We at the shop saw that the new Surly Troll's were being released a couple of weeks ago. A couple of us were very excited that the newest version of the Troll was going to be coming in the color purple, plus the fork comes set up to fit the Salsa Everything Cages! Well needless to say a couple of us decided that we needed to have a Troll. This brought up the fact that neither of us wanted to have the others idea of what their Troll should be. Luckily when building a bike from the frame up, it provides quite a of freedom of choice.
I decided to go with the Salsa Woodchipper bars, because I am a fan of the mountain drop bar. Jason decided that the On-One Mary bars would definitely do the trick when it came to steering his Troll down the road (and off road for that matter).
I was looking to build something that would be the perfect commuter/adventure bike no matter the time of year. The troll can fit up to a 26x2.7 tire. That is a pretty big footprint, without having to switch to a Fat frame. So I began by lacing a pair of Shimano M529 hubs to some Atomlab Pimplite hoops. I went with the Pimplites because they were one of the widest non Fatbike rims I could find, which leaves me with a wider footprint when I throw spikes on for the winter. Some Avid BB5's to stop. I went with road levers and rear derailleur (all thanks to Aaron) and a mtn. front derailleur and crank. It was decided that the Schwalbe Fat Frank's would be the best way to keep the wheels rolling until the snow flies.
Jason went a little different direction with his wheels. We did end up using the same hubs ( because they are inexpensive yet bombproof ) though he laced his to a pair of Stan's rims so that he can run his setup tubeless. From there the Continental Xking's in 26x2.4 were put on the rims. He is stopping courtesy of the Avid BB7's. Shifting is taken care of with a mix of old school and new with vintage Shimano LX crank and rear derailleur and Microshift flatbar shifters.
We both wanted our Troll's to be able to carry all that we needed, so I chose to run a rear rack with Jandd Economy panniers. For hydration I have a couple stainless salsa cages on the fork.
These frames are so versatile! Here you see Jason is running a Revelate Tangle bag, and Gas tank. Five, yes five Profile Designs water bottle cages!
So far neither one of us is able to find anything wrong with these frames, they are just so damn fun!
