Staff Bikes: Adam's Surly Karate Monkey

Firstly, can you tell us what bike you have and how long you've had it?

This is a Surly Karate Monkey in “Spray Tan Bronze”. Its a real workhorse of a bike, and while there may not be much of the decals left, it's still as reliable as ever. I bought the frameset in Jan 2014 from Charlie the Bikemongers in Swanage. I had a colour matched fork, which I lost sometime around 2019 - I’d fitted a suspension fork, so the rigid one was spare, and I think it might have been forgotten in a shed in Tooting. I got the bike around my birthday, and the goal was to get a complete bike built in time to take it to the Le Mans 24hr sportscar race in mid-June. At one of the biggest car races in the world, one of the best accessories you can take is a bicycle!

Have you made any major changes to the bike over that time? 

Changes? Changes?? For those of us old enough to remember, think of Only Fools and Horses:

Trigger: “Maintained it for 20 years. This old broom’s had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in its time”. 

Sid: “How the hell can it be the same bloody broom then?”

As mentioned, I’ve gone from a rigid fork to 100mm suspension and back again. I started off with SRAM Guide RS brakes, which I rebuilt three times before binning and fitting Shimano (which came off of my main trail bike, a Trek Fuel EX).

I’ve had 3-4 saddles, 2 different handlebars (going from a flat bar to a riser), and fitted a dropper post (despite not having any internal routing). I’ve had the bike set up with inner tubes, but it’s been tubeless for years now. I’ve tried various Schwalbe, Vittoria and Teravail tyres.

Oh, and a little personal highlight, the bar ends change whenever the beer caps fall off! They’re Mucky Nutz Beer End caps, you push-fit any beer bottle cap you like on there, so everyone can judge your taste in beer. (Pale Ale is nasty, Belgian is best)

What sort of riding do you mainly do on this bike?

Originally, it was my mountain bike. I had other bikes for riding to work. During the pandemic I was waiting for my new Trek Fuel EX to arrive, I borrowed a Cannondale Habit hardtail for a day down at the local trail centre, and when I next jumped back on the old faithful KM, it was clear that it was totally inadequate for the riding I wanted to do! 

Now, it’s my gravel bike and commuter. It does these things well enough.

Is there a favourite ride/memory with it?

There’s not a single moment that’s head and shoulders above the rest, but anytime I’ve gone on a gravel ride and found something new. Maybe just a different route across a Common, maybe riding somewhere i’ve not been before.

I could mention when I went to Brother in the Wild, a gravel event held in Dorset in spring 2022, two months after I was hit by a van. The bonnet had connected directly with my knee, and I hit the tarmac pretty hard. Being able to ride 50k on a gorgeous hot day, with some friends, and with minimal discomfort was pretty special. I got sunburnt. I think we all did.

What did you have before this?

Well, I did start off originally venturing into the world of drop bars and lycra so I had Specialized Tarmac SL2, and a cheap run around single speed at around the time I got the frame, but that’s comparing apples to tennis rackets, they’re not the same and they did different things. I'm much more comfortable with flat bars and baggy shorts these days. 

Would you consider replacing this bike? If so, what would you go for now?

I try not to be sentimental about bicycles, but there’s no good reason to replace this short of theft or serious damage to the frame. 

It would have to be something steel. Steel tubes look the coolest, and discourage frame designers from doing silly things like running cables inside of headset bearings and stems, which only seems worthwhile for elite racers, and turns basic maintenance jobs into multi-hour strip-and-rebuilds. This bike has been exceptionally low maintenance for the neglect I’ve shown it (and the number of times I’ve crashed it), and I appreciate that. It's like an old friend at this point, we've been through a lot together. 

I’m not sure it’d be another Surly. I’d look at other brands, like Salsa, Cotic, Bombtrack, Brother Cycles, Starling. Something made of metal, something where I can choose which parts go on it.

Anything else you’d like to mention?

The Hope headset deserves a special shout out. It may have been £80 for a headset (these are 2014 prices), but the upper bearing is still original and makes it seem like a bargain!