Last week I sold my cyclocross bike / commuter and bought a 2011 Surly Big Dummy. Crazy, I know, but I thought it would be sweet to have a bike that would allow no excuses not to run all possible errands on the bike. Considering the Big Dummy has a listed cargo weight limit of 200 pounds, even picking up four bags of water softener salt is a doable errand.
So far I've only ridden it home from work and one trip about town and back home from the grocery store. The photo above shows it fully loaded with the items below. During this last trip I carried:
- 21 pound bag of cat litter
- 2x 12-packs of coke
- bag of misc. groceries and cleaning supplies.
Not bad for a first trip. This bike handles surprisingly well even with a fair amount of weight. On the way back we detoured through some rougher bike trails and it did well. I'd consider even trying to ride Theo on it, although popping the front wheel over obstacles would be challenging to say the least!
My only negative so far is that when in the granny gear the two mile long chain drags across one of the frame members. I'll have to get some clear protective tape or old tire sections to protect the steel.
Another bonus is it may be possible to run snow bike tires and rims on this beast- with the super long wheelbase I bet it'd be very stable on rutted-out snowy trails.
