2011 Surly Big Dummy Build
In the winter of 2011 I was posted to Toronto. I decided to keep the house in Windsor, get an apartment close to work, and come home on weekends.
The new job involved 12 hour shift work, so it can be tough to find time to squeeze in a ride at the end of a day. Plus, it can be hard to break away during the day to go to the gym or otherwise do PT. Left like this, experience shows I'd start getting round in very short order.
The solution is to start commuting by bicycle. I'm only 6 km away from work, which is not very far at all. And by taking a long way home (and building in some intensity) I can get my PT in as part of my daily commute.
It's a brilliant plan, but it suffers from a couple of flaws:
- Both my road bike and my mountain bike are way, way, way too expensive to EVER leave unattended. Left out of eyeshot for more than a second and some larcenous, sticky-fingered Toronto bike thief would make off with my baby.
- The kinds of U-Locks and heavy duty chains that provide the best defence against thieves weigh damn near a metric ton. Carrying them on a bike not designed to carry anything is problematic.
- My job requires me to be in uniform, so I have to carry a full set of combats, plus boots, plus shower supplies, each way. That can be done in a backpack, but that large of a pack is unwieldy on a bike - especially when set up in a racy position like I have on both my road bike and my mountain bike.
In true Armoured Corps tradition, "why carry your weapon system when your weapon system can carry you". Or in this case, don't carry a backpack, figure out how to carry all that crap (uniform, locks, rain gear, roadside tools) on the bike.
I looked into standard touring racks and panniers, but they don't offer enough cargo capacity. I need something that can handle, ideally, my full marching order - so that I can get into work with my full load of kit even if my car is down.
And that's when the Big Dummy caught my eye.
The Big Dummy is a cargo bike, a sort of bicycle pick up truck. It uses an extended cargo carrying system designed by Xtracycle that can swallow a prodigious amount of cargo. It is insane how much stuff can be crammed onto a bike using the Xtracycle system. With a 200lb cargo capacity, it can easily handle my daily commuting cargo load, and should be able to handle a full BFT load in a pinch.
The more I read about the Big Dummy, the more I wanted to give it a try. And so, my Big Dummy Build.
As usual, Bicycle World is the home of my build.
Here is the Big Dummy frame on the stand. The frame is 4130 steel, and is surprisingly light for what it is. I was expecting it to be made like a piece of playground equipment, but it really is much lighter than that.
This is Phase 1 of my build, all complete. The Xtracycle parts have yet to arrive, so I've mounted up a standard cargo rack in the interim. This should be enough for my daily commuting needs until such time as the Xtracycle parts come in.
That el-cheapo U-Lock will be replaced shortly as well.
This bike was largely built up from parts in the Bicycle World used parts bin. Due to the somewhat experimental nature of this build, I didn't want to invest a lot of money in high-zoot components. Plus, there is value in not having every part on the bike be all shiny and new - a commuter bike needs to blend into the background to a certain extent. It shouldn't scream "valuable" from across the parking lot.
Unusually for Big Dummies I've seen, I chose to build it more as a road bike (with drop bars) rather than as a hybrid. I find drop bars offer more hand positions, and the ability to get into the drops and get small can be a godsend in a nasty headwind.
The shifters are Shimano RSX 7-speed. The crank is a well-chewed, first model RaceFace Next forged aluminum and carbon MTB crank (that may transition over onto my mountain bike) but because the shifters are road doubles, only the big and middle rings are currently in use. Rear mech is an XT. Rear cassette is an 8 speed (currently using the bottom 7 gears). Pedals are Crank Bros Acid. Brakes are BB5 mechanical disc.
The result is a bike that seems unsure if to wind its ass or scratch its watch, being a melange of road and MTB; 7, 8, and 9 speed driveline. But it works great - notwithstanding the APC-track length chain, it shifts smoothly and pedals fine.
On the road, you feel the weight, and the long wheelbase makes for a very stable bike. This is not a race bike, but neither is it particularly unwieldy. This is a bike for covering distance and carrying cargo. The 1.5" slicks on 26" wheels make for a comfortable and brisk ride, and the steel frame and long wheelbase swallow up vibrations. It's actually a very pleasant bike to ride.
Here's a comparison shot with my Cervelo. The seats are lined up (although it looks like the nose on the Big Dummy seat could come up a hair). Parallax from the camera lens makes the front ends seem farther apart than they are - they actually line up almost evenly, although the BD's bars are higher up. There is no mistaking the longer wheelbase on the BD though.
To be continued...