medical attention. I finally headed down to the street to see if I could at least make sure he was still breathing when the ambulance arrived. There followed what seemed to be some fairly sloppy medical handling of him onto a stretcher and he was whisked away in the ambulance. I want back to watching TV in my room, I was glad to leave that evening on an overnight bus to Rosario.

Iguazu Falls

Having recently visited Santiago and Asuncion I have noticed one or two differences between the two capital cities, maybe you can spot these in the pictures below;

Santiago

Asuncion

Santiago

Asuncion - Nice eh?

From Ascuncion I took a six hour bus ride to the opposite side of the country to see Iguazu Falls – one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. These are located just outside of Paraguay on the Brazilian/Argentinian boarder, I first went to Brazil to see the falls from their side; impressive but limited views so I looked forwards to going to Argentina for what I was told was a much closer and involved tour of the falls.

Iguazu Falls

Me posing at Iguazu Falls

First though, whilst still in Brazil I went to Itapu Dam, a massive structure full of facts and figures. It was apparently the biggest dam in the world until China’s Three Gorges dam was constructed (or will be constructed - not sure if its finished yet). Itapu dam was built jointly by Brazil and Paraguay – what is most amazing is that both were equal investors in its construction. It now provides 90% of Paraguays electricity and 20% of Brazils. Paraguays share of the dam actually produces double what the country needs so it sells the excess back to Brazil, corruption and shady dealing prevents Paraguay from making a fortune from all this free energy.

Massive concrete wall

Ituapu dam from the top down

Nearby the Brazilian side of the falls is a fairly low key but very nice bird park, there are the usual large cages in which you can view the birds but as usual these are quite dull, what is far more interesting are the huge walk through aviaries, these contain an impressive range of birds and butterflies; parrots, humming birds, toucans, flamingos, the list goes on. These are used to human contact and so were not disturbed in the least as I walked through, I’m fairly sure the toucans were posing for the picture.

Finishing my very brief stay in Brazil I made the quick boarder crossing to Puerto Iguazu on the Argentinian side of the falls. What I had been told was true, the views and experience on this side was far above what Brazil had to offer. Walkways lead right into the base of some of the falls where the spray soaks you, these then lead to the tops of the falls where the scale of the whole park can be appreciated.

Thats it for now - more later.