Many people’s introduction to bicycle touring was via the Surly Long Haul Trucker, or LHT for short. Anne has quite the story of her attachment to it for this week’s Readers’ Rides!
I did my first bike tour in 2012 kind of on a whim. I liked bikes a lot and wondered if I could ride them long distances with a little bit of gear. It doesn’t seem that long ago but also it was long enough ago that I wasn’t really using Instagram then and my local bike shop was a mondo-chain. So I learned about this bike-touring thing from books, weirdo blogs and sometimes real people I ran into on the road. And oh what a world it was! For my first few tours I mostly used my mom’s old Raleigh step-thru hybrid. I did the Katy Trail, the Camino de Santiago and the west coast from Canada to Mexico and by then I was absolutely smitten–just totally in love. And I wanted a better bike.
It’s strange to think back on a time, not that long ago, when bike touring still felt like a fringe activity. I hadn’t found the radavist yet (Heyo–thanks for being here!) and everyone I knew who rode bikes were into the carbon-frame, aero kind. This is all to say: back then, in 2014, the Long Haul Trucker was the touring bike. All of the coolest people I’d met while touring had one and I didn’t know of anyone else who was making bikes like that and all I knew was IT HAD TO BE MINE.
By the time I had the money and the chance to buy my very first, brand new bike from a shop it was 2015! I had some choices to make which were: did I want a 26er or a 700c and wow, what about cable disc brakes? There were even other brands for consideration: Salsa and All City were here with a million fork braze-ons and lighter steel but honestly: I couldn’t see anything but the LHT. It was all about the ethos for me. I was enamored with the thoughtfulness of the design: everything on the bike from wheel size to bar-end shifting was meant to be the most serviceable, most replaceable part. And anyway I was planning to take this bike to the brink. None of this disc brake nonsense. I got the 26er and the canti brakes.
This year is my LHT’s ten year anniversary. And honestly we didn’t go to the places that I thought we would when I bought her. (I mean, how often do our lives and the things in them actually turn out like our expectations?) I thought we were going to wild places, foreign countries, but the truth is we didn’t get too far from home which was New York City at the time. I rode NYC to Montreal, Vermont to Acadia, and several overnighters out the city. I had some gorgeous, magical, unforgettable days and nights on that bike. And I guess that’s the takeaway. What a bike teaches you is that there are a million wild and beautiful places close to home. You just have to be going slow enough to see them.
Times have changed and I’m on instagram constantly now and I live in Denver and it’s all about bikepacking. The LHT has been partially retired from trips. When the drivetrain finally crapped out and the rims started to show some wear I did a pretty big overhaul. I got rid of the triple chainring and installed GX 1×11 with an X-Sync chainring. I rebuilt new Velocity Dyad rims around the still perfectly good Shimano Deore LX hubs.
My favorite upgrades to the LHT were the two-toned Avid brake levers–OG mountain bike parts that had been passed down through the shop where I work. And the Gear Aid knife on the fork–a silly idea that ended up sticking. The gearing doesn’t quite hold up for big tours here in the Front Range but that’s not the goal these days. It’s a tried and true commuter and grocery-hauler. And even though it didn’t do all of the things I expected it to, the LHT taught me so much about how to appreciate and love a bike, and how it can grow with you in the most miraculous ways.
Build Spec:
- Frame: Surly Long Haul Trucker 2014 size 52
- Grips: Oury
- Stem: Raceface
- Headset: Cane Creek, original to the bike
- Brake levers: Hand-me-down Avids
- Brakes: Tektro cantilever, original to the bike
- Rear derailleur: Sram GX 11 speed
- Chainring: Sram Xsync 42 tooth
- Cassette: Sram 11 speed, 11-42
- Wheels: Velocity Dyad 26 rebuilt around the original Shimano Deore LX hubs
- Tires: Schwalbe Marathon 26
- Front rack: Velo Orange Randonneur
- Rear rack: Velo Orange Campeur
- Bag: Bags by Bird
- Bell: Crane
- Knife: Gear Aid
We’d like to thank all of you who submitted Readers Rides builds to be shared here at The Radavist. The response has been incredible and we have so many to share over the next few months. Feel free to submit your bike, listing details, components, and other information. You can also include a portrait of yourself with your bike and your Instagram account! Please, shoot landscape-orientation photos, not portrait. Thanks!
