Hi all
TL;DR: prospective frame comes with sliding thru-axle dropouts (2nd picture). Should I avoid it for that reason? Intended use case is light gravel, comfortable touring and one or two training rides on the road per week.
So I am currently on a Fairlight Strael 3.0, but after 18 months of riding it I finally have to concede that the geometry does not work for me. I need something that is shorter and higher – or just shorter so I can build the stack myself (chimney + Redshift topshelf etc.)
Anyway. I wanted to build up a Surly Midnight Special, but they are universally sold out here in central Europe (not entirely, some in the "fool's gold" color remain but well…).
An alternative is this Germany company from Berlin called 8bar. Given their price point I assume they import frames from Asia and just distribute.
The pictured frame + Carbon Fork is around 800 EUR / 950 USD, which is about 10% cheaper than a would be Surly MS (which would need an additional 300+ EUR carbon fork)
Seems like a good deal, but as the 2nd picture shows it comes with a mechanism I have never seen before: a sliding thru-axle dropout.
What do you think? is this too weird to get? I don't plan on jumping the bike or anything, but it still seems like an odd thing. Would you stay away?
by psychotic-chipmunk
5 Comments
No. Plenty of hardcore hardtails use sliding dropouts. Unless there’s some known high frequency issues with specific frames then I’d just ignore the naysayers. I myself rocked a Wolverine and definitely took that down a lot of rocky single track without issues.
Take it as a sign from the GRVL Gods that you should try out Single Speed Gravel once you get it built up.
Oddly enough, the MS is one of few Surly TA bikes that don’t use a horizontal dropout, lol. Also, FWIW, I have a Fool’s Gold Karate Monkey, and the color grows on you.
As for the drop outs, my KM has sliding dropouts, and I’m mixed on them. It’s tough to get the wheel back in the same spot every time, and getting the alignment right for the disc is even more difficult. Surly has add-on adjusters which mostly fix this, but if I where choosing another bike, I’d probably skip the dropouts.
That said, this bike appears to have built-in adjusters, so I don’t think you’ll run into the same issue, since as long as you don’t change the adjusters, you just pop the wheel, slide it to the stop, and tighten it down. I haven’t had the wheel move on my Surly, so it *can* work.
Good luck!
This gives you the option to run it single speed which is really fun! I often will run my karate monkey single speed and it’s a blast!
Honestly, I went with PMW sliders for all my current and future bikes and haven’t looked back. The option to run to fixed/single speed/geared really appeals to me