No. Fluids aside, hydraulics require much less maintenance than mechanical discs and so they’re much more user-friendly, useful on an entry-level bike like this. PDKL45 covered this already, but not only do mechanical brakes need regular adjustment, they can’t be adjusted merely by increasing cable tension, a fact that catches out even experienced mechanics. Surly would spec hydraulics if they could hit the price point and/or if they were available. This is a shame but not too surprising.

They are saying they used lighter and thinner tubes than on some of their other bikes. Who knows what that translates to in practice, a $900 complete bike is unlikely to really deliver on ride quality. But it’s nice to see they were thinking about it. Also, this might be the most self-aware sentence I’ve ever seen from a Surly blog post:



$549 for a frameset is actually kind of intriguing. If I have enough parts lying around I could even see myself picking one of these up at some point for cruising around the neighborhood.