JoeyBike

This video is a great example of why I choose a Surly Long Haul Trucker touring bike with fat tires for my daily commute and all purpose utilitarian cycling around New Orleans. Many of our streets and roads are WORSE than the construction site featured here on Esplanade Avenue between the French Quarter and N. Broad Street.

I am a roadie at heart so my Trucker is set up just like my road bike only much more forgiving on rough surfaces. Sure my skinny-tire road bike is much faster on smooth tarmac but the ride is rough and the chances of being taken down by a crack or pothole is much greater, not to mention damage to my expensive wheels.

So I guess this is sort of a tribute to my LHT for just doing it's thing with grace, speed, and comfort day after day after day, rain or shine, no matter what the world throws at it.

"Trucker don't give a ****" as you can see in the vid.

Video Length: 03:22

https://vimeo.com/64437953

gerv 

What tires are you running? I seem to have settled on 32mm width, but was just reading an article recently that claimed wider tires roll better. My Volpe can go up to 38 I believe.

Dahon.Steve

Man. What bad roads!

Why aren't you lifting the front wheel on some of those holes?

zeppinger

Im a big fan of 2.0 Schwalbe Duremes for all around riding. Over 5k miles with no flats, comfy ride, and not much in the way of lost speed!

JoeyBike

I am running Serfas tires with high puncture resistance. Drifter S 26x2.0.

phillybill

That's a nice tire..... just got a pair of 26x1.5's for my commuter

Yalc

I was running 700x42 on my cross check, but went down to 700x38.. man I miss the comfort of the 42s

what front rack/basket is that?

jrickards

Where do you have your video attached? Likely your bike but it doesn't seem to bounce like your front basket does or as much as I thought it would considering the condition of the roads.

hairnet

Nice. This is why I have 26"x2.0" tires on my drop bar mtb. urban assault

JoeyBike

The camera is attached to my handlebars right next to the stem clamp. Nothing special. The bike and fork are steel, long wheelbase, nice fork rake, and I run my front tire around 40 psi, the rear near 60 psi. Same mount on my steel road bike with 120 psi is much shakier on bumpy surfaces (obviously). I am not using any sort of editing magic or anti-shake software. Vids are straight from the camera edited for file size only.

JoeyBike

The basket is just a small Wald removable type that has the last row of wire cut off the bottom. The rack is Old Man Mountain and has a solid top platform that serves as the basket bottom. I have some foam rubber to quiet things down on the bottom. Four hose clamps attache the basket solid. Bombproof. No rattles. Handy as hell.

Notice the back of the Contour video camera on the bars above the stem.

FKMTB07

The roads in Houston are terrible too, and they're always tearing up parts of the bike paths to improve them (which is awesome, but it creates lots of short term sections of dirt along the MUPS). I always commute and ride around town on fat tires. Of the bikes I'll ride around town, I've got 700x40c on my Vaya, 26x2.0 on my Trucker Deluxe, and my Cross-Check gets up to 700x45c tires. My road bike w/ 700x25c tires only comes out for group rides on smoother roads or weekend excursions in the country, where the roads are like glass.

I think a cx or touring bike with fenders (we all know it rains a lot on the Gulf Coast), a rack with some kind of bag or pannier system (avoid that sweaty back during our hot/humid summers), and fat tires is, IMO, the IDEAL bike for places like Houston or NOLA.

slowride454

I built my Soma Double Cross just for my commute. There are 2 seasons in Wisconsin...Winter and Road Construction. I didn't want to beat up my Roubaix with 25s and hated the tire changes on my GT 29er MTB. I only run a 700x35 on the Soma, but it rides like a dream over the frost heaves, potholes, grand canyonesque cracks and railroad tracks I traverse around town.

mconlonx

I may fit 26 x 2.0 tires to my drop bar commuter, currently running 1.5s.

My other commuter is shod with Maxxis Hookworms at 2.5". A bit heavy, but bombproof and super fun. Really a big fan of Big Apples in 2.35, too.