I’ve finally got my Surly Karate Monkey together and been for a quick spin today, a few thoughts…

1: ‘Kin “Ell it’s heavy! I had a 1×1 about 4 years back and with some semi-pimp bits built it up to 20ish lbs and it felt pretty light and direct. This one has Surly forks instead of carbon Pace ones, but it feels like it’s made out of gas-main tubing! just weighed it on the bathroom scales and it’s tipping 24lbs, not heavy (even though it has no gears) but it rides that way. It’s the blue colour, so is that after they lightened it as the original green one was supposed to be a bit portly?

2: It’s very long and a bit slow at steering, is that normal? I’m sure that when I take it away from the flat clay-fest that is Northants it’ll descend very well but it feels very steady, and a long way from lively. I ran my Love/hate as a 69er for a while and it seemed every bit as quick as it always was, but the big wheel on the front made it corner much more confidently.

3: I’d like to put some carbon forks on at some point, as my old Paces were ace and I’ve heard that some Rig Riders fit 26in 440 forks to speed up the steering, is it worth doing this on the Surly?

I’ll be out for most of tomorrow to give it a proper run, so I’m hoping I’ll have more time to adapt to big wheels, but so far it’s been hard work, fun, but hard work!

Tyres make a huge difference. What are you running?

big fat Panaracer Rampage on the front (lots of grip,really like the cornering)
2.1 Schwalbe little albert on the back (have run the same tyre on a 26er and found it to be fast and plenty grippy)

I do have an even thinner Bonty tyre I can run on the rear, but it looks a bit of a fair weather tyre.

I’m running Rampages on my 29ers – no problem with them.

The only time they feel slow is when the track is wet and slightly boggy, and there’s no getting away from that 🙁

I find the On-One carbon fork is good for quick steering.