I don't get it either but you just need to let it go. Or try an experiment - call them up and see if you get the same!

-G

Yep.

....and they have a few more.

Most of the guys I ride with will admit to having a Surly "fill in the blank" if pressed.

A Cross Check can be built into a decent commuter for dirt cheap.

I like the black ones for sure.

I'm building up a touring/commuting bike for a friend and a cross-check was definitely a platform I considered. I also know some folks who've used LHTs for long tours and been pleased. Guess I don't think too much about all the verbage & sum it up as meaningless hype. Since it has come up already in the thread, I'll say I seem to appreciated that Salsa bikes that hit the market more. Ultimately, it seems like two flavors or modern welded steel bikes...among many who try to add personality to a product that without the ads and decals is for the most part the same as what others have (though the Salsa Casseroll as an interesting endeavor in the world of mass-produced bikes, I would think). All that's not to say anything bad about the Surly bikes from my perspective. Some may seem a little heavy for what they are, but I may be way off on that.

Being a 'ex-pat-lifer' sometimes feels like being under permanent house arrest. But one of the things I enjoy here in Japan is what remains of public grace and common respect, despite how it appears to many foreigners as perfunctory and robotic.

So, what does the Surly site message mean? Is it a joke?

Most or all of us C&V folk have seen the 18th C. adverts for the first bicycles. They were aimed at a cohort — people who embraced an emerging culture. Just consider how weird these pioneers must have appeared to corseted ladies and buttoned-up gents in tall hats toting ash plants as they were driven about in carriages. Did you ever see an advert wherein the first bicycle manufacturers insulted their prospective velo customers? All the ones I have seen were courting new interest in the most polite terms.

Language and civil behavior has been reduced to its most base level in many cultures and countries. In the movie, "The Gangs of New York", you can hear how language was at another level. Even dire insults have some eloquence to them. The screen writing was true to life and language as it was back in the days. My uncles were born before WWI had no chance but for the most elementary education before they went out to apprentice in a trade. But, they were bright, and they could speak intelligently in sentences ... albeit in Cockney dialect that I had to comprehend as a boy.

This sort of stuff — the element of the Surly message — is not merely about niche, cohort, generation, market, hipsters blah blah. It is about a general debasement of language and its consequences to the human experience. We either have suck it up or defame it — or just ignore it perhaps to our common peril.

If all this seems too "posh" and elitist to some readers, then I just wish you could take a tour of some of the darker places of memory of where I've been in my life. I wish you could listen to plain, ordinary people who lived passionately and originally enough to actually talk — instead of grunt. One of the reasons I like hanging out on this forum is because its members can use language instead of grunting.

Perhaps the Surly people are pissed-off at the same thing as I am. And that is ironic. Or are they as bad as those they apparently lampoon? Take yer pick.

Well said Lenton. Getting acquainted with some Japanese, Korean and Indonesian students in my university in Indonesia was a eye-opener in terms of manners. Back in the Netherlands I really had to get used again to people talking loud, rude and without listening to the other person again. Dutch people are really special in that aspect :)

I agree. The writer of this blog post believes himself to be a real wit.






He is half-right.

Nothing new about arrogance. And nothing new with dipsh*** trying to write comedy.

To be fair, its not like they are going to garner any business from me anyway. So to their target market, maybe it works.

The tone they are seemingly going for is curmudgeonly and sarcastic, and is not unlike what some regular posters here take with new posters who demand that we certify a rusty UO-8 as a PX-10.

Except of course that we here are MUCH better looking.

I read it pretty carefully but I could not find a way in which it hurt or affected me in any way; nor does it have an effect on whether I'm likely to buy anything Surly, a likely 'no' in any case. Maybe I am just not sensitive enough. :(

I'm not to worried about it. Suffering occasional calls from marketing/sales types is a bit of an occupational hazzard for me. They'll perform almost any contortion to sell something or appeal to a given group. This looks like another cirque de sell contortionist act to me, frankly. I'm probably more amused than horrified about Surly's lil letter, but probably not in the way they want me to be.

Your description of the Dutch sounds like America, Italuminium. ;) World traveling does give one a valuable perspective, eh? And a contrast. When living in China for a short time I did note that some Chinese men can be loud, brash, boastful and with terrible table manners, but that's their culture to some extent. Overall I found the Chinese to be much more polite and courteous than most Americans.

That is exactly what I was thinking. I'm not exactly horrified but I have had to deal with customer service and interactions my whole career. This might be a funny "inside joke" but it should stay an INSIDE joke. I think a lot of the frames that Surly makes are pretty neat and was hoping that they'd stick around a few years and pump out a ton of them so in another decade or so I would be able to pick up one or three of their frames in my size for cheap.

Now, I've got my doubts that they'll survive much longer than the current hipster ironic phase. Oh, well. I just don't want to see any "save Surly" threads as they and their supporters complain that nobody is buying their products any more and that they are such a great company that we should all open our wallets up to. Sorry no. Cut your own throats if you want to Surly. Don't expect any sympathy from me. I know exactly where the word sympathy lies in the dictionary...

Well it looks like they either got tired of stupid communication or they were told by some marketing firm being "surly" could boost sales amongst the youth of today. I'd guess a bit of both, but thought the memo was humorous none the less.

One thing I don't complain much about is generational differences. However, I can spot marketeers (extra e intentional) trying to take advantage of them and use them to build brands from several miles off. One of the major advantages of age is your BS meter becomes ever-better tuned. It's a bit coarse and unreliable when you are younger.

**** surly's customer service! this is why I ride bikes by companies that went out of business 25 years ago

^ What he said.

Language IS important, and I'd venture to say that for those for whom a 140-character tweet or a "texme" message is their primary means of communication, much of their angst likely stems from their inability to express themselves adequately (and to have someone actually listen).

I'm from the old school (literally) and it irks me to see the language debased. Frankly, when I see posts completely devoid of punctuation and capitalization, I construe it as either abject ignorance on the part of the writer, or worse, arrogance and disrespect - as if the audience isn't worth the effort.

10-4 Auchen'

We old school lovers of the language, and the proper usage of it, need to stick together and keep the good fight going. It may be a losing battle, who knows.

It's all just part of their branding. Their target customer base are folks who would find such a posture to be cool and edgy. The company is not called "Gentle" or Polite", but "Surly". Whatevs. Takes all kinds.

Maybe some people who have a hard day at work these days write things like this instead of "kicking the dog"....any way you look at it, joke/sarcasm or not, it's not pretty.......and maybe something that the writer would eventually regret and want to take back if he/she can....
JMOs

Chombi

When it comes to loudness of speech, Americans are the on par with us. Overfed 'Merican girls with drawly voices in the train from Schiphol to Amsterdam on their way to some debased weed trip that use "like" after every other word are the worst :).

Oh c'mon. This one was funny.

I can see this point but I also would like to point out that good old-fashioned snarkiness has its place.

Look at Mark Twain. He was the master of this. He created his own "brand" which people bought up. He was snarky and smart, and he liked nothing more than being an iconoclast and taking swipes at the old stodgy establishment.

But Sam Clemens was his own "brand." He was selling books, articles in magazines, and booking speeches and public appearances.

He wasn't trying to sell bicycles, or shaving cream. That is something totally different. You want to be successful and create a product that sells and produces a profitable and sustainable brand? This ain't the way to do it.

...just sayin'

One can be a comedian, or a businessman. But it's not usually very effective to be both. And if you can pull it off it isn't going to be the mean-spirited insulting type of comedy, but more of a whimsical self-effacing type of humor rather than being edgy and insulting the very people who you wish to give you money for your product.

it's silly...pointless...sort of embarrassing, actually. but, whatever.

Having spent the last 20-25 years on & off doing various forms of internet trading around including a period of time in the late 1990s when I was co-owner of an Internet-based Italian car parts business, I can empathize with how customer service can be a bit taxing on one's patience. That said, I always (and still do when I am trading around hobby stuff on the 'net) took the philosophy that the customer was always right...even when they were wrong. Sorta like cops, I guess, right?

The one that always got me was when our Web site had racing exhaust headers sold for non-road, non-emission, basically racing-only applications in a larger diameter tubing than the stock exhaust for cars and we would get calls or emails asking how to attach the header to the factory exhaust system and the catalytic converter. What?

Surly provides useful products at fair prices and treats their employees right. That's a good company in my book.

I own two Surly bikes, one of them being a fat bike. Is curmudgeon a good thing or bad thing?

Regardless of anything else, I can get behind this!