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..

Surly Wednesday Update; back to 29+ MTB duties...

I used the Surly Wednesday last year for bike packing duties and. it is a good all round bike and probably the bikes we would use if we had to start again and taking both fat and 29+ (not 4.8 rear but only 4.4') it like the Pugsley 2.0 seems to be improved on 29+ wheels which raises the BB height approx 10mm - both the Wednesday and Pugsley 2.0 have slightly too low BB heights, being designed for 4.4" tyres - the newer in-between width/hight sizing of recent years you can get a better BB height with 4.8' or 29+ tyres -NOTE; Wednesday cannot take a 4.8" rear tyre, I know, I tried all manner of ways to avoid tyre and chain rub, the newer 4.4" tyre size actually has near the same tyre wall height ...

Anyway back to another wheel build, finally I have sorted out my good bikes which I will be using from now on- the Pugsley 2.0 5" tyre beach bike - that's done... I got another unbuilt Pugs 2.0 frame set with everything to built 29+ for bikepacking,

And The Surly Wednesday for trails and mountainbike duties with the Bluto suspension fork and a dropper seat post refitted. the 29+ wheels have summer tyres fitted -Chupachabras and I wanted something with a bit more bite for softer trails, and I had a new 177mm through axle Hope Fatsno rear hub sitting and recently scored an unused Hope Fatsno 150mm thru axle front hub - its red so they don't match but that don't matter,

I had promised to build a set of 29+ wheels for my big brothers Surly Wednesday, so with having these hubs it made more sense to sell him my complete ones with tyres etc ready to go and finally Halo vapour 29+ wheels came back in stock here in the UK, with rims arrived along with 298mm spokes - that turned out to be 2mm too long I soon had new wheels laced and trued them on the Wednesday frame set...

Split tube and usual method, these rims are tubeless ready but I don't thing the new tyres were...

Vittoria Cannolli 29 x 3 at a bargin £30 each on eBay, these soon aired up on the rims ok and were given 300ml of Stans sealant...

The foam you see cut on the floor was not needed...

All done and ready to roll...

The new tyres width is slightly narrower - more like a 29 x 2.8 tyre but that's fine for my intended purpose for the bike...

Maxxis Chronicle 29 x 3.0 tyre on the same rim...

We cycled east out of town along to Torness, a fantastic day and good to bed in both bikes new wheel sets, film of this ride is on the previous blog post...

Next day we went a short loop up into the Hill foots and a chance to try these tyres...

Tomorrows harvest...5+ months away...

Friend Taylor was out running!...

These tyres roll really well and have good side wall grip in softer conditions, 

Wee film from todays cycle, Song is `See Ya Later` by Boards Of Canada

More soon...

Surly Wednesday Update; June 2020...

Only riding 2 of my 4 bikes mostly these days the Surly Wednesday with it's 29+ wheels on is my go to trail bike, with the New SURLY Pugsley 2.0 waiting on a Surly Moonlander fork arriving to allow fitment of 100mm wide rims (Moonlander) wheels and 4.8" tyres to use as my go to Beach bike,

From the side you could be mistaken The Surly Wednesday is a Surly Krampus - Surly`s 29+ trail weapon, as the Geometry is near identical between  the bikes...

If you have not read up on the Surly Wednesday you can on Surly Website Here...

The frame set is a no thrills regular 4130 tube with no fancy drawn tubes and has all the bottle cage mounts you need, big triangle for a big frame bag, easy to access rear brake calliper for easy rear wheel removal (More below) with neat drop outs, and threaded BB so can be built on a budget with cheap parts, The complete bike is good value as is the frame set only option available here in the UK for under £600 if you shop around,

So you have a Fatbike that takes 4.4" tyres with bolt through axles on a 150 front hub, 177 rear, has routing for a dropper post and the 150mm front hub is Suspension fork ready,

I decided to remove the dropper seat post and suspension fork to keep the bike more basic with less to go wrong...

I still have the fork and dropper post, now boxed incase I do want to refit them at some point in the future, but for the trails around here in East Lothian they are not necessary...

The bikes beach wheels  will only get used soon if there is a problem with the new Pugsley,

These wheels are 80mm rims with Schwalbe Jumbo Jims -a 4.4 rear and 4.8" front...

For those interested look at the increase size of a 4.8" Schwalbe Jumbo Jim tyre on a 100mm rim (right) compared to a 80mm rim left in pic...

2 Bikes in one; Fat wheels and 29+;

Two bikes in one with a Fatbike, if the bike is designed to take 4.4" tyres, fitting 29+ only raises the Bottom Bracket height by only 10mm, which you will not notice in the bikes handling, with a 5" tyre fat bike the BB height should remain the same,  this was one disadvantage of the original SURLY Pugsley  when you fitted the 29+ wheels, but the idea is still genius!

The Surly Wednesday has clever horizontal drop outs with a vertical slot so removing the thru axle allows the rear wheel to easily come out, these I think are the best Surly drop outs for ease of use...

1 x 10 Cheap gearing and budget BB options...

With cheap Sram X5 cranks (used £50 oneBay) you can run cheap Shimano Deore Bottom Brackets using £8 Hope `Sram -Shimano` size BB shims for budget running,  

These cranks are triple arm so I run a 30t narrow wide and a 22t granny gear bail out which has been used a lot recently on big climbs in the Local Lammermuir Hills...

The 11-40t Sunrace Chainrings are cheap at £43 and £15 for a Sram 10 speed nickel chain, £15 narrow wide chainring, and tucked in out of harms way a Shimano Zee short cage mech, and bombproof Microsoft Thumbshifter keeps everything no thrills but functional...

Hope conversion shims to allow Shimano size BB to be run on SRAM cranks

I like these simple cranks as you cannot over load the tension on the bearings, they seem to be lasting for ages on this bike having only replaced them once in 3 years...

Bomber set up...

Thumb shifters rule!, I can actually change through several gears quicker with them than trigger shifters

Keep it simple...

I was given this Surly Wednesday frame set as a gift from Surly via Pat at ISON the UK Surly Importer/Distributor 4 years ago to ride and review and the bike is a great versatile frame set that really rewards the more effort you put into riding it.

I have managed to build a great trail bike with reliability and budget build being the main spec, 

And this bike proves you don't need the latest £6000 all singing all dancing trail projectile,  

From keeping up with friends on Enduro bikes at Glentress with plus wheels, Suspension fork, and dropper post fitted, to rock crawling on the coast on fat wheels, Bikepacked the Capital trail on 29+ and Fat wheels,

I have also managed to clean every hill in the Lammermuirs so far on this set up, 

Riding a  steel frame set with big 29+ wheels at an average 12 psi and  slowing down a bit on technical trails and having to choose lines through instead of charging over on full suspension I find a more satisfying ride,

More soon...