Thursday 27 August 2015

`Wednesday` ; New Fatbike from Surly...






Pugsley has a sister... meet Wednesday!...

Pics from Surly website-go sue my ass!  :D



I like the look of this bike, looks to me like a bike somewhere half way between the Krampus and the Ice Cream Truck (ICT),

And it`s the first Fatbike to tickle my fancies since the Moonlander came out 3 years ago...
The ICT is an amazing bike, i was the first UK resident to peddle one over here when i grabbed Tyler's after he unboxed it at Forth Fat... but it is a wide bike everywhere, Press fit BB too,
So imagine the good old Pugsley with symmetrical in line wheels, 170mm ish rear end, Bolt thgrough axles, capable of using a Bluto fork, and trail geometry inspired by the Krampus, with short chain stays etc...
And imagine if Surly  who have proven industrial strenght wheels made some drilled tubeless ready rims,
One of these bikes with a Bluto fork would make one hell of a rock crawler..

Surly have just made it...

If you could live without 5" tyres on 100mm rims then this could be a great do it all fatbike,an update Pugsley - The Swiss Army Penknife of Fatbikes...

29+ compatable?
Yep!, 29+ wheels will fit, I am going to get to test ride one when they hit UK shores and have already pre ordered one!...

Specs from Surly site and info...
Wednesday is a frame with a decade of Omniterra design experience destilled into one steel package. Wednesday can ride over the same type of pretty much anything all of our other Omniterra bikes can and for the Wednesday, we borrowed elements from both our Trail and Touring categories to create an Omniterra ride that can truly handle anything you want to attempt. Want to point the thing down a mountain and roll those dice? Wednesday has geometry spry enough to get you through the techy stuff, stable enough for the fast stuff and doesn’t feel sluggish when you have to ride back to the top.
While Wednesday is plenty confident on terrifying terrain, it also has the chops for any sort of expedition you may want to undertake. We gave it plenty of bottle mounts; triple bottle bosses on both fork legs and the down tube; standard bottle mounts on the seat tube and underside of the down tube; plus rack mounts on the frame and fork and fender eyelets on the dropouts, along with barrel bosses on the crown, fork legs and mid-blade, thru-blade eyelets on the fork as well. It also has internal dropper post routing and Surly Trip Guides to manage all the housing and cables on your frame with style. No rat’s nest here. It’s a lot to take in so read that again and you’ll understand, it’s just plain ready for action. We gave Wednesday its very own dropout design as well – a rear-facing, slotted dropout that can use either 10mm or 12mm axles and exit rearward or vertically. They’re cast steel and spaced at 170/177mm.
We wanted Wednesday to give you a lot of options in the tire clearance category. In the full-foward, short chainstay position you can run 26 x 3.8˝ tires on 80mm rims and in the full-rearward, longer chainstay position you get the option of 26 x 4.6˝ tires on an 80mm rim. Wednesday is made out of our own proprietary 4130 CroMoly steel and is ED coated. ED coating is a process that leaves a coating that, externally, provides a solid foundation for paint while also providing an added layer of corrosion protection internally. However, we still recommend an additional treatment such as Frame Saver or Boeshield.

Check out more info on the bike and it`s differances to it`s brother Pugsley,
and the ICT;  Wednesday

On a long weekend now, and nothing to do but breath...
And soak up the harvest views here and ride bikes with friends,
and have a good time!...
Some pics from today...









More soon...

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Harvest is GO!!!


Amazing what 48 hours does, despite thunderstorms the harvest has begun in earnest!,  While the Wheat is a week or so away the Spring Barley is being chomped by combines all over the place,
After work i cycled to the shops and seen loads of combines out on local farms...












Surly ECR;
ECR = `Escape Commuting Routine`...
Off road to work today on the ECR through harvested fields to check recent bike mods are ok for this weekends goofing around Harvest bivi ride with friends...




Another pair of Jones Loop bars fitted,  after a few scary cross rutting moments on the drop bars , a try of MTB bars were to similar to the KramPug bike, so settling for Loop bars, sold the Woodchipper drop bars and fragile (off road)  STI shifters to help pay for these bars, a rip off at £135 compared to £20 - £30 for regular MTB riser bars but it`s a cornered market...



No problems with trapped cables with the handlebar harness, the drop STI shifters were no good with the 90 degree gear cables...


120 tpi Chronicle tyres needed 2 wraps of underlay foam to air up `Ghetto` split tubeless,  the 60 tpi Chronicles did not need any foam, will stick with them for future purchases....





Really liking the bikes set up now, a lot different to the higher BB height 29+ Pugsley `KramPug`...



The bike is going to get the gears swapped out to a Shimano Alfine 8 speed internal gear hub (IGH)  soon to make it more versatile, making riding through long grass like in the pic below not a problem for the drive chain, apart from this the ECR is a great bike...



Rear Rack added (Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op rack) this evening to take panniers for shopping or an extra `communal` tarp for camping...



Bike is ready to pack tomorrow evening for the weekend,

More soon...

Tuesday 25 August 2015

Late start to Harvest, so been a busy bee...






The above pics are of the dawn of another fine summers day,  but i don`t think we have had one days weather the same as the next for a few weeks now!,  not a lot of rain has fallen but it has come down a hell of a quick, last Saturday evenings thunderstorm was quite spectacular,
It has greened up the hill at work, but slowed the main harvest getting started,  a local Agronomist i know said this years harvest is 2 weeks later than usual.  Not enough sunshine apparently...

Some pics yesterday  show a typical August sky of late...








Had last weekend off from cycling as needing a rest,  third weekend on in a row at work, and although only a couple of hours then home for the rest of the day, 5am alarm calls start to catch up,  and running an 18 hole Golf Course and Driving range with only two staff for the last 5 weeks as we have all took summer holidays has been hard going for the three of us... Then there is also the machinery, some of it is on its knees now and daily breakdowns are time consuming and moral sucking...but the wages keep coming in so keep on grinding...



Still life goes on and soon it will be September, my favourite month scenically in East Lothian...
The local Deer cannot wait and are jumping with joy... :)


Not so the Moles that are active after the recent rain.  This SAS Special Ops Mole took a week and 9 traps to catch!...  57 this year caught...



Still working on the house and all painted now, floors now lined with plywood and waiting on Vinyl flooring, i want it all done before winter, depending on what happens i may sell up next year...

Pumpkin Pugsley`s wheels were laced up at the weekend...





And Man-Cave floor repainted...


A break one evening and a visit to a neighbours garage,  social cave activity here out in the sticks...





And finally yesterday evening after a dry windy day the Combines are out!, harvest has started already with Winter Barley, now Spring Barley and Oilseed Rape. Had a lovely couple of hours cycle out on the Surly KramPug soaking up the warm evening air, harvest gold scenery, and sunset...

















Then home to sit in the garden, enjoy a cider before turning in...



More soon...