Six Months With the Surly Ice Cream Truck: A Three-Season Review

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Six Months With the Surly Ice Cream Truck: A Three-Season Review

Six months ago, I hung up my modern mountain bike and began riding a fat bike with thumb shifters and cable brakes as my only bike. Accustomed to the niceties of lightweight wheels, four piston brakes, and an 11-speed drivetrain, I’ll admit I didn’t have a lot of faith in this experiment. I had a feeling I would be itching to get back on my other bike long before the snow melted.

You see, not especially long ago, I held some fairly strong opinions about fat bikes. I worked in mountain bike media, had access to all the newest technology, and was convinced that fat bikes were so far outside the realm of acceptable mountain bikes that I chose to write them off. To me, it seemed that fat bikes were being marketed as mountain bikes but were really just inflated touring bikes. That is, until I had the chance to spend six months on the Surly Ice Cream Truck with a RockShox 100-millimeter travel Bluto fork.

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A Solo Singletrack Shred on Quadra Island

Quadra Island, home to multiple NAHBS award winner Sam Whittingham and Naked Bicycles, enjoys a secluded existence off northern Vancouver Island. Sam hones his craft in steel and titanium, and welcomes visitors to join him for a ride – which is just what the folks who made this video did.

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Trail Hunter in the Sawtooth Range

One of the nicest guys in mountain biking, Matt Hunter takes to Sun Valley’s high elevation singletrack with his buds. Whether you’re into covering a bunch of distance on a huge loop or setting up a base camp and doing day trips, Idaho’s Sawtooth National Forest is a bucket list riding destination.

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Morning Routine

Here’s another short film from Ben Johnson, the eye behind First Lookout from a couple months back. In this piece Ben’s captured another early morning ride experience with a punchline that should resonate. While the film features a product, for which the video is an ad spot, it certainly doesn’t feel that way.

Rocky Mountain’s Sherpa Overland Bike

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Rocky Mountain’s Sherpa Overland Bike

Words by Morgan Taylor.

Rocky Mountain was the first company to take a stab at the 27.5+ tire size, with 2.8″ tires mounted to 45mm rims appearing on their Sherpa concept bike at the Sea Otter show this time last year. After a year of further tweaking, an under-the-radar appearance on Gabe Tiller’s Pushwacking the Idaho Hot Springs Route story under engineer Lyle Vallie, and all the refinement necessary to bring this new platform to market, the production version of the Sherpa “overland” bike is ready to hit the shop floor.

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Bikepacking Arizona’s Black Canyon Trail

To accompany the launch of their new Sherpa Overland bikepacking platform, Rocky Mountain bikes worked with Brian Vernor to produce a short film on Arizona’s Black Canyon Trail. These Canadian freeriders and XC racers are surely out of their element in the hot desert sun, but the vibe is right and this one should get the stoke going for a weekend adventure.

Kenjitsu’s 2015 Cinelli MASH Parallax – Morgan Taylor and Stefan Feldmann

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Kenjitsu’s 2015 Cinelli MASH Parallax – Morgan Taylor and Stefan Feldmann

Kenjitsu’s 2015 Cinelli MASH Parallax

Words by Morgan Taylor and photos by Stefan Feldmann

Some builds come together quickly, while others are more of a slow roast. This one falls into the latter category: a collection of carefully matched parts coming together over a few months. The wait was worth it, though, and Kenjitsu’s (known as 21 Ninjas on Instagram) Parallax project has finally come to fruition with everything in its place.

The simplicity of track bikes is no doubt what led many of us down the road of parts upgrades, but Kenjitsu’s bike goes beyond simply matching colors for the sake of it. The Campy Record Pista crankset and Izumi chain are classic track bling, but this build is firmly situated in the modern era with the Cadence x Ritchey C260 stem, Cinelli NEOS carbon bar and post, and MASH x San Marco Concor rounding out the contact points.

However, it’s the wheels that stand out here. The purple Phil Wood Tsunami Relief hubs – set #02 of five – feature artwork by Wakako from Blue Lug laser engraved by Grayson Yokota. The 90mm flanges are laced to H Plus Son Archetype 32 hole rims via Sapim CX-Ray bladed spokes, making for a truly drool-worthy wheelset.

Kenjitsu capped off the build with a purple Radavist top cap and a pair of NOS Time ATAC World Champion Carbon MTB pedals. Look for Kenjitsu and the Parallax on the streets of Vancouver this spring!

Rider: Kenjitsu
Build credit: Matt Braun / Skyland Cycles

Full build spec:

2015 Charcoal Cinelli MASH Parallax 54cm
H Plus Son 32h Archetype
Sapim CX-Ray bladed spokes
Continental Grand Prix 4 Season 23mm
Phil Wood & Co. purple anodized Limited Edition Tsunami Relief 90mm Track Hub Set #02/05
Phil Wood & Co. Track Cog 15t
Campagnolo Record Pista Track Crankset 49t
Campagnolo Record Pista cartridge BB
Izumi Track Chain
NOS Time ATAC World Champion Carbon MTB Pedals
Cinelli NEOS Carbon Seat Post
Selle San Marco MASH Concor Saddle
Ritchey x Cadence Airflow C260 Stem
Cinelli NEOS Carbon drop bars
Radavist purple anodized top cap

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First Lookout

In First Lookout, Ben Johnson captures the experience of an early morning climb up Cypress Mountain, high above Vancouver’s skyline. Nice work Ben, looking forward to more!

Vancouver’s Super Champion

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Vancouver’s Super Champion

Vancouver’s Super Champion
Words and photos by Morgan Taylor

In 2007, former pro snowboarder Tyler Lepore opened up a track bike shop in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. With its wood paneling and white walls, carefully curated framesets and splashes of colorful parts, the space had a modern, almost gallery-like feel. Add in clean branding and a collection of t-shirts with hand-drawn art, and Super Champion felt more like a skate shop than a bike shop.

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Wetness at Warp Speed

Winter in coastal BC looks incredible. Curtis Robinson hits warp speed with arguably the best soundtrack to any ride: tires on dirt.

Introducing… Morgan Taylor

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Introducing… Morgan Taylor

Have you ever considered whittling your collection down to a single bike? Of course you have – we all have. For the better part of a decade I’ve owned more bikes than there are days in the week, with spare parts for all of them. Getting rid of all but one? Unthinkable. Which one of a carefully curated fleet, each with its own merits and reasons for being, would make the best all-rounder? Which would be your “one bike”?

This idea of downsizing and simplifying has been a theme for me this year. In July, after months of preparation, my girlfriend and I packed our lives and our dog into our two cars and moved to a 227 square foot cabin deep in the Selkirk Mountains of southeastern British Columbia. Like many, we’d been dreaming of living in the wilderness, but this was it. Living the dream, right?

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Slab Slayer

This one starts out pretty chill but gets rowdy quick. Cody Kelley takes his Enduro 29 and throws it down some big lines with steeze. There’s a line there, oh, and a line there!

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Dark Woods

Ramp riding is rarely this aesthetically pleasing. Drew Bezanson and Morgan Wade bring the spectacle.

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Trigger Happy

What would you do with 60 POV cameras? Grab a couple of World Cup DH shredders and set up a virtual Rube Goldberg machine, of course.

Chromag: Nice Dreams Fatbike

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Chromag: Nice Dreams Fatbike

Chromag just dropped their first run of fatbikes, hand built by Mike Truelove in Squamish, BC. Cheekily named the Nice Dreams, this steel beauty is built around a 120mm RockShox Bluto with a 67.5º head angle and a 170mm rear end for 4″ tires. Result? One seriously shreddable fatty.

This small run will sell out quick, but there are still a couple M and M-L frames available as frame only or full SRAM builds. Contact Chromag to swoop!