Although I’ve only had my Surly Pugsley on the road for 6 weeks or so I’ve managed to ride it in a wide variety of conditions - loose deep snow, hard packed snow, ice, paved roads, sandy & rocky beaches, soft desert tracks and rocky mountain bike trails.  One of the things holding me back from getting a Pugsley the last few years was that it seemed like such a specialized bike I wondered how I’d justify the cost for a very limited amount of use. I was so wrong. Here’s why…

The Frame

Like the other Surly bikes I own [Long Haul Trucker & Big Dummy] the Pugsley is a well made frame without being excessive in any regard.  The tubing is solid double butted 4130 steel.  The welds are clean and everything seems well aligned.  The powder coat is nice and has resisted many of my attempts to damaged it!  I have to say some of Surly’s colour choices have made me wonder what they were thinking.  I didn’t love the previous Pugsley colour - Pugnacious Purple, but the grey colour of the current issue Pugsley looks very nice.

When you get down to the details of the Pugsley frame you really appreciate all the thought and crafty design that went into making this bike a reality:

• clearance in back for 3.7″ tires
• rear dropouts offset 17.5mm to the right to allow a normal derailleur room to move the chain around and to clear the massive 3.7″ tires
• 100mm BB shell to move the cranks out far enough to get a good chainline
• the front wheel uses a rear hub so you can swap wheels if the rear packs it in [say the it freezes up you can swap in a fixed gear front and keep moving]
• the front fork is specially offset 17.5mm to match the rear dropouts and since it’s 135mm wide you can get the 3.7″ Endomorph tires in no problem
• the frame has canti-studs and disc tabs so you have a choice of brakes
• full rack mounts

If you want to geek out on this frame I highly recommend you read the Surly Pugsley page.

More important then just having all these features is that they work so well.  This is a very unusal frame and is about as non-standard as it gets.  However, when you are building and riding it everything just clicks into place.  Surly did everything necessary for the bike to perform, but they didn’t add one detail that wasn’t needed - sweet.

The Build

I posted my build details earlier, but I’ll repeat them here as there have been a few changes:

• 18″ 2008 Surly Pugsley frame
• Shimano Alfine hub 21T cog & centerlock disc rotor [160mm] & blue/green non-turn washers
• Shimano Alfine trigger shifter
• Surly 135mm disc SS hub up front w/ 21T Surly track cog [wired on] & Avid 160mm disc rotor
• Surly Large Marge Pugsley offset rims
• Surly Endomorph 3.7″ tires & tubes
• Race Face seatpost 27.2mm
• Selle Anatomica saddle
• Kore stem
• Titec H-bars w/ Ergon grips
• Old Man Mountain Cold Springs rear racks x 2
• Avid BB7 disc brakes & levers
• Phil Wood 100m square taper BB
• Shimano square taper MTB crank w/ 32T chain ring
• NRG thin profile BMX pedals
• Roach stem & TT pad

I wanted to have a solid trouble free bike without blowing the bank.  The Shimano Alfine provides a reliable nearly maintenance free drivetrain with an adequate gear range for this bike.  I’ve cranked slowly up technical climbs in the low gear and bombed down the highway in the high gear.  So far I haven’t wanted or needed more gears. I also must admit I find the uber clean IGH chainline totally sexy.  I had intended to use a Nexus 8 twistshifter on this bike, but it wasn’t available when I left for Baja.  Having used the Alfine trigger shifter I’m happy with it and don’t plan to make a change.

There are limited 100mm BB options out there at the moment.  From what I could tell you either go with a Phil Wood square taper BB, an ISIS BB or the Mr. Whirly external BB/crank from Surly.  In my opinion ISIS is not as good a design as the other two options.  The Mr. Whirys are very nice, but I didn’t want to bother with any bling on this machine since it was going to get hammered a lot.

I ended up with a Phil Woods BB and Shimano Alivio square taper crank.  This is a bomber BB that is completely rebuildable and the Alivio crank is stiff and cheap so I can replace it without sadness when it’s thrashed.

I talked at length about my Large Marge rims & Endomorph tires in a previous blog post so I won’t repeat the whole thing here - I don’t want to put you to sleep!  Let me just say these tires/rims are simply amazing.  They roll over things like no other wheel set I’ve ever owned.  The 29er outer diameter combined with the low pressure high volume rubber is a recipe for ultra traction.  I’d go as far as to say the traction limit of these tires is essentially your imagination and courage.  If you can just keep the pedals turning these wheels won’t let you down.

I went with Avid BB7s since I had some new ones in my parts bin and they have been proven performers for me.  They work well, don’t require a lot of maintenance and are field serviceable should something happen 30kms from the trail head.

I have used a Titec H-bar and Ergon Grips which I really liked on my Big Dummy.  You get several comfortable hand positions.  I like the wide swept back bars for giving me lots of leverage to move the bike around in technical terrain and I use the forward aero position to stretch out when I’m on a long flat section of the road/trail.

I love the NRG Slabalanche pedals and have posted a review of them already so I’ll just reiterate - they rock.

I used Old Man Mountain racks because I love ‘em on my other bikes and they are the most versatile racks on the market - period.  Since I will often be riding the Pugsley without gear I wanted light racks, but when I load up this bike and beat it up I don’t want to have to worry about light racks that are over stressed.  The OMM Cold Springs racks combine surprising lightness with bomber performance.  I’ve torture tested these racks for years so I was confident they would be a great choice.

Bow Cycle built up the wheels for me and installed the headset.  I completed the build at home.  I was expecting some drama since it wasn’t going to be a very “normal” bike, but I was surprised how easy it was to throw together.  Even the rack installation ended up being fairly easy once I thought it through.

The Ride

The proof is in the pudding as they say…who cares if the Pugsley looks really cool if it doesn’t ride well.  Prior to the first ride on my Pugsley I had only taken the NRG demo Pugsley out for a 10 minute spin around Bowness so I had an idea what to expect, but I knew I had a lot to learn.  Climbing aboard my new bike first thing that struck me was that it was big…sure it’s a 26er in theory, but the tires are so huge it’s really a 29er.  The second thing that struck me was how “normal” it felt to ride.  The tires were fairly hard at 18psi and it just rolled along like mountain bike in my downtown neighbourhood.  After a few minutes of tooling around to make sure all the vital bits were working I steered it straight for an open field at a local park covered with 5″ of light snow.  I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, but the bike just rolled forward, albeit a bit slower than on hard ground.  As long as I kept turning the cranks it kept plowing through the loose snow.  Steering was no problem with the wide bars and upright riding position.  I had a huge grin on my face as I threw my monster bike into every patch of snow I could find.

The Pugsley’s next test came during a big snowstorm in early December.  Naturally with all the snow falling Kurt & I threw some lights on our bikes and hit the streets of downtown.  We tried a lower tire pressure to give us better traction and it worked great.  The fat tires kept us on course and soaked up a lot roughness from the frozen snow that had fallen earlier in the winter. You can go fast on a Pug if you are willing to hammer the pedals, but these bikes love to cruise.  The big wheels keep up your momentum and you can just relax while exploring the world around you.  If you want to check something out the Pugsley can take you there whether it’s down a mountain bike trail, through snow/sand. or just down the street. We did find three important limitations for these bikes…1) Endomorphs are better on ice than thin tires, but nothing short of carbide studs is going let you climb or turn hard on a sheet of ice…2) the really greasy snow that has been mechanically disturbed by lots of cars is slippery even for Endomorphs so you have to turn with a bit of caution or the front wheel will wash out…3) if the snow gets really loose & deep a Pugsley will get stuck as 3.7″ tires aren’t snow shoes.  That still leaves you a ton of riding potential to exploit.

Next we packed up my truck with the Pugs and some sea kayaks and drove to Baja Mexico for a few weeks of beach biking desert madness.  I’ve spent many many months on beaches in Baja. They are beautiful, but the sand and rocks seemed like a bike free zone.  Even the desert tracks that are behind the beach are soft with big pools of dust that would be challenging for a normal mountain bike tire.  We were a bit tentative when we jumped on the Pugs for our first ride across the beach, but that quickly gave way to a lot of laughing and yelling as we bombed through/over everything we could find.  Sand was no problem, loose rocks were no problem and even sections of large rocks were easy to ride across. Tuning the pressure in the Endomorphs was key for good flotation.  Too hard and the tires would sink in and wash out or bounce when they hit a rock…too soft and they’d be really sluggish and hard to pedal.  We found around 9-11psi to be ideal for most of our riding down there with the front on the low end and the rear on the high end of that range.  For paved roads we pumped them up to 15-20psi and they were fast for those times we needed to get someplace fast - like last call at the local bar!

After tackling all the soft loose terrain around our beach camp we started to try stuff that was more traditional mountain biking in nature…technical rocky climbs/descents.  We knew the Pugs would be able to get over this terrain, but thought a rigid bike might be a harsh ride.  However, the fat tires gave us what felt like a couple inches of suspension. You couldn’t do anything you wanted like on a big travel rig, but if you picked a good line and kept your speed in check the Pugsleys made great mountain bikes.  Finally we tried the desert tracks behind our camp.  They were windy 4×4 trails that alternated between firm hard pack, loose dust and rocks.  The Pugsley were perfect for racing around pretending we were in the Baja 1000.  It didn’t really matter if the surface was loose or hard the Endomorphs had us covered.

So no trip or bike is perfect….we did have an issue with flats.  Kurt ran over a dead spiny puffer fish on the second day and got quite a few punctures.  We patched them, but there were more small ones than we noticed initially so his tires went soft a couple more times.   I was getting fed up with this so I suggested we add Slime to his tubes.  It was a good concept, but I screwed up the execution.  Since we were running Presta valves we couldn’t push Slime through the valves [or so I thought].  I decided to cut a small hole in each tube, squirt in the Slime and then patch it.  My theory was that as long as we kept the hole clean of Slime and let the patch vulcanize we should be good to go since the Slime would plug all the small holes he had. What I didn’t realize, since I don’t use Slime in Calgary, is that Slime will de-vulcanize all the patches on your tube. This meant Kurt was destined to fix about 6 flats over again.  Eventually we figured out that it was hopeless and threw the Slimed tubes out and just patched any flats we had.  Kurt got flats on two occasions and I only got a flat on the last day [another puffer fish!] - not bad for biking in the desert.  I have since learned of a way to get Slime into Presta tubes without cutting them and we may try this on our next desert trip since I think Slime would have fixed all the punctures we had.

Once back from Baja we have been out to Fishcreek for some frozen trail riding.  It’s hard to believe how well those fat tires rock on snow covered trails.  As long as we kept the cranks going round we were cruising over logs, up steep techy climbs and bombing back down.  You do have to manage to your weight distribution just like on a regular mountain bike so the rear wheel doesn’t spin out, but that’s to be expected.

One other thing that takes some getting used to is at lower pressures if you ride the Endomorphs on a high traction surface - say on a paved road between trails - the bike pulls left & right as it grips different areas on the road.  It’s not a huge problem and it can be resolved by adding some air to the tires, but we often just deal if we know we’ll be on something loose again soon.  As all new Pugsley owners soon learn - adjusting tire pressure to suit the terrain is the key for a fun ride.

The Future

So what’s up for the Pugsleys now that we are back in the Great White North?  Well definitely more trail riding - hopefully when it’s above -20 deg C!  Kurt is commuting to work on his Pug.  We live in the same apartment building downtown so we’ll be riding the core when we don’t have enough time to head further afield.  I’m keen to take the Pugs up to Canmore/Banff and try some serious mountain bike trails in winter.

As far as the bikes themselves go we are pretty happy with how everything is working and I don’t think we’ll be messing with a successful build.  Kurt is going to add some OMM racks and get some panniers so he can tour on his Pugsley come summer.  I’m going to work on some coroplast fenders to keep us and our bikes a bit cleaner - I’ll post something if I get a good result.

Speaking of summer - we don’t plan on hanging up the Pugs when the snow melts.  For goofing around they are the most fun mountain bikes we’ve ever ridden so I see some weekend urban assault action happening downtown.  We are also thinking of riding them on the trails up in the mountains so we can compare how they perform with a normal hardtail or FS mountain bike.  Good times for sure!

One Pug to Rule them all!

I opened this review talking about how versatile the Pugsley is and I wanted to close by listing some obvious bike missions you could use the Pugsley for - it truly is a bike that can do almost anything:

In stock trim:

• snow biking - that’s obvious
• beach/desert biking - pretty obvious as well
• trail riding - it makes a great mountain bike rigid with Endomorphs at low pressure [say 8psi]

Add a 29er wheel set with various tires and it can be:

• a 29er MTB - rigid or with a 29er suspension fork [like the Fox F29] and some 29er knobbies
• a commuter bike - add some 29er Schwalbe Big Apples
• a touring bike - add some 29er Schwalbe Marathon XRs
• an ice bike with some studded tires like the Schwalbe Ice Spiker

Add a trailer and it’s your utility bike.

You can run it as a:

• single speed
• fixed gear
• derailleur multi-gear
• internal hub multi-gear

I can’t think of another bike that can do all this at anything close to this price.

If you want to see more of my Pugsley photos click here.

A Pug-nacious sunrise over the Bow River @ -39 deg C!

I’ll be writing a review of my Surly Pugsley in a couple days.  If you’re interested in a Pugsley [who isn't!...=-)] and can’t wait click here to read Dirt Rag’s review of this fat tire bike.

Since it was -20 deg C yesterday I was planning on staying in and writing up a review of my Surly Pugsley for this blog.  But, it was nice and sunny so I caved and decided I needed more test riding…lol!  I called up Kurt and he was game so we took the Pugsleys down to Fishcreek Park on the C-Train.

Trail conditions were excellent - nice and hard for fast riding and lots of traction.  We started getting a bit cocky and were rewarded with some excellent technical riding along windy hiking trails.

I was amazed how well the Pugsleys climbed steep techy trails.  We ran the tires at 9-10psi which isn’t uber low, but we never lost traction on anything other than full glare ice where only carbide studs would let you climb.  It was just point and shoot madness.   Half the fun was watching your buddy clear logs and muscle his Pug up climbs…it looks extreme when you watch a Pug in action - however when you are riding one it seems so easy it doesn’t feel as crazy as it looks to spectators.

The only thing the Pugsleys couldn’t conquer was the -20 deg C weather + windchill….brrrr…! But at least there were no crowds to deal with….=-)

Make you own art here.  If you make a fun bike one send it to me and I’ll post ‘em.

I have switched most of my bikes over to platform pedals of one kind or another.  I used to be a die hard clipless pedal guy and then I started to use my bikes for transportation a lot more than full-on mountain biking or fast road biking [where I'd still use something I can clip into].  So riding in street shoes became a priority for me. I’ve tried various BMX pedals and they all work pretty well, but they are huge and bulky which I don’t need.  So I was stoked to see these low profile NRG Slabalanche pedals at the Bow Cycle Bike Expo last Dec.

I grabbed two sets for Kurt and I to throw on our Pugsleys and we abused the heck out of them in Baja.  So far I’m really happy with them.  The low profile is nice as you don’t whack ‘em into stuff as much and they are lighter than they would be with a bigger platform.  They are super grippy and give you lots of control even in really technical terrain.  The platform is quite wide which was comfortable riding in trail runners.  The bearings are smooth and are sealed for long life.  If I recall correctly they are fully serviceable so you’ll have ‘em for a long time. They got a healthy dose of sand, dust, saltwater & rocks in Baja with no complaints.

How can you tell I really liked them?  I stopped by Bow and grabbed two more pairs for my other bikes!  They sell for $79.99 and weigh 223g each.

I’ll report back at the end of 2009 and let you know how they are holding up.

I love Baja Mexico. I’ve spent more than 12 months there spread over a few trips. It’s a beautiful part of the world with spectacular scenery, generous people and lots of open space. I find that I spend a lot of time just looking around and drinking in the scenery. I’ve sea kayaked, beach camped, ridden dual sport motorcycles, eaten way too many tacos and imbibed countless beers in Baja. I’ve also done some bike touring.

On the surface of it a bike tour down the Baja is not a good idea. The only “real” road is a narrow highway with a single lane in each direction. When working on this road the highway crews just pile more asphalt on the old stuff which means you often have a 2″-5″ vertical drop off from the paved portion to the steep narrow dirt shoulder. Then consider all the traffic for this part of Mexico speeds down this road at way over 100kph. To make things even worse lots of the traffic consists of folks in RVs who seem barely able to control their rigs as well as all the tractor trailer trucks hauling supplies to this remote part of the world. Oh yeah I forgot about the crazy mountain roads with loads of blind corners and heinous cliffs that would mean sure death to any bike tourist foolish enough to ride them.

Is it really that bad? Well I have friends in San Diego who have spent more than a decade in Baja and they made it sound even more insane than I did in the paragraph above. In fact they pretty much assured me that I’d either die or turn back soon after I started. Before I rode my bike in Baja I had been there on a motorcycle and in my 4×4 pickup several times. I had to agree the roads were not ideal and traffic was crazy.

So why even bother? Well I truly love Baja like no place else on Earth so the thought of getting to experience a new side to this old friend was very attractive to me. Secondly I had seen folks on bike tours during my vehicular visits, not many, but the ones I did see were looking quite alive - smiling even. What finally pushed me over the edge was meeting a 55 year old Swiss lady at a beach camp near Puerto Escondido [a location which will have some significance later in my story]. She was in the middle of a 5 month bike tour. I stopped my truck and got out to talk to her. I was amazed she was touring by herself in Mexico and she was 55! She laughed at me remarking what was the big deal - it’s just riding a bike - nothing to stress about.

So there I was rolling down Hwy 1 in Baja. Having a laugh with my tour partner [BTW - she writes a mean bike touring story and takes some kick ass photos]. It quickly became apparent that at bike speeds you didn’t encounter traffic that often and most of the time traffic coming from the rear had the whole oncoming lane free to pass us. Not only were Mexican drivers polite and courteous, they were genuinely excited to see us. When I saw a long line of trucks coming towards us in a convoy I got ready to wave back non-stop until they passed. Frankly, coming from a car-centric culture, it was awesome…=-) We did have the very odd driver, often in an RV, who wasn’t as considerate, but with the judicious use of our rear view mirrors this was never a problem. One of my favourite memories is a truck diver who stayed behind us for ages in first gear as we climbed a mountain - simply because it wasn’t safe to pass. No honking, no yelling, no problemo. I honestly can’t say it enough - the people in Baja are wonderful.

After a week of smiles, miles and too many tacos we found ourselves at that beach camp near Puerto Escondido where I had met the nice Swiss lady. I smiled inside with the memory of that encounter and the profound power we have to inspire each other. I ran into some old friends RV camping on the beach so we took a couple rest days off the bike. Between hikes and more taco/beer sessions we chatted with the beach campers - all Americans or Canadians. To our horror we heard one terrible bike/car story after another. Muggings, killings, accidents…you name it. Some of them recent - such as the story of a couple touring down the main highway. The husband was a bit in front of his wife when a car cut her off and robbed her. They stole important documents, cameras and money - plus they destroyed her front wheel….=-( Everyone urged us to end the trip and get home safely. To say we were bummed is an understatement.

Regardless we decided to ignore everyone and started off down the highway. We had an awful day. People weren’t as friendly, drivers were aggressive, the riding was harder - all in all in was a bad day. As we rolled up to our crappy hotel and tried to get some food I remarked to my tour partner that maybe nothing had actually changed since our previously positive touring experiences - except our attitudes and expectations after “beach gloom and doom”. She concurred and we tapped our beer bottles together promising to start the next day with the same easy going vibe we had shared before our break.

Well the amazing thing was the next day [and the rest of the tour] was back to smiles and laughs all the way to Cabo. The whole bad day had been in our heads - residual negativity from our RV friends. I’m not suggesting nothing bad ever happens in Baja, but in over 12 months of travel there I’ve never been attacked, robbed, insulted, cheated, etc… In fact the reverse is true. I’ve been over whelmed by random acts of kindness from Mexicans and Gringos alike.

Later in our trip, as we were preparing to leave La Paz on a final push to Cabo, we ran into a friendly American ex-pat who wanted to know where we were headed. When we told him we were taking the mountain road around the East Cape and into Cabo he warned us it was suicide. Too many trucks, deadly mountain roads, banditos and corrupt police. We didn’t bother arguing we just smiled and replied - “…absolutely….it would be sure death…you probably can’t even get there by bike….thanks for the warning we’ll take the bus!” The ride through the mountains to Cabo turned out to be some of the most fun riding of the trip!

A Buddhist friend of mine once told me - “…you don’t live in the world…the world lives in you…” I try and remember that I have a huge influence in how I experience my life. I don’t let fear get me down any more.

Photo: Jakub - Canning Stock Route Expedition

I’ve been trying to rope one of my friends into a long bike trip somewhere exotic. I know I’d have more fun sharing the trials and tribulations of such an adventure with one of my amigos. Not surprisingly that idea has not met with the warm reception I’d hoped for. The obvious obstacles to enthusiastic agreement are:

• taking time away from the money making rat race
• saving the money for an extended trip
• riding a fully loaded touring bike day in and day out over challenging terrain
• spending money on the touring gear you’d need

My typical plan of attack with such ideas is to sow many seeds of inspiration and hope one or two sprouts. A good friend of mine came over to check out my Pugsley and he was a good sport listening to my halfhearted PR campaign outlining the mad fun we’d have all winter bombing around on fat tire bikes. I’ve tried to get him to buy a touring bike like the Surly LHT or a Surly Big Dummy with no success. I expected the same result, but was shocked when he said “…sounds like a plan order me one up from Bow Cycle…” I confirmed twice that he really meant it and he was serious - sweet! I love it when a plan comes together - even if it takes 8 years….lol…!

Having someone to ride fat tire winter bikes with is cool…=-) I’m not sure how many Pusgleys are roaming around Calgary, but it can’t be too many. So this was a major coup. I was even more stoked when he agreed to come down to Baja with me for some sea kayak and Pugsley beach riding action. I’ve spent a lot of time in Baja sea kayaking and bike touring, but I’d never had a rig that could conquer the soft beach sand and the desert tracks along the coast. Having some company for my first big Pugsley adventure in Baja was going to be awesome.

A few days later we got together to discuss details for the trip and he was admiring my Pugsley when he asked if he can use a Pugsley as a touring bike in South America, India or some place equally exotic. I had a moment where I suspected aliens had abducted my friend and replaced him with a doppelganger, but I realized he was serious….wow!

Photo: Jakub - Canning Stock Route Expedition

So that got me thinking can you use a Pugsley as an expedition touring bike?

• it’s got a strong steel frame and fork [not the strongest frame on the planet, but enough for a moderate load]
• it’s got all the necessary braze ons for racks and fenders
• it’s got 45cm chainstays which are not uber short so mounting panniers should be okay
• it takes two rear wheels which is a big benefit as the failure of one wheel to drive the bike [IGH packs it in for example] isn’t a show stopper
• it’s got a reasonably relaxed geometry that should be okay for touring
• it’s obviously got clearance for wide touring tires like 2.25″ Schwalbe Marathon XRs

So far it’s looking good. There are some downsides though:

• it’d designed for tall wheels/tires and 29er rims tires are not easy to find when traveling around the world
• with normal width rims you can only use disc brakes which like 29er parts are not easy to find in India for example
• it uses some non-standard parts like a 100mm BB and Surly Large Marge rims/Endomorph tires [if you use them]
• it’s not designed for the really uber heavy loads some people carry on far flung tours so the handling may get wonky if you overload it and/or you could break something
• the stiff straight fork is necessary for use with a disc brake, but will transmit all the vibration from the road up to the bars unlike a classic curved steel touring fork like the LHT is spec’d with

Hmmmm…..so the Pugsley has some possibilities, but there are some issues to overcome. Being realistic my buddy is not going to buy another specialized bike to go touring with me. He’s not the kind of person who wants 10 bikes in his small apartment! Can the Pugsley fit the bill for a tour along La Caraterra Austral in Chile?

I think you can make it work by doing the following:

• Pack light - some people really get out of hand when packing for a bike tour overseas. For sure you need to bring the essentials, but at some point being overcautious causes problems of its own. A heavy bike has more mechanical issues and it’s not as much fun to pedal uphill.
• Leave spares at home with someone who can ship ‘em to you if you have problems. This is a way to get around the poor availability of 29er rims/tires, specialty rims/tires like the Large Marge/Endomorph combo, 100mm BB and disc brakes. Hopefully you break down near a well stocked bar and can kill some time inventing new drinks and perfecting your karaoke skills!
• Running fat rubber [like the Endomorphs or 2.25" Marathon XRs] as well as padding your bars well will help attenuate road vibration/shock from the Pugsley’s stiff straight fork.
• Make sure your bike is freshly tuned up and anything suspect or worn is replaced. If something is 50% used up replace it and keep the old part so you can use it up at home when a failure is not as critical.

Of course this is all theory. We’ll have to do some field testing of the Pugsley as a touring bike to validate it in this role….*sigh*….the work of a bike blogger is never done…=-)

*Note: All photos are from Jakub’s amazing Canning Stock Route Expedition website which is well worth a visit if you are interested in Pug-tastic adventures…=-)

I’ve got my Baja trip photos uploaded to Flickr if you are in the mood for some Pugsley and sea kayaking porn…=-)  I’ll be posting a trip report shortly.

The Pugsleys were outstanding beach/desert bikes.  My buddy Kurt and I kept kicking ourselves for not getting Pugsleys sooner.

I hope everyone had a happy and safe holiday season!

photo: Jakub

Jakub rode the 2000km Canning Stock Route completely unsupported in 33 days. He has a great site with some stunning pics that are well worth a look. His accomplishment is pretty amazing as a 4WD vehicle will typically take 14 days to make this journey.

photo: Devo

Devo [of Asana Cycles fame] has a great thread going about his Surly Pugsely on the MTBR.com site. His musings on life, his Pugsely and everything are entertaining and informative. Well worth a read.

I like the fact he lives in SoCal and rides a Pugsley.  That gives me confidence my Pugsley will be seeing action all year long.