Slipping the Surly Bonds

Last year I bought a used, incomplete 52cm Surly Cross-Check. I got it because I had heard Surly owners speak so highly of it, and it seemed like a good deal. I had no particular gap to fill in my bike fleet, so I considered different ways to build it up. I've seen these built in almost any configuration. Looking at what it had, including a nice set of wheels, I chose to build it as a light touring bike, something I could ride all day under a wide range of conditions. This meant a wide gear range, fenders, rack, and touring tires. I thought I could recycle a lot of the parts I had accumulated and build this for well under the $1100 price of a new complete Cross Check. It's been a learning experience to say the least. 

Learned: Building a bike always costs more than you think it will. 

Learned: It's cheaper to buy the bike complete than to build it from parts. 

Learned: You can't get your investment back if you sell the complete bike. 

Learned: 52cm is too small a frame for me. 

Learned: A lot about building bikes. 

What I have is a lovely bike that happens to be at the small end of my fit range, and on which I spent nearly the price of a new one, and for which it seems I can get back perhaps 3/4 of my investment if I sell it as it is. The consolations are that some of the parts I used are better than what comes on a complete Cross Check from Surly, that I did learn a few things about building bikes, and that I do have some options for what to do with it. I can sell it complete and take the loss. I can put the parts on a bigger frame and sell off the smaller frame--thus not losing the value of the parts I bought. I can ride it as is. For the time being, I'm keeping it assembled--the easiest way to keep track of the parts. 

What I'd really like is another touring frame like the one I had in the 1970s (pictured in the post "Bicycles in the Living Room"). I don't really need it--I have three other bikes I can ride. Still, I'd like something reasonably light that is suitable for long rides in a wide range of conditions. And such a frame costs more than many complete bikes, including Surlys. 

Bicycles in the Living Room

Over the weekend, the weather went from almost springlike to deep freeze with five inches of snow. On Monday night, I brought my Surly Cross-Check upstairs so it would become warm enough for me to tape the handlebars. Seeing it in my home reminded me of the days of my youth, when bicycles were normal indoor furniture for me and my cycling friends. 

Back in college (1975), I brought my touring bike, which I had built myself, into my third-floor dorm room, which would have been compact for one person, let alone two and a bicycle. I hung it by the front wheel from the clothes hook at the end of my built-in bed. That it could easily have fallen on me in my sleep did not occur to me. My roommate, an earnest fellow from a small North Carolina town who was there on a baseball scholarship, returned home late at night, did not turn the light on and walked right into it. Amazingly, it stayed on the hook. He suggested plaintively that bikes properly belonged on the bike racks in the basement. I pointed out that the bike was worth more than his car. I had already seen the bike rack, littered with abandoned plumber's specials and positioned for the convenience of thieves. I was not parking my baby there. Within a few weeks, he had moved out of that room and in with one of his teammates. No one else moved in, and I had the room to myself for the rest of the semester. I have always appreciated the privacy available from bicycling. 

Returning to 2009, I let the Surly warm up overnight, and taped the bars the next morning. I haven't taken it back down to the unheated garage yet. I'm having too much fun looking at it. The weather forecast is for springlike weather again by Saturday. I'll take it down then and ride.