I'll bet a lot of people ascribe a fair amout of "coolness" to your Surly. That even you don't know it's cool says loads about your hipness factor, and IMO, lack thereof. That's not to say that being cool is forever. For example, the Hummer. Stylish, no. But originally, very cool. Now, not so much. OTOH, the entire 23 years I've had a recumbent, I've always had comments from people about its coolness. So until complete strangers with no apparent connection to cycling stop yelling "cool bike!" at me, then it's cool.

If the Surly isn't cool enough, you might get an even bigger reaction if you took your carbon aero road bike, painted it over in sunset orange, added mustache handlebars and a fixed gear hub. After that, I'd wager some of the urban riders might call your machine cool. Until then, you have my permission to be jealous.

:)ensen.