A Funky Monkey does Naughty Karate

Rebecca says some things about the new Karate Monkey OPS.

The Karate Monkey OPS is both new and old; the frame has seen very few changes since Surly first released the Karate Monkey many years ago (one of the first production 29ers on the market, if you can remember that time before there were things other than wheel sizes to talk about). Well, now Surly has changed a couple of things about the Monkey frame, and for the first time they're selling the stock model with Shimano Deore components and a suspension fork. Because she knew you'd have questions, and also because she really wanted to, Rebecca recently took the OPS model out for a ride. 

First, let's get the techy business out of the way. The Monkey OPS now has a 44mm headtube. Just think about how much more karate is possible with a 44mm headtube. Also, the rear dropouts are modular, allowing you to run a 12x142 thru-axle, horizontal, or standard dropouts. Shimano Deore mostly means: gears! On an out-of-the-box Karate Monkey! Doesn't that karate your mind to pieces?

Rebecca has been riding a full suspension carbon 29er for awhile now (Santa Cruz Tallboy), and she hasn't ridden a hardtail since she was just getting into (i.e. "hating") mountain biking. Thus, she was as skeptical about the Monkey as she was excited. Climbing is her nemesis (much as Batman's nemesis is throat cancer), and lugging a steel bike up a hill just didn't sound like fun to her. However, at the top of Evergreen Mountain, she said, "I've been smiling all the way up this climb."

Climbsmile: a heretofore unseen sight.

If you've ridden with her, you know how weird this is. At the top of most climbs, if she says anything at all, it's usually more like this.

The next thing she said was, "This bike is my mistress." You can thank me for not publishing photos of the PDA that followed. Instead, here are photos that show how nice that sparkly orange "Spray Tan" color looks in the sun.

Orange is the new fast.

On short, technical climbs, Rebecca surprised herself by cleaning things she's never cleaned before. As you know, hardtails are known to climb well. Rebecca found the difference to be dramatic.

At one point during the ride, during one of the rare moments when I was able to catch up to her, she said the Monkey was putting her in a different state of mind. "I can feel the ground underneath me, and I'm paying more attention to the trail. Full suspension lets you kind of zone out."

When it came time to descend, she sent me off first, thinking she'd need a few minutes to get comfortable shredding on a hardtail. I stopped to take a picture and then didn't see her again until I got to the parking lot. Part of that has to do with my own style of descending on a hardtail, which often goes a lot like this, but much if it had to do with Rebecca riding that Monkey as if they were giving free pie away at the trailhead.

As we loaded the car, I asked how she'd liked the descent. "I wasn't going any slower," she said, "but everything was a lot blurrier."

Here, speaking of blurry, is the picture I stopped to take.

Some folks may be unimpressed by the Deore components. When I asked Rebecca what she thought about them, she said, "Oh, what? I wasn't even thinking about them." That's pretty much exactly what you want out of your components--to remain invisible during your ride. The way that Shimano's technology keeps trickling down to lower and lower component tiers has made for some extremely solid Deore parts. The rear derailleur has a clutch and the brakes feel better than my two year-old SLX brakes (which, despite being a tier below the XT "standard," are still performing flawlessly now into their third season).

If you have any questions about this bike, feel free to ask Rebecca, but just to warn you she's going to get excited and you won't be able to interpret much of what she says. Her answer will involve a lot of sound effects and as she stands there talking she will become increasingly out of focus. 

Video of the Week

How to Paint Your Ugly Storefront

Let's say you have an ugly storefront. It's not your fault that it's ugly, but there's no denying that it's repulsive and that you need to do something about it. The first thing you need to do is to buy some paint and primer at your local paint store. It will cost you about $70, but it will be worth it to have a storefront that presents a unified appearance that passersby may find pleasing to the eye. This kind of chore isn't anything you're looking forward to, but it's the kind of thing you're going to do because it's responsible.

Next you will need to find some appropriate paint clothes. You may fancy yourself to be the kind of painter who never spills a drop, but paint clothes are a good idea nonetheless. You know that the more you like the shirt you're wearing, the larger the splotch you're sure to ruin it with. Dress appropriately and save yourself the heartbreak. You dress appropriately because you are, unarguably, responsible. Here's a model in traditional painter's wear.

Once you're dressed and ready to go, make sure you have the following supplies: paint brush, paint roller and tray, drop cloth, ladder, stir stick, can opener, rags, and a hammer. Line them up neatly in a row to make sure you remembered everything. Did you remember sunscreen? It's what responsible people wear.

You'll want to start with a primer that will cover old stains and give the paint a more lustrous, even appearance. Make sure your primer is correctly formulated to match your topcoat. You may want special UV-resistant primer if you're painting surfaces that catch a lot of sun. Apply several thin coats for best results. Breaking an ankle or a neck by falling off a ladder is something irresponsible people do, so if you're painting in hard-to-reach places, get plenty of help. 

Okay, great job! Your primer coat is applied! Stand back and admire your handiwork.

Much better! Now, you're going to let that dry for at least twenty-four hours, and while that happens, make sure to clean up your mess. If you plan to use the same paint tray and roller for the paint, clean everything thoroughly to avoid having dried chips of primer contaminate your paint. Professional painters call these chips "boogers."

Alright, now that you've let your primer dry for 24 hours, you are ready to apply your first coat of exterior paint. Remember to lay it on and smooth it off. While you're rolling vertically, it's okay to leave roller marks. After you've coated an area with vertical strokes, go back over the same area making horizontal strokes without loading the roller with paint. This will make for a very smooth, even coat. Lots and lots of repetition. Think: smooth, smooth, smooth.

Again, scrub every last bit of paint from your tray and roller, and save your roller sleeve in an airtight container overnight, and then apply the final coat of paint. Go slow and be careful. Yes, there are other things you'd rather be doing, but sometimes it's best to buckle down and do your chores. That's the only way you can get amazing results like a paint job you can really brag about:

Well, actually, it looks like you haven't painted anything but instead wasted a lot of valuable time riding your bike around. This is no good. No good at all. When you die, people will think of you and only remember your ugly storefront. I hope you're happy. 

Well, you're really in deep trouble, and we'd really like to stick around to see that you face the consequences, but see, there's this group ride starting here in about thirty minutes, and we really have to get going, so you just sit right there and think on what you've done. Unless you want to come with us. You should. Come with us.

No Blog Post Today

There were injuries today (concussion, broken finger (neither of them mine)). Next week's post will include some tips on spotting trail-side concussions.

Please be safe!

The Instigator: Surly's New 27.238'er

As you know, Surly has been making bikes with fat tires for a long time. Riders have been taking the 1x1, Pugsley, and Moonlander to places where no one thought bikes could go for quite a while now. About a year ago, Surly released the Krampus, which doesn't offer quite as much float--as the volume of the Knard 29x3 tire is lower than that of a Pugs or Moonlander tire--but is a much more capable trail bike than other fatties (read a review here). In short, big fat bikes have brought us some big fat times.

Surly's latest addition to their lineup is the redesigned Instigator, a 26+ trail bike (the Dirt Wizard tires are labeled 26x2.75) that will come out of the box with a Fox Float 32 fork with 140mm of travel. This 26+ bike is supposed to have, more or less, the same external tire diameter as a 27.5" bike. We measured just to see if this was true. More or less, it is. The 26+ wheel is about 2.5 inches smaller than a 29x2.4, and about 1.75 taller than a 26x2.0 tire. Given that the bike will settle slightly more under a rider's weight, since you can run a lower tire pressure than you would in a 26x2.0, the bike is probably a 27.2'er or something. We'd do the math if we were convinced the answer would make the bike any more fun than it is already (it is a lot of fun). It is also very gold.

The Instigator is not yet available as a complete bike, but Yawp recently built up a frame and I've taken the bike out twice so far. Keep in mind that my initial impressions are tentative. Everything about the bike is different from my regular ride--a fully rigid 29er with no dropper post. I want to write more about the Instigator later in the summer, after I've had a chance to make better friends with the alien, which we've named the 11nstigator, as it has SRAM's XO1 1x11 drivetrain. (Note: the Instigator comes with three dropouts. Single speed, vertical QR, and 142x12 thru axle dropouts. SRAM's 1x11 drivetrains are not compatible with the 142 thru-axle dropouts, so you have to run a 135 QR hub. The thru-axle dropouts are compatible with Shimano's direct mount rear derailleurs, which means they flair outward and won't allow the SRAM rear derailleur to reach the big 42-tooth cog. Turns out I'd much rather have that big cog than a thru-axle).

Here are a few of the pertinent build specs:

-Rabbit Hole 50mm rims 

-Dirt Wizard 120tpi tires

-Thomson dropper post (The Instigator is the only Surly with a 30.9 seat tube)

-Rockshox Revelation RTC3 27.5" fork

-XO1 1x11 drivetrain 

More gold than Mr. T.

The important thing is this: the bike goes downhill in a way that is difficult to describe without using expletives. It felt like I was riding a mountain bike simulator. I would feel a bump or two and think, Oh, that was supposed to be a technical section, but they didn't get the programming quite right. Lean it over as far as you want, get low, and let go. You will forget you're riding a hardtail. 

Climbing was weird, but that was mostly my fault. I couldn't steer, because the steering is so responsive, and the bars were too high. This kept me out of the saddle much of the time, and that made the bike break traction, which, on a tire like this, just shouldn't happen. I've since flipped the stem over and reduced the number of spacers, which should help keep the front wheel on the ground. I was concerned about the 26+ wheels lacking the "rollover value" that 29ers are praised for, but this wasn't something I noticed on the ride. In fact, the bike wants to throw itself over pretty much everything.

Expect to spend a couple of rides getting the tires dialed. Remember to bring spare tubes (29er tubes work just fine, by the way). Mine are not yet tubeless, and I flatted on both of my rides, at 16 and 18psi. I brought the pressure up to 20, and that's been fine so far. I don't mean to make this sound like a flaw. Just by looking at the bike you can see how important the tires are to the quality of the ride. Spending the time to get this figured out will make the rest of the season that much better.

Flat repair in, um, yes, Golden.

So here's what we've learned so far. This bike doesn't climb as quickly as a rigid 29er, but it still climbs like a hardtail. It descends like Chevy Chase on a teflon saucer sled. Watch out for leprechauns, pirates, and prospectors (they won't be able to catch you anyway).

Go right or left? The answer is yes.

Thank You

Yawp is open for business. 

We owe thanks to so many of you. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for your advise, expertise, and support. Thank you for your high-fives, your beer, and your business. Thank you for the use of your truck, your garage, and your ideas. Even if you offered your assistance but were never called upon, believe me, your offer was noticed and appreciated. Never feeling overwhelmed nor outgunned has been a huge advantage. It's not nearly enough, but whenever you stop by there will be a beer in the fridge for you.

There are a lot of exciting things that have already happened or are about to. This post, however, is not about those things. This post is for you, because you are awesome and kind, and Yawp owes you in ways it does not know how to repay. 

So let us begin with a thank you.

Let's ride bikes together soon.