2013 Catalog
1 www.surlybikes.com 1-877-743-3191 AND NOW A WORD FROM THE BIG GIANT HEAD In the last 100 years technology has striven to improve upon the functionality of steel as a building material (as they have the vinyl record for entertainment and wool for clothing). One school of thought has been obsessed with creating new materials that solve problems in a different ways (aluminum, titanium, carbon fiber). From our point of view this adds endless layers of complexity and often creates new problems along the way. Another school has spent its time refining and improving the original material, arriving at what is modern steel…it is for the most part the same stuff your grand daddy rode, just stronger, lighter, and more refined to specific purposes. Surly is of this second school; we like to use technology to improve the wheel, not reinvent it. We like the refinement process. We don’t use new technologies for the sake of using new technologies, but rather look at what we want to achieve and apply what works, whether its new or not. That’s why we make our bikes out of steel. It’s not because we are old fashioned, or curmudgeonly (though many of us are in fact curmudgeons). We’re not retrogrouch crusaders. We use steel because it works consistently and inexpensively. It’s not that other materials aren’t cool. We are interested and intrigued by the properties of all the things that make up our world. But for the kind of bikes we make, for the rides we like and the things we value, steel can’t be beat.
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