After a few years of riding longer recreational and randonneuring rides, I wanted a bike for more practical, day-to-day tasks. Going to the store for groceries meant carrying larger bags on a rack. I didn't usually have the rear rack on the Rivendell, and I never had one the Fuji. On the few occasions when I did load the Rivendell with two heavy bags full of Diet Coke and a full front basket, I found the bike wasn't exactly at its best. Further, I'd always wanted to take our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel to the park. Attempts to stuff her into a Wald basket seemed fraught. Lastly, I missed having an actual off-road machine. My first bike was a Univega Alpina Pro, an early rigid mountain bike that I enjoyed taking out on trails.
new_battery I had some grand ideas of a Jones bike, but hemmed and hawed for a little too long to catch a spring sale on them. I spoke to Glenn Swan, and he thought a Surly Ogre would be a nice bike for me to tdo. that for all of the images on the sitery. He had a used one in my size, and I took it home for a few days to see if I liked it. The previous owner was a Cornell grad student who chained it to a signpost a lot, and some of the "Champagne Supernova" paint and decals showed it. However, it was very functional with stock SRAM cranks, a Microshift Advent 1x drivetrain, cheap BB5 brakes, and Surly's Extraterrestrial 2.4" tires. After a few rides around local paths, I decided to pull the trigger and buy it in early April of 2024.
After a wet session at Shindagin State Forest on their mountain bike trails, during which I slipped and slid on some of the muddy sections, I went through Glenn's tire bins, but found no matching 29" tires that I wanted. I asked if he could order some Bonti Race Kings, but he talked me into the slightly more aggressive Cross Kings instead. I decided some Ergon grips and a Moloko bar would improve the cockpit, so I ordered those as well. The rear wheel kept getting misaligned in the horizontal dropouts no matter how much I tightened the bolt, so Glenn drilled out a Redline track axle tensioner for the drive side only to accommodate the thicker thru-axle. It's a pretty strange system back there, but it works very well and is much less expensive than Surly's own ill-named "Tuggnuts".
To carry a dog, I wanted a very sturdy front platform. I found a used steel Soma Porteur Deluxe rack on eBay and mounted it. With 5 points of contact with the front fork, and a wide "pizza rack" platform, it is the perfect dog-carrying system for this bike. I zip-tied a plastic basket to it and have carried our dog, Rosie, on many trips since she was a puppy. If you even whisper "bike ride," she comes running to the bike. She's been to the dog park and on local trails on top of that rack, and I feel she is as safe and secure as she can be up there.
This year, I took her along on a spring permanent (Five Waterfalls), and she enjoyed riding along to visit Watkins Glen. We almost reached 50 mph on our descent off Bostwick Rd., and I had to smile to myself as I watched her long ears flapping in the breeze as we hurtled down the hill. She's unfazed up there, and I couldn't be more happy. She never even seems to think about jumping out. We've been in heavy traffic, amongst other riders, and have even encountered a lot of wildlife. She sits up there and watches the world go by.
The grad student had a Topeak MTX 2.0 Explorer rack mounted on it when I bought it. It worked fine for grocery-getting. However, the rack is designed to mate with the MTX truck via a slide-and-lock system, which is really nice, but I didn't plan on using that trunk. Without it, the top platform has these shark "fins" exposed that frankly made the top of the rack less useful. I replaced the rack with a Tubus Logo Evo in November 2025. It was a nice upgrade. I often use a pair of folding grocery panniers to run out for food runs, and this frame and rack feel a lot more stable than when I try the same on the Riv. I feel like I could tow a tree with this bike.
I picked up a cheap frame bag from Moosetreks at a bike club swap meet that fit the frame perfectly, but the cheap zipper failed, and multiple attempts to fix it left me frustrated. After shopping around, I found the Urban Desert guy in California and asked him to build me a custom roll-top bag. He came through with a simple but effective large single-compartment bag, laced to the frame, for a very reasonable price.
I traded the stock saddle for a used, but basically new Brooks Flyer from eBay, which I got for about a third of the price of a new one. You can probably hear me coming as I bounce on the springy seat, but I like Brooks and I; it gives the bike a little more plush feel.
The Surly is sort of like a pickup truck. When I need to go somewhere in town, it's the one I'm most likely to grab. Store? Ogre. Dog park? Ogre. Just visit friends? Ogre. I always have the basket and frame bag on it, and the panniers slide on whenever I think I might want something from Wegman's. It's a tank, but I ride it almost every day for 5-10 miles to run errands around town. These rides are typically ridden at 10mph or less, in my regular clothes, and last just under an hour, but those miles add up to be comparable to the miles I ride for longer events.
After a season on the Cross Kings, I went back to the stock Surly tires, which I actually like quite a bit for regular use. They are faster, smoother, and haven't really shown any wear in probably 2,000 miles. However, in the winter, I like the knobbies for a little more traction on slippery sections.
While Surly has reclassified the bike as a commuter, and indeed I am using it in that way, it's also an off-road tourer, especially the way I have it set up. Rosie and I went on an overnight in the woods not too far from here, and the Ogre growled up over Connecticut Hill and into a dark valley for a peaceful night in the tent this year. I could see this bike taking me on a real off-road adventure someday, should I ever have the time. For now, it's relegated to grocery duty and dog park runs, dressed as though it really wants to go somewhere. That guy at the party who shows up in all his Patagonia clothes and hiking boots, even though it is just a dinner party.
It's not a glamorous bike, but on any given day, it's probably the bike I ride the most. I want to say that if I had to have only one bike in the shed, it would be my Rivendell, but it's hard not to see how the Surly is better suited to how I actually ride. Rosie would agree.
