Surly Long Haul Trucker ✔
Yeh, I can't believe I actually own the iconic touring bike! I always read about my (small "h") heroes riding the world's most spectacular routes on Surly Long Haul Truckers. I thought, bay I dated to dream that one day I would be able to afford one and go touring. Now Ive done it, its actually happened!
The background is that I wasn't found a Surly Bridge Club for sale. It was red, pretty new and optioned up as far as tyres, brakes & other components go ... for the price of a new bike. I was thinking, yeh it may be the bargain basement, multipurpose Surly, but its a Surly. Ie. happily accepting second best ad you learn to do when living in a minimum wage.
Anyhow, there had been a delay in transferring seller providing account information and I guess I was a little bit holding back. Something was rankling inside me so I went back to the for sale column and found a Long Haul Trucker!
The colour was good and she had touring extras; racks and panniers. It actually looked shiny new and I thought, well it's cheap it has to have been overhauled. But when I messaged the owner, he said he "bought it from an old guy who built it up. He wanted to rode a rail trail or something"... He then described how he bought it to go touring but preferred now prefers mountain biking. He mentioned that the old guy didn't ride it much and neither had he. I had a doubtful thought, (This was to good to be true right?) the old guy building it up, misty be that he did a resto on it. So I asked and learned that he bought the LHT frameset and built the bike himself. So, it's a near new bike with low mileage and needs someone to ride it?! Get out!
The history of the model is, that Surly stopped making theirs premier touring, adventure, expedition bike ie. The Long Haul Trucker, some years ago and replaced it with the Disk Trucker. The DT was a lightly tweaked younger brother with disk brakes. But in the meantime the LHT developed a massive reputation asap the world over as a robust and capable expedition bike. My late hero Iohan Geourgiou (sp?) rode an LHT from Alaska through America. And Iohan rode rough, he always took the most adventurous routes and wild camped. So he gave the LHT a good workout.
I am happy because the bike has proven long legs and unsurpassed load carrying capacity. This I sense, is a bike that can be loaded up with kit and pedaled enjoyably into sunsets. It's not flashy and the brakes are underdone, but she's a proven tourer and has links to some phenomenal cyclists. She can be parked in a corner of the house waiting for a moment to escape, will negotiate any surface, can go on trains and planes and then stride out on-air long legs across great distances. Whether I am up to it, we'll see. But I'll give it a red hot go. Yeehaah!
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