Bicycle Valentines #3
{All photos: VikApproved}
Andrew’s Intro:
Surly’s choice of ‘Krampus’ has always struck me as a strange name for a mountain bicycle. I understand that it was a monstrous outlier at the time of its release, what with the 29+ tires, but that particular spirit of lore is evil Santa Claus. The Krampus punishes misbehaving children at Christmas time!?
Okay, yes, I understand that great 29+ names like Bigfoot and Sasquatch were already taken, but there had to be other options from the broad pantheon of forest beasties?
Anywho, as we’re fond of saying here are MEATengines, good geometry is free, so nothing is stopping ‘Q’ from releasing their own Mega Krampus or Krampus ESB {Extra Surly Bike}. I mean, they could straight-up R&D Vik’s rig from 2019 without being accused of being too long-low-slack.
By Vik:
I had been spending a lot of time bikepacking on my trusty Surly Krampus. First rigid and then with a suspension fork, and finally back to rigid…like the Dark Lord Krampus intended. I was intrigued by a more aggressive style of shred-packing singletrack, so I tried touring on my FS bike at the time… a Pivot Mach 4. It felt like I was getting close to a big bicycle revelation, but neither the Krampus nor the Mach 4 was the machine to get me to The Promised Land.
My financial guru, Mr. Money Mustache, had convinced me to be more mindful and efficient with my spending. The goal was to save the planet and invest in my future. Somehow, I shoehorned “Buy a custom mountain bike!” into the mix. Bikes save the planet and they are a good investment….sort of…so a custom one has to be better…right?
Skyler D [of Mica Rack fame] had been riding a Krampus and then got himself a fine custom mountain bike to tour on. It was the most aggressive thing I had seen anyone tour on and seemed like a great combo of the practicality of a rigid touring bike with the shredability of a FS enduro rig. So I emailed Peter Daam and said, “I need a purple custom mountain bicycle,” and he obliged me. The Mega Krampus was born. It was rooted deep in Krampus vibes, but more. Way MOAR! Mega!!
Back in those dark ages, I did all my trail riding on FS bikes. They seemed like the obvious answer for the steep and techy local trails I enjoyed. Occasionally, I tried a hardtail or rigid bike on those trails and came away disappointed. I realize now it was the geo that was the problem, not the lack of suspension, but at the time, I couldn’t see that.
Jumping on the Mega Krampus, it felt silly-slack and the geo seemed almost too aggressive. I doubted my decision-making process. Did I just spend a lot of money on a frame that wasn’t going to get ridden? For someone with a full-time job, I was getting out and riding my bicycles with camping gear fairly often, but that still didn’t amount to a massive amount of my life. Having a fancy new custom bikepacking bike seemed a bit wasteful, so I reasoned I’d better just ride it a bunch day-to-day.
Little did I know that summer was the end of my FS bike career and the start of hardtail madness. At first, I stuck to doubletrack and XC trails. The mildly knobbed Rekons seemed too smooth to tackle anything serious, not to mention the lack of rear suspension. Regardless, I pushed my comfort zone further and further. Eventually, shredding pretty much everything I had ridden on my full Monkey Motion machines. It didn’t take long for a Tannus rear tire insert to enter the frame. That meant instead of riding to keep the back wheel round, I could just unleash full fury and not worry about a thing.
I was having a ball, and my FS bike was just hanging in the garage. I assumed that with the start of the winter rains, I’d be forced back to rear suspension and aggressive knobbies by the lack of rear wheel traction. Surprisingly, that never happened. Short chainstays and a slack-ish seat tube meant there was enough weight on that modestly grippy Rekon to keep it clawing into the ground and get me up tough climbs. Honestly, dual Rekons on steep wet trails around the South of Vancouver Island didn’t compute then and don’t compute now, but it was working. So I kept riding that bike exclusively all winter. I was more and more amazed by each ride.
{Drewitors note: Check out Vik’s Mega Krampus Bike Review Part 3!}
By the next summer, I was fully committed to riding a hardtail as my main mountain bike. Sure, the Mega Krampus has taken me on fun bike camping trips, but its real value was teaching me that geo is [almost] everything. That frame has seen many different builds from a shreddy geared trail bike to a SS desert 29+ explorer to its current form, a geared flat bar “gravel bike” aka ATB. The geo seems pretty middle of the road now, but also still fully capable of tackling BC Coastal Gnar.
The Mega Krampus is always dirty and features many, many scratches in its lovely deep purple finish. I don’t know what its next incarnation or bike mission will be, but I do know it will have a place in my bike fleet forever.
It’s a Daam fine bicycle. Thanks, Peter.
Do you have a bicycle you love? Yours, or, maybe, coveting thy neighbour’s? It’s easy to participate in Bicycle Valentines by dropping in an e-mail submission. A few photos and as many, or as few, words as you need to sum up your pedaling passion.