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Old 09-23-09 | 09:58 AM
  #7  
rohmen
Senior Member
 
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 114
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From: Chicago

Bikes: Surly Cross-Check; Bianchi San Jose; Schwinn Super Sport.

I just received mine on Monday. I ended up purchasing it to be more of a townie/winter commuter, and I think it will fill that role nicely. Very similar to a surly steamroller, but I liked the fact that the WT was built to take fenders and had rear brake cable guides (please consider adding at least fender eyelets to the Steamroller, Surly).

Fit 700 x 32s and fenders with no problems. Gearing is a bit high (48 x 16) for street use in my opinion, but swapping out the chainring fixed that. Now running a 45 x 16 fixed and free.

I was able to assemble it just fine, but I did run into a problem or two. The chainring bolts that come with it are pretty cheap and were really really torqued-on hard. Stripped one of the bolts even though I was using a park tool's chainring bolt wrench. Was finally able to get it off with a little work and luck, though, so not a biggy. Replaced the reamining bolts with spares I had lying around. Rims were fairly true considering the amount of foot prints UPS left all over the box, but I will likely have to true them in a few weeks. I had also never installed or adjusted dual-pivot brakes before, so instructions in the box would have been nice (just found a set on Tektro's website, which was easy enough). Probably all standard stuff for ordering a factory direct bike.

Saddle and pedals are pretty crappy, but I swapped them out for what I liked anyway (would have done that on any bike). I also swapped out the stem, bars, and seat post for extras I had lying around in order to get a better fit.

All and all pretty happy with it. Once together and properly adjusted, bike seems to ride well. I had initially hoped to build up a single-speed for rain/winter use myself, but for $429 shipped this just made more sense for how rough I will probably end up treating it. I can post some pics later if people are interested.
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