Christmas in March

I've been eyeing an old fashioned, steel, single speed build for quite some time.  I hopped on a Surly Karate Monkey back in November for a "test ride" and was smitten.  I've spent too much of the last four months surfing online tests and discussion boards for the merits of a Niner SIR 9 vs JabberWocky vs Singular Swift vs etc.  Way too many good choices out there.   But my imagination exceeded my budget.  Finally my friend J. G. tells me he can get a stock Surly KM SS for less than half of what I could build frugally on my own.  So I pulled the trigger and my new KM arrived partially assembled yesterday.

Hey, how did that beer get in the picture?

There is just something amazingly simple and practical about that bike, very unpretentious; even after looking closely at the other very special frames, I kept coming back to the KM.  I bribed J.G. with Chinese take-out to help me with the build tonight.  The whole thing went together in about 90 minutes.  The only tricky part was cutting down the fork and getting the headset right.  Everything else went together easy.  Of course, it is raining hard tonight so I only got a 30 second test ride on the dark, wet driveway.  I can guess that I'll want to swap out the stock, swept back bar, for a straight one and change the 34x17 stock gearing for something more friendly to the 20% grade that separates my front door from my office.  I'll have to wait till tomorrow for a full maiden christening.  More pics coming soon, I promise!