coastrider: Surly Wednesday

Tuesday, 14 June 2022

My Surly Wednesday... A long overdue review of this underrated (and often overlooked by myself with all the Pugsley attention) Fatbike...

My Surly Wednesday is approx 6 years old now and it seems a long time ago I built the frame set up for beachriding to originally replace my ageing Surly Moonlander...

Its a fun bike with lively handling with more modern Mountainbike geometry,

Yet my Surly Wednesday is the least mentioned Surly I still ride on the blog, probably because of the last Surly Pugsley 2.0 bikes receiving all the attention with their wheel size capabilities. The funny thing is my Surly Wednesday has been bomb proof reliable since building with a few wheel swaps along the way, but it never seems to have any teething problems and just gets on with letting you enjoy the ride, as a good bike should!.

And Pugsleys big sister Wednesday (named after Addams Families kids get it?) does deserve more credit as it really is a great Fatbike design designed around the later to market 4.6: tyres (in-between 4 and 5 inch tyres), the 4.6" tyres actually have near the same side wall hieght as the bigger 4.8" tyres, so as with those bikes running them when you fit 29+ wheels (29 x 3") you don't jack the bottom bracket hieght up much (around 1 cm) unlike the original Pugsley Fatbke which is raised an inch.

Comparing the Wednesday to the Surly Pugsley 2.0 ;

I have been asked online by a few folks to compare it to the Surly Pugsley 2.0 but I don't see the point in comparing it to a frame set/ complete build bike when the Pug is no longer available new,

It was indeed the Pugsley 2.0 which would replace my Moonlander as it can of course fit the huge Moonlander huge wheels as I have previously wrote about,

The only comparisons I would say between the two bike designs is that the Wednesday is more like the Krampus for out the saddle riding, and the Pugsley 2.0 with a higher head tube more comfortable for long distance/all day cycling...

Note on rear tyre width possible to fit on a Wednesday;

The big 4.8" tyres as fitted to the Moonlander, Ice Cream Truck, and can be fitted to the newer Surly Pugsley 2.0 will not ideally fit in the rear of a Surly Wednesday, trust me folk can say what they want but it will not fit and give you a full set of gears with sufficant chain to tyre clearance as i tried it and even removing some cassette rings for increased tyre/chain clearance there is just not enough tyre clearance on the chain stays to run tyres down to 4-5psi which you want in soft sand, So best stick with the recommended 4.6" rear. I run a 4.6" rear and 4.8" front Schwalbe Jumbo Jims tyres on my Fat wheels and there is not much difference in tyre heights to notice.

What Fatbike I would buy if I had to start again?;

This is a simple answer, say we had no bikes now and had to start again what bikes would we buy and ride?, it would be still be a a choice of available Surly. The Surly Ice Cream truck or the Surly Wednesday, complimented with a 29+ wheel set, and I think it would prob be the Surly Wednesday and I would have to be happy with the 4.6" tyres on 80mm rims, as not too keen on the super wide 198 rear end of the ICT,

The complete builds on both bikes is a good priced package.

Right now (June 2022) a new Wednesday complete bike in the UK is £2000 (if in Stock) and a frame set is

£800.

ICT is £2600 complete bike and frame set is £900

Wednesday Frame highlights;

So here are the good things about the Wednesday frame design;

Straight steel tubes nothing fancy,

dropper post routing and tapered head tube allow suspension forks,

Threaded Bottom bracket

Rear brake mounted on top of rear drop out like older Pugs etc - less fiddly to adjust/remove wheel,

handy rear drop outs make rear wheel removal a doddle

bottle cage mounts on frame down tube and forks

The frame has real good handling for out the saddle riding with long top tube and mountainbike style low head tube, makes it ideal for adding 29+ wheels for MTB duties as well as bikepacking etc...

29+

And that is how I have settled on the set up for my Wednesday, as a 29+ bike filling the rolls of a Surly Krampus and Surly ECR which I owned at the same time, these frames were both sold once I was given this frame from Pat when he was marketing manager at ISON the UK importer Distributor for Surly here in the UK, I bike packed with the bike last year and its good for that, though its mountain bike geometry lends to a lower head tube than most touring/expedition type bikes and this was where my second Surly Pugsley 2.0 takes over that roll.,

Mountainbike set up;

So I returned the Wednesday to a 29+ hardtail mountain bike and refitted the Rock Shox Bluto 100mm suspension fork and Reverb dropper post and I'm real happy with the bike like this.

Climbing ability;

This is where I have found this bike really shines is its climbing ability, must be the lowish head tube and wide flat bars, long top tube - the only Medium size Surly I still ride (Pugsley 2.0`s are size large)this bike climbs like a scalded cat!, the best Fatbike I have had for climbing for sure,

Gearing;

which leads onto gearing, when I built the bike it was 10 speed and still is as our Pugsleys are, I started out with 1 x 10 along with a stealth 22 front chainring (Granny ring)

and used a 40t Sunrise cassette with a nice and short Shimano ZEE rear mech which at the time seemed the best set up for a tucked in out of the way set up for rock crawling.

The world has gone 11 and now 12 speed group sets with huge 50 tooth rear cassettes but these never came online for the traditional Shimano rear free hub, Shimano went to a new micro spline design and SRAM are not compatible, however we did get 42 and 46t cassettes from Sunrace and a few other makes that all seem to come from the same factory in the Far East, so I settled on a 46 rear using a regular length Shimano XT rear mech with one of those mech extenders...

Look what I found!;

Searching on eBay recently for another 46t Sunrace cassette to change my Surly Pugsley 2.p beach bike to from 40t to 46t rear mech (same as G`s bike) this company called BUCKLOS do a 50t Shimano fitment cassette. and it was £36 posted so worth a punt, and here it is...

I bought a 10 speed chain down at Colins local shop and soon had the existing chain and cassette removed...

Neat rear drop out design on the Wednesday allow you to vertically pull out the wheel once you pull out the thru axle...

The new 50t is significantly larger then the 46t, only 4 teeth but quite a difference

I soon had the wheel slotted back in and Chain tensioner to pull the wheel back slightly already set fitted the new chain and only a turn of the mech screw cleared the 1st gear

All done...

Check out this monster!

Need to get up the Lammermuir Hills to try it out but this will make it a lot easier to do - imagine using the 22t front stealth (granny ring) with the 50t?!! it will go up the side of near anything lol

In the meantime a short cycle around Gifford to check all ok and the gears sync fine...

Wee film, song is `Teardrop` by Massive Attack

More soon..

Thursday, 14 April 2022

Lammermuir Hills Gravel track loop via Lammerlaw...

Out again on the local Lammermuir Hill tracks and today we rode the Gifford-Hopes-Lammerlaw-Gifford loop. a fun 14 miles or so with around 1500 feet of climbing rewarded by great views and a downhill descent finish, to earn those views and descents you have a killer steep hill to first of all get up.

Your legs will be warmed up for that though by the time you ride through Yester Woods and onto the minor road up then down into the Hopes...

Onto gravel tracks and today we were on 29+ wheels, I still argue the best wheel size and tyre choice for roll ,grip, comfort, having used drop bars off-road and experienced the bone shaking hand jarring ride riding on the hoods with little control on loose rocks and of thinner harder pressure tyres I would not thank you for a `Gravel bike`...

The track gently climb up around the Hopes Reservoir with splendid views under the bike sky and we were warming up now as it was around 8C in Gifford but the temperature was dropping as we climbed up into the hills...

Jackets off for now as more climbing was about to get err a bit steeper...

And there it was - the hill of Dread, the climb of justice!, this is a real stinker of a climb and you want some real low gearing for it...

With a sore hip G was not even going to attempt to try climb it today and was happy to push, stopping for a breather every 20 steps or so...

You really want a 2 x gear system to get up this, the means 2 front chainrings, you will see our bikes have. 1 x gears systems - 10 speed with 30 teeth front chainring and 11-46 teeth rear, you will get up on this gearing but it will give you a beating and you will have a sweat on guaranteed...

Just before it starts to get real steep I stopped to remove my windbreaker jacket and deploy the secret weapon...

Both our bikes have a sneaky hidden in front 22 tooth chainring

With the `Stealth Granny Ring` deployed (G`s bike has the same). you now have a 22t front/46t tooth rear 1st gear!

The Surly Wednesday is a great climbing bike with 29+ wheels, better than any KramPug I have built - that's a big statement for me to say being the biggest Pugsley fan but it climbs like a rat up a drainpipe, before I used a 40t rear cassette but now with a 46t rear on the stealth granny ring its even better!

G was soon up the hill and as we cooled down soaking up the view we soon had the jackets back on as it was a real cold Northerly wind....

On the roof of the Lammermuirs now and we soaked up the views under a big sky of broken cloud as we cycled across to the old track that crossed the hills from Longyester to Carfraemill...

This ancient route has been documented to have been in existence since the Stone Age and like the Herring Road across these hills to the was from Dunbar to Lauder is full of history...

As coastal views appeared on the shoulder of Lammerlaw we crossed the heather on a track as the summit of Lammerlaw came into view...

Stunning views across to Edinburgh, Fife and beyond to snow topped hills...

It was freezing though in the cold wind!, 4C on the Garmin with 0C windchill!, we soon ate our cheese nannies and drunk most of our flasks before heading for the long descent off the hill...