I’m currently riding a 2013 titanium Salsa El Mariachi for bikepacking and so far it’s been great. I’ve upgraded to 11 speed shimano Deore and a carbon salsa cutthroat fork, and have even sewn my own frame bag for the bike. Most of my bikepacking is on gravel roads or rough forest roads which this bike excels on.
I’ve been wanting to get a decent hardtail for single track trail riding. It’d be ideal to have a single bike for bikepacking and for mountain biking. So I have two options for this:
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Spend some money on a suspension fork that I could swap on and off the El Mar whenever I want to bikepack for ride trails
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I found a good deal on a 2017 Surly Karate Monkey that includes the rigid fork and a 130mm Rockshox Reba fork and dropper post for $1200. I’d probably be able to sell my El Mar for enough to cover the cost plus some more.
They are very similar bikes but not sure it’s worth it to get rid of such a cool titanium bike.
Pics for reference:
by Spongebob_ManPants
1 Comment
I love my Karate Monkey but I don’t think I would sell a titanium bike for it. Karate Monkeys are a lot more common than titanium El Mariachis, so if you regret not getting the current one, another one will pop up later.