Surly Long Haul Trucker or Disc Trucker? Building a touring bike.

I've owned lots of bikes over the years. Mainly road bikes. And my cycling has been mainly road bike type rides - A fast 30 miler on a Sunday morning with a mate - and home in time for breakfast.  Over the last couple of years I've been increasingly drawn to the idea of bike touring and the sense of freedom and satisfaction that comes from a really long bike ride. I've found myself looking at bikes and wondering not how much it weighs, but how much luggage it can carry.  Lands End to John O Groats is now firmly on my "Things to Do when the dogs are dead" list.

I cycled the Coast to Coast from Whitehaven on the west coast to Tynemouth on the east earlier this year. Three days with my Brother. A fantastic ride through the magnificent Lake District - nothing to do but cycle, eat food and drink beer. Heaven. This experience further fuelled my interest in touring bikes. I'd done the ride on my steel Planet X Kaffenback. It did the job OK, but somehow it just wasn't right. It was more a cyclo cross bike than a real round the world tourer. 700 x 35's were the biggest tyres I could get on the Planet X - and that left no clearance for mudguards. It had braze-ons for a rear rack but not a front one. I was getting some heel strike on my panniers and toe overlap on the front. No, this wasn't my dream tourer. I wanted something different but didn't know what.

Prior to the Planet X, I'd briefly owned a Koga Miyata Lightrunner. It was an expensive disappointment. The aluminium frame gave a harsh ride, and it felt slow even for a tourer. The butterfly or comfort bars felt awkward. They shortened the reach too much and put me in an uncomfortably upright position. The bike soon found it's way onto ebay and I was lucky to get back what I had paid for it. This was before I had really started to understand the benefits of steel as a frame material. (Even my road bike is now steel.)

So obviously I need a suitable bike for my pipe dream cycle tours of the future. Hours and hours of internet research every night until late. It was becoming some kind of obsession. Occasional checks would be made by my wife who clearly found it difficult to believe that a man could spend so long looking at images of......bicycles - on his computer.

Thorn. Bob Jackson's World Tour. Dawes Galaxy. Ridgeback Voyage. All great bikes. I knew it had to be steel after my Koga experience. I genuinely like the feel of steel bikes. I like the tradition of steel frame building and the feeling that it's permanent - something to last forever. I don't like aluminium frames and I certainly don't want a bike made from strands of fibre held together by glue that will one day snap and kill me. I wanted a longish wheelbase for stability and to prevent heel strike on panniers. I also wanted a relaxed head angle for handling that doesn't feel "twitchy" on fast descents. There had to be rack mounts front and rear and enough room for BIG tyres with mudguards. There was one bike that I kept coming back to. The Surly Long Haul Trucker. I'd read so many reviews from owners who simply loved their LHT's. Google images was full of muddy, well used LHT's in remote parts of the world and I really struggled to find anything negative written about them. Most other frames didn't seem to have the tyre clearance of the LHT, and I firmly believe that the comfort of high volume tyres outweighs the minimal increase in rolling resistance. This bike has to be about comfort and the ability to ride on rough stuff if necessary. I was nearly seduced by the Genesis Croix de Fer. However, the positioning of the rear disc caliper would cause issues with fitting a rack / mudguard - something that the Surly has solved by positioning the disc mount differently. The Kona Sutra was another close call, but too expensive, and not available as a frame only option - I want to build the bike myself. The Bob Jackson World Tour was considered. My road bike is a Bob Jackson and I love it. I love the idea of a frame hand built in Leeds by a company started in the 1930's, but with a maximum tire size of 700 x 32 the World Tour seemed a bit too "roadie" and not rugged enough. Every bike had some issue that concerned me. Again and again the LHT seemed to be the only one to tick all the boxes.

So the decision was made. Nearly. Long Haul Trucker (rim brakes) or Disc Trucker (disc brakes).
My experience on the Coast to Coast of  vainly trying to stop my loaded Planet X on steep Lake District passes in wet weather, with cantilever brakes carving gritty grooves into my wheel rims made it a no - brainer. It had to be discs (mechanical ones for ease of repair and servicing).

So this blog is simply to document the build of my tourer from start to finish. It'll be fun for me and if you are looking at building a bike and wondering which frame to choose, it might help.

Here is the frame fresh out the box from Triton Cycles. A 54cm / 26" wheel Surly Disc Trucker beautifully finished in dark green. The TIG welds are really neat and the finish on the powder coating is exceptional. There's lovely lug work on the forks with the letter "S" embossed on the fork crown. Three sets of water bottle bosses and separate eyelets for rack and mudguard mounting. The chain stays look really long, so with 26" wheels it will look a bit gappy - but that will give me the ride / carrying qualities that I'm looking for. The long steerer tube on the fork will remain uncut, allowing plenty of height adjustment on the steering.  I'm eagerly awaiting the delivery of the final few components so the build can commence.

That's it for now. More soon!