This one is for the nerds!

Ok, since I've been down with the flu and waiting for full recovery to get back in the saddle I haven't had much to write about. Unless of course you all want the intimate details of me waking up several times a night soaked through my clothes with sweat, dropping pounds like a high school wrestler getting ready for the big match, and how I was sleeping 14 hours at a time. You DON'T want to hear more about that? Good, me neither! I hate whining!

I am over the killer bug and seem to have my strength back and am going to put some serious miles in on Saturday morning, bright and early so the ride reports will be back. I'm excited to get to it. But in the meantime I will fulfill a request I've gotten from several of you and that is to talk about my bike.

My whip is a Surly Cross Check, it's a 56 or a 58c, I don't remember which. I've had it for about 9 months, it has about 2,000 miles on it. I've changed very little from the stock set up. One of the nice things about a smaller company like Surly is that they put a bit more attention into the details and the components on this ride are a little nicer than I found on bigger companies bikes in this price range, which was about $1100.

The things I changed were mostly just for fit, not for quality or anything like that. I put a taller, shorter stem on, I've switched out the bars for moustache bars for a while but am now back to the bars that came on the bike, which I really like. I put some new pedals on it because it doesn't really come with pedals. I added waterbottle cages, a little bike computer, lights, and that's pretty much it. Oh, I put on Schwalbe Marathon tires to replace the cyclocross tires that came stock because I wasn't going to be riding off road and didn't need the tread.

When the big ride comes I'll add a rear rack with panniers and probably a handlebar bag and I might add a flag because I really want to fly the Jolly Roger.

This bike weighs a ton, it is a real tank. Which is awesome, I don't care about weight, I'm not in a race, ever. It is a very sturdy, solid ride and this thing is gonna last longer than I do, I'm positive.

I have no plans to change anything on this bike. It's a great bike and even though I'm a bit bike nerdy sometimes I really don't want to mess with this thing because it's served me so well as is. I'll probably put a new set of the same tires on before I hit the road just to be on the safe side, but that's it. Oh, I might customize the graphics, a friend of mine has a vinyl cutter and I can make my own stickers with it so I might put something like "Vegan Powered" on the downtube for fun, but I'm not sure yet.

And I just realized my bike doesn't have a name. Anybody wanna make a suggestion?

One note about my bright orange bar tape. I was reading a blog about bike touring and the author said "You're going to be staring at your bars for hours on end, day after day, you should pick a color you really like." There you go, orange it is.

And one note about the chainstay graphic that says "Fatties Fit Fine." That means this bike can take wide tires. My bike did NOT just call me fat.