After over two decades, Surly moved the Cross-Check frameset from their standard lineup of bikes to the ‘Legacy Lineup’ of their website. Surly confirmed that the bike is no longer in production and is unlikely to come back.
If you haven’t owned this gravel/cyclocross/touring/whatever bike yourself, you likely know someone who has. The Surly Cross-Check was the egalitarian choice in cycling, simultaneously someone’s utilitarian dream bike that was attainable and sold at a fair price.
The end of the Cross-Check marks the bike’s reign as the most bike that ever biked, the go-to way to make a pile of parts you hoarded in the corner of your garage into a functioning bicycle, and the defacto option that a bike nerd could happily ride and recommend to their non-bikey friends all the same.
@tk@cycling@mastobikes@mhoye Aw, dang. I rejoined the cycling world 12 or 13 years ago on a black Cross Check. I loved it unreservedly, and kept it in my garage for years after I rode it regularly— it got displaced by lighter, shinier bikes — mostly out of sentimental reasons.
I finally sold it last year to a math grad student who rides it nearly every day.
@chrishuck@tk@cycling@mastobikes
As a Swiss elite cycling racer told me once: cx is one hour of freezing, suffering and going way over your limits. So a perfect winter work out.
Mostly did road racing before the pandemic paused the season so I tried solo TT racing then tried CX which felt like it had the best of all worlds going for it.
First ever CX race was on a custom built 90s Hardrock MTB with drop bars. Fell over 3 times, had fun, and am in my third season of it.
Kind of annoyed with White Industries at the moment. The original press-fit bearings in my Stanyan’s MI5 rear hub needed replacement a long while ago, so I had my local bike shop order them (which took forever to be shipped by Enduro) and swap them out. Unfortunately, the same amount of play persisted after the bearing swap despite said shop following White Industries’s directions to the T multiple times. My shop has called White Industries multiple times only to not be given any recourse.
I’ve been out that Stanyan for several weeks now and I don’t know if I should just get a different hub put in the wheel or something at this point. :blobfoxannoyed:
While I was riding my main #bicycle on gravel a couple days ago, I was able to easily rescue a front wheel slide.
And when I was riding it yesterday up a fairly steep bit of sandy gravel (for the city), I was able to get past wheelslip and just pedal slowly and softly in a low gear to get up the hill.
For our anniversary run of Rene Herse bikes—and for the bikes we ride in long-distance events—we wanted a better solution: a reliable needle-bearing headset that is Rinko-compatible. This is another project that had a long gestation period: We made the first prototypes three years ago. We ran them in Unbound XL (twice), in Paris-Brest-Paris, Arkansas High Country Race, Dark Divide 300 and many other rides and adventures. Along the way, we fine-tuned many details, both aesthetic and functional. We decreased stack height, lowered weight, and increased clearances to make sure the headset works smoothly and quietly under the harshest conditions. We tested and re-tested, and now the headsets are ready.
Found these cute old sheds (still in use!) in Woodland Park while exploring a new route with the knobby-ish gravel tires on my Soma Stanyan. :blobfoxthumbsup: (1)
Definitely getting better with the color calibration tool in #Darktable. Having the flexibility to pick any hue for the illuminant is very nice! :blobfoxgoogly:
It took many years and many professional bike fits for their extremely valuable #bikeFit tips to finally sink in. :blobfox0_0:
It took me following a hunch over several months to get to the general area where my saddle and handlebars should be for their tips to finally make sense and complete the picture in my mind. (My saddle was way too low for a long time because my first bike fitter was trying to work with my horrible technique early on, which caused me to tear a quad in one leg. :blobfoxscared: )
If you ride, your brain knows how motorcycles work intuitively, but we bet you’ll struggle to explain it accurately. We’re trading opinions for science in a pursuit to understand how motorcycles really steer.
These dynamics also apply to #bicycle riding, obviously.
Had a great time on this month’s Swift Industries Social Ride! There were almost 40 of us on this ride since we all wanted to enjoy the nice weather after so much gloomy rain. The pace was nice because we were able to chat most of the time, but we also were given free reign to climb and descend more significant hills at our own pace. (Album)
Hoping to do more social rides this Summer since I think it’s what I really need out of my hobbies (both bicycle and motorcycle riding) now.
Over the years our cost of doing business and the cost of living in our city have only gone up. We have aspired to provide living, professional wages to highly skilled tradespeople. I firmly believe that high wages and more opportunities and entry level positions for more diverse types of mechanics and salespeople are the keys to revising the bike retail model and replacing the exclusive and gatekeeping culture of bike shops and at the same time provide service that is more reliable and better value than riders are typically able to depend on.
After years of skirting the edge, depending on tightening margins, and digging for good luck in heaps of bad, we have hit a string of the bad kind; the reality that we cannot support ourselves and at the same time do this work in the manner that we most want has become undeniable.
It is a true thing to say that if your business can’t afford to pay fair wages, your business has no business doing business.
The shop’s closure is happening faster than we would have liked, and the livelihoods of my staff and myself are all at risk, as is our ability to meet all of the obligations we have to our customers. We will be closed for the next few days to organize ourselves, and then in the next few weeks, starting on Wednesday the 17th, we hope that you’ll consider coming in and picking up anything you might need from our shop. We have many high-quality ebikes for sale, as well as accessories like lights and helmets. We have bags of Lego for sale on a sliding scale from $5-500. We have all kinds of lovely things, and any support would be greatly appreciated.