While part of my job is to test and review mountain bike gear, I’m also a mountain bike buyer just like everyone else. In fact, I decided to purchase both of my current mountain bikes (a Santa Cruz Tallboy and Redline d660) after completing test rides at Interbike Outdoor Demo in previous years. Well, this year I found myself anxious to pull the trigger on a another bike for my shed: the Surly Wednesday.
Sure, I live in Georgia where it rarely snows and my riding style is fairly XC, but something about the Wednesday speaks to me. I’ve actually test-ridden all the other Surly fat bikes already–the Pugsley, Ice Cream Truck, and Moonlander–but none of those bikes got me excited like the Wednesday. (For those who may be wondering about the name, Wednesday is Pugsley’s sister from The Addams Family.)
The Wednesday is a chromoly steel frame, rigid fat bike capable of running up to 26×4.6″ tires. This bike is bristling with brazeons for everything from water bottles (three of them fit on the larger frames!) to racks and fenders. The parts kit is decidedly basic with a 2×10 SRAM X5 drivetrain and Tektro mechanical disc brakes. The head tube angle is 69° which isn’t too stuffy, and while the bike ships with a rigid fork, the head tube is “suspension fork compatible.”
Perhaps I fell in love with the Wednesday because the bike made me look really good out on the trails at Bootleg Canyon. Somehow I found myself passing multiple people on the climb up the trail; even going down and across, no one was able to catch my wheel. The butt-ugly paint job on the bike even made me look good–I guess anything looks great standing beside this bike.
If you were hoping for more from my test ride review, sorry; that’s all I’ve got. The Wednesday handles great for a fat bike, goes uphill without complaining too much, and has the ability to carry almost anything I might want to haul. Who would’ve thought I would find the perfect fat bike in the Nevada desert?
