Not sure if readers overseas can access BBC I Player, If you can you should watch this documentary on the Oil Boom of the 1970`s and the transformation of the Cromarty Forth, the jobs created and the money that could be made. It must have also been an amazing and bit crazy time with folk getting so much money as can be seen with he footage of the Piggery - the local Pub....
Were just back from Bike packing around there and while I get the posts edited up watch this for entertainment...
The true story of when Oil was discovered in the North Sea and the Uk needed Oil Rigs fast to get the oil in 400 feet seas which had not been done before and many thought it would be impossible to build rigs of such a height to drill such a depth in the hostile North Sea. 5000 men and some hardy woman came from all over the world to the Cromarty Firth where the way of life was changed forever, earning 4 times the wage of anywhere else it was a boom town during those years of construction...
Anzac Day remembers all Australian and New Zealand soldiers who served and died in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.
I always think of the Cherry blossom usually in bloom on this Memorial Day. Today I took the Jeep out a drive to park up looking over East Lothian, There are ANZAC soldiers war graves in East Lothian, Pilots based at the airbases here - RAF Drem and RAF East Fortune with war graves at Dirleton.
Young men , really just boys who travelled from the other side of the world to be trained and sadly for many their lives taken at such a young age. training accidents claimed the lives of many, and our local Lammermuir Hills are covered in wreck sites and memorials, like the Beaufighter crash sight we visited the previous weekend...
Gone but not forgotten...
What a lot of folk don't know when the story of the horror of the WW1 Gallipoli Campaign is told and the loss of lives is that along with ANZAC troops there was also French and British troops that fought in what has often been described as one of the most horrific battles of any war.
My great Grandfather was one Scot who fought there in the trenches... and survived. Our family has the War records of his time serving there...
I previously wrote a blog post about these war records and you can read it here;
So with G now happy with her Pink Pugsley 2.0 I of course can take the Moonlander and re spec it how it was more or less originally upgraded to from new and once in decent running condition can go into the Retro Surly Fatbike collection.
The Surly Moonlander was quite a game changer when released and really moved the goal posts on where you can actually cycle a bicycle. The Pugsley with 3.7" (reads 4" measured) on 65mm wide rims opened up what is possible on snow sand and soft gravel where a bicycled can be realistically cycled more easiblly, but when the Moonlander concept came out it blew the minds of those original Surly Pugsley Fatbike owners minds again what more was possible, and I was one of them, riding across rocks on the coast so slippy i could not walk over on foot. And once the 4.7" tyres(which were the same size as modern 4.4" tyres) were superseeded with 4.8" tyres it was agin even better!
Here is my original launch film of my bike in more or less stock trim with a few extras added... If you asked me what my favourite film I have made it is since started blogging it is probably this film, Mixing the Moonlanding footage into Gullane dunes by filming Google Earth - both using a digital camera filming a pc monitor on a trip pod while swiping along the screen with a mouse to fly along the Gullane coastline and changing to black and white, then after zooming in on Gullane cliffs with WW2 anti tank blocks, then the bike upside down with LEGO Spacemen, and then the pan the camera down and across the tank block and the concrete waves from the corrugated sheeting mixes into the wind waves on the sand dune at Peffersands was pure fluke! but worked a treat...BEEP!
First though before anything I had to sort out the surface rust from years and several thousand miles of salt water exposure abuse...
But once sanded with a wire brush it was like my original Pugsley Fatbike only just surface rust...
M10 - Manufacured 2010, arrived here in the UK in 2011, first of two in the UK, mine the first in Scotland, it is now 10 years old, and not finished seeing action yet!...
Getting a matching touch up would not be easy but I went for Hammerite Black and Hammerite Silver mixed as close as I could get it...
On top of this I will spray a glitter clear coat I have ordered via eBay and it will be close enough...
With the rust taken care of i added some of the original parts I used for years...
This was after I sorted the wheels, which new tyres had been removed for the Pink Pug (G`s Xmas pressie!) but no panic as I had as new Surly Bud and Lou 4.8" yours bought around 2 years ago in an eBay auction and squirrelled away for fututre use, this went on split tube tubeless using motorcycle inner tubes - the go too tubes for Ghetto tubeless on 100mm rims - you have to go Schrader valve though, but as you probably know I have for years said high pressure Presta valves are pointless on low pressure Fatbike wheels and have from day one ran with Schrader valves...
17" motorcycle inner tubes are a bit too tight and if you price it to cut around the tube it will tear, so marked a line with a sharpie to follow before deflating. In the future I will use 80/90 x 19 tubes on Moonlander wheels...
Magnet on a new blade to leave a small bit of tube exposed, which helps against rim spikes at low pressures...
5 psi rear, 4 psi front...
I still need to swap out the busted rear Crud Guard and will probably rob the Thorn cranks for another Pugsley build ongoing but the old bike - well it is 10 years old is ready for the odd day out for a few year yet...
And after riding the bike last weekend with friends I was reminded how good this bike was - and still is today in its design and how it rides, popping a few wheelies along forest tracks it has an amazing balance point, probably the best of any Fatbike I have owned, though not sure if I could do this again... and wheelie the length of Gullane beach... those were the days!
No new updates on the Jeep this week, it is running fine and I have been out several evenings with the warm weather, no films, I have just been out driving and enjoying it...
The Jeep is a world wide iconic vehicle, it is the original 4x4, it is often referred to as the vehicle that won the war with its involvement in all theaters of WW2 all around the world. No matter if your lucky enough (or nowadays rich enough!) to own a genuine WW2 survivor with documented history, or a predecessor military Jeep including many that were made under licence of Willy`s like the India Mahindra or French Hotchkiss like I own that has a WW2 era `Go Devil` 2.25 engine - `the engine that won the war` Jeep fans will tell you,
Never owned a vehicle that generates so many smiles and conversations when you park up when out, or the amount of people that take pictures of it, good to have something that makes you happy, and others in this recent Pandemic year...
I could post the original WW2 Willys and Ford demonstration films for the US Government, but most folk have already seen them, I will however post them up in a future post in case you have not and are interested. This Team G503 film is good to watch, as it unravels a few things about the legend of the Jeep, like was does G503 stand for?, and shares a few unanswered questions and mysteries, Area 51 fans will enjoy this...
Recently online Surly announced the end of production of the Surly Pugsley...
The end of the original production Fatbike that through several versions has mainly remained the same. Despite advances in Fatbike designs and stuff the concept still offered a basic frame set that with a 50mm or wider rim allowed 3.8" (4") tyres or widest available 4.8" (5") tyres to be used (on the newer 2.0 Pugsley)while still using run of the mill available for decades regular mountain bike assembly parts...
My love affair for the Pugsley started over 12 years ago...
I have bought and sold many Pugsley frame sets and bikes over the years, over 12 or 13...
Sourcing parts when they were going cheap as folk upgraded to newer more shiny or lighter parts, those Pugsleys were sold on to new homes and owners who were and some still are riding them...
I have built them up with all variants of builds;
Alfine Internal 8 speed hub (IGH)
Singlespeed with reversible wheels for different gear options....
29+...
Drop Bars, flared drop bars, Jones Loop bars, Flat bars, Riser bars, Moose Bars....
Fat tyre BOB Yak trailer...
Front and rear racks...
Bike packing etc...
And now with a Moonlander fork fitted you can fit Surly ` Clownshoe` (Moonlander) 100mm wide rims and 4.8" tyres that will bolt straight on with loads of tyre clearance on a new Orange 2018 Pugsley 2.0...
Two things being a Fatbike rider for over 12 years and one of the 1st in the UK to use a Fatbike for regular xc cycling begs the question...
Why after bringing out the Surly Pugsley 2.0 which also fills the gap of the (discontinued) Moonlander as it can also fit the widest available wheels - 100mm rims on 4.8" tyres while still using a basic threaded 100mm BB and cheap to source parts like 1" 1/8th headset along with £20 square taper bottom brackets and any old MTB cranks that fit, is... why discontinued it?...
Yeah, why stop with it's wheel set availability of any other 29er wheel set frame set bike that if you do not mind the 100mm BB design is a frame set that lends to more build options than any other Surly frame set?...
Can only be down to Sales and Marketing what the mainstream cycling are doing and a different group of folk now working at Surly to the original Surly crew that designed the Pugsley and other Surly frame sets that set the company apart from the usual marketing... and that's sad...
All the original names of Surly have long left the ship and it seems to now be just run like any other bike manufacturer following the fleet like sheep... the new ranges seems to show that...
The ICT and Wednesday are fine bikes, but both require specialist running parts like wider hubs and crank sets that cost more...
And there is little website blog posts of stuff different to other bike companies stuff these days, the latest new models are just other 29" variants, stuff that's all ready been available for years by Surly and Salsa along with every other company...
What the hell...
If that's the story then I`m not that worried... I got enough frame sets to last my life time, and I recently ordered another size large Pugsley 2.0 frame set when I read their unavailable now here in the UK and hard to find in the USA, I found the new large Pugsley frame set via Italy at Starbike...
Folk here in the UK will greet (Thats Scottish for cry) that £800 is a lot for a new steel frame set...
well it is unless you break down how long it will last, that's at least 15 years if my original Pugsley frame is still going strong and is now12 years old!....
Steel is Real...
Do the sums and £800 over 10 years is only £80 a year, folk often spunk that amount on a night out in Edinburgh, or on a meal and posh bottle of wine in a Restaurant...
I`m not interested in wasting money in either thing anymore and happy to invest in my hobbies, I`m thinking long term...
I won't be building this frame set in a hurry as running another on the beach as featured in the blog post and running the Surly Wednesday as a 29+ trail bike and it is in the loft in storage ...
G loves riding the Moonlander and it just keeps on running and the frame has a lot of surface rust now but if it comes to it the frame set can be swapped out for this new frame,
Pugsley spare hoarding...
So I'm sorted for my cycling as long as I am able with bike frames sets and wheel sets - that's a spare 8 wheel sets in the new garage!, 5 Pugsley and Moonlander forks, and boxes of parts to keep our 4 bikes rolling for years...
I live in East Lothian, S.E. Scotland.
I fill my time with my hobbies, interests and passions. Often cycling along the coast here. I ride steel bikes with big wheels, I like to enjoy all interests of the coast, Its scenery, wildlife, local history, with my other interests in art and music when out and about...
I was diagnosed with Relapsing remitting Multiple Sclerosis in August 2018, it`s early days but i plan to continue to live my life as i have and show that having a medical condition like MS does not mean you need to stop enjoying your life,
Please excuse the bad grammar, i am working on it!
