You’re going on a bikepacking adventure, be it winter or summer, dirt or snow, which bike are you taking?
Very similar spec, with Otso being a little nicer. Otso has carbon fork vs Surly’s steep. Geo about the same. Blue vs green. I’m having a hard time deciding.
Anything to sway me one way or the other?
by Mountains4Fun
7 Comments
If you want reliability under the most difficult conditions for an extended duration, there is only one choice. If it’s just weekend riding, I’d go the other way with that obvious choice.
I have many miles on the Wednesday, it’s a great and highly capable bike. I have not ridden the Otso, but I would expect it to be great as well. The main difference here is tire size. The Wednesday is 177mm rear spacing, and struggles to fit a 4.3” tire in back (chain rubs in big gears). The Otso has the current 197mm rear spacing, and can run the biggest tires on the market. So if tire size is a factor, then the Otso is the only option here.
Otso seems more snow oriented and will handle over 5″ tires according to Otso. Surly will max out at 26×4.6″ I think. So if you plan on doing more snow than dirt I’d go Otso. Unless it’s expedition-grade touring. Then the other one.
The Otso would be better compared to the Surly Ice Cream Truck than the Wednesday. For the money, I’m taking the ICT all day.
Nothing to do with anything, but the topic caught my eye. My son is called “Otso”. We live in Finland. Otso literally means bear. Back in the “dark times” when Finn’s were more savage and wild man could deal with anything that they come across in the wild. Even wolf. But not the bear. The bear was so honored that is was bad luck to call it with it’s real name “bear” as that might bring bad luck for the whole community. Thus, series of “nicknames” were invented – “Otso” being one of them. In Finnish language we have 200 different words for this noble beast – just to avoid saying it out loud – “bear”. Kinda cool.
I’m a Surly guy. But if I could only have one Fatbike and those two were the choices I would pick the Otso.
I’d always go with the bike that has the most widely available replacement parts, which is the Otso. I have a Ritchey Commando with oddball spacing and it’s sort of a drag.