Originally Posted by
ColonelSanders
I'm tossing up between a Surly Troll and a 26" LHT and having a great deal of trouble deciding, especially as I am not going to be able to test either bike and will just be buying a new frame and building up from there.
When you say the Troll is more nimble, in what way does that manifest itself?
When I see the gusseting on the Troll at the headtube and toptube joining and the little bridge from the seat tube to the top tube, it strikes me with that reinforcing, the Troll should be a "stronger" bike than the LHT, yet I have read comments from someone saying they felt a LHT carried their luggage better than a Troll, as they had slight shimmy at speed on the Troll when loaded up.
I'm guessing this may be due to the LHT having a larger diameter downtube than the Troll?
Any insights one can share here, would be greatly appreciated.
I have had both. I had a Troll as a commuter and now own a LHT. I can't compare loaded touring performance because I never had either of them loaded down, but as commuters with racks/bags/fenders/fat tires and relatively light loads, the Troll is a much nicer riding, quicker handling bike. I have used a few different vintage mountain bikes as commuters, and also owned other Surlys: Troll, Cross Check, Krampus, Pugsley, 1x1, so I am used to riding "heavy" bikes, but when I first got the Trucker I was shocked by how heavy it was. I am currently in the process of disassembling it to sell it and move on to something else for commuting. I read a lot about it being heavy and sluggish before I bought it, but I thought it would be no big deal because I was used to heavy bikes. Wrong. It is ridiculously heavy and sluggish feeling. The Troll never felt like that. I know people are going to say that I am not using it as intended, and they are right, but I know lots of people use Truckers as commuting or road bikes. I cannot understand how, and I am not even remotely a weight weenie; I only own steel bikes and have no desire for carbon fiber or aluminum.
I would say between the two, there is really no reason to pick the LHT. The Troll can do a lot of the things the Trucker cannot, but the reverse is not true.