The Surly Troll
The bikes we take on this trip were always going to be a thoroughly thought out decision. Pete’s background in the bike trade means that he was always going to geek and obsess over ‘the perfect touring bike’ for this trip.
Many a sleepless night later and we finally settled on custom built bikes based around the newly offered Troll frames from Surly. The attraction being that these are simple, tough, yet do-anything framesets that can be set up or adapted in a number of different ways.
The Troll… This one’s called ‘Burt’
Shimano Deore V-Brakes with XT pads
Supernova Infinity 8 Hub dynamo
Roloff Speedhub handles the gears
ESCG Kickstand
Shwalbe Marathon Tires on Salsa Gordo Rims (not forgetting the Spokey-Dokeys)
Tout Terrain ‘The Plug II’ USB Charger
The Plug works with the Supernova hub
Blackburn stainless cages – If you’ve not got the mounts then Jubilee clips!
Topeak modular II for the fuel bottle
both bikes are pretty much the same so we can use all the same tools and fix the same problems
We chose to get the bikes from old friends ‘Ghyllside Cycles’ (http://www.ghyllside.co.uk/) in Ambleside who have been an utter wealth of knowledge on all things touring for many years and who we knew would not just sell us the bikes but be a continuall support for the life of them.
Birth of a Troll in Ghyllside Cycles
We got hold of the frames several months before we were due to leave to get used to them and iron out any niggles… and to have a play with some different builds:
Build them into any bike you want and they always seem to ride well.
Here’s a few of the builds we’ve played with:
Swept back MTB
Singlepeed
Bike-Packing MTB
Commuter
Speedy Street Cruiser
Knobbley Tourer – This one was a lot of fun on the rough stuff!
McNeilsOnWheels 