Bike commuting is nothing new to me. While I lived in Boulder, CO and worked at a local vets office I had the luxury of an amazing bike friendly community. I could bike to just about anywhere in the city with out having to even ride in traffic. While life in CO was great in a lot of ways it was not where I was meant to be and my home (MD) was calling me back. Right away I knew biking to work was going to be a lot more of a challenge. Amazingly enough my 13 mile commute from Jessup to the Conscious Corner in Clarksville had some hidden secrets. I found with the help of Google Maps that at least half of my trek to work could be traveled by trail and to top it all off it cut a mile off the trip. I quickly found that unlike my commute in CO which was relatively flat MD proved to be much more of a challenge with lots of hills to climbing. My good old Giant iguana was well up to the task but very slow going and I found myself on the search for a much faster bike. With some scavenging a good friend was able to set me up with an 80’s steel frame road bike. As life is ever changing my commute came to a sudden but welcome stop before I even had a chance to try out the road bike on my daily commute.

It was baby making time 🙂 and with all of the mixed information out there regarding saddle time hindering my abilities as a male I decided to stay off my bike just in case. Two years later our dreams came true and we got the word my wife was pregnant. Not having biked in two years had me a bit out of shape and not ready to do the 12 mile commute so it was off to doing loops around the neighborhood now on the 80s road bike. This bike was quick, nimble and fun to ride and as soon as I was back in shape it was winter and about time for my son to be born. Winter flew by and I don’t remember thinking about biking at all with all of the excitement of being a new father. As spring hit I was once again thrown a twist in my biking adventures. I was offered an amazing opportunity to open a new store in Catonsville, MD. My daily commute distance stayed the same but now I no longer have a safe route via bike. Not willing to let that stand in my way it was time to Google Map a new route and go with what ever options I could find.

I decided to start small and found a park and ride that was about 3 miles from my work. The 80s road bike seamed to be great for this and the short distance allowed me to bike in my work clothes. With my job I often table local events and it just so happened that VegFest was just up the road so I loaded up the road bike with my samples for VegFest and headed out. What a scary decision that was, the road bike could not handle the extra weight and was super squirrelly.

So it was once again it was time to look in to a new bikes. The primary purpose of this bike would be commuting but I also want to use it for touring as well. I went around checking out all of the different hybrid bikes on the market but I found that most of these bikes would just give me the same problem the road bike gave me once I loaded it down. Then I started looking into full on touring bikes but most of these bikes although really awesome, were  just way out of my budget. Even when looking in to used touring bikes they were still just to pricey. I have repaired and rebuilt many bikes and decided to go the route of building a touring bike and started looking into frame sets. The same friend that set me up with the road bike does touring on a Surly Long Haul Trucker (LHT) and as I have ridden his Surly and loved the comfort of it.  I then started looking into what Surly had to offer. I found that Surly offers more then just the LHT for touring but an assortment of touring bikes. Naturally I started reading reviews on the the options other then the LHT. The frame set that caught my eye was the Surly Troll. It offered everything I was looking for and  I found that my local bike shop (LBS) was able to get Surly frame sets. When I went in to the LBS the owner who I had gotten to know pointed out that he had a complete Surly Troll in his warehouse that he was willing to bring in for me to try out. After one quick ride around the community I knew this was the bike for me. It took me back to my childhood and reminded me how much fun the right bike was to ride. The Troll the LBS got in for me to try was a 2 year old model and the owner of the shop made me an offer on the complete bike I could not turn down. And thus a new bike adventure begins.

The old Giant Iguana

The 80s Steal Frame Road Bike

2012 Surly Troll