Friday Debrief: Your Favorite Surly Color, Mike Hall Bursary, Arctic Fail in Iceland, and More…

The weekly Debrief highlights small but important bits of news, products, and things that caught our attention on the website, in the conversation, and elsewhere around the community. These include upcoming events and interesting items our readers shared in the comments. Check out this week’s findings below.

Bits & Bobs

New products that are worth highlighting but didn’t make the Dispatch…

House of Looptail: These Things

Made in Taiwan / $35 per pair at House of Looptail

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Colorado’s House of Looptail, who brought back the Snake Belly tire last month, is expanding their offerings with “These Things.” These Things are in-line cable adjusters and helpful little problem-solvers for old-school builds, and in particular, quite necessary if you are building a drop-bar conversion with cantilever brakes. They play nicely with vintage thumbies or bar-end shifters, removing slack and improving shifting.

Forager Cycles Link Wrench V2

Made in USA / $33 at Forager Cycles

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The Link Wrench from Forager Cycles is a nifty lightweight tool with 8, 9, and 10mm wrenches. Perfect for tightening awkward rack bolts, the Link Wrench is now CNC-machined from titanium (it was previously laser-cut), has smooth chamfered edges, and the center cutouts are wider to accept standard bottle cage bolts, if that’s your thing. The Link Wrench weighs just 22 grams and includes a small loop of Dyneema cord that can function as a master link tool.

Salsa Cutthroat Apex AXS Transmission in Tangerine

Made in Taiwan / $4,399 at Salsa Cycles

The Salsa Cutthroat is now offered in a SRAM Apex AXS Transmission build complete with fast-rolling 29 x 2.2″ tires, a 90mm dropper post, APEX hydraulic disc brakes, a flashy new tangerine paint job, and a complete bike weight of just 25 pounds in 56cm. The Cutthroat was updated earlier this year with a SRAM UDH dropout and a new carbon fork but is otherwise almost identical to the version we reviewed here.

Swift Industries Acme Tech Tote

Made in USA / $130 at Swift

The new Swift Industries Acme Tech Tote is designed to easily attach to any front basket thanks to its bungee loops on either side of the bag. It has a roomy zippered main compartment, a small zippered front pocket, daisy chains and webbing loops for lashing items to, and soft webbing carry handles for a pleasant off-the-bike experience. The Acme Tech Tote holds up to 10 liters, weighs 408 grams (14.4 ounces), and measures 12.5″ x 7.5″ x 13″ (WxDxH), which is a touch smaller than a Wald 137 basket.

Nordest Supercross Ti Handlebar

€349 (~$370 USD) at Nordest Cycles

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The new Nordest Supercross Ti Handlebar is a titanium riser bar with a BMX-style crossbar that Nordest says is “perfect for all-day riding, all-day ripping, and more!” It has a 50mm rise, 11° backsweep, 6° upsweep, and generous 800mm width. It uses a standard 31.8mm clamp size and weighs 465 grams (16.4 ounces).

Shovel Research WRT Straddle Yoke

Made in USA / $TBD at Shovel Research

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The Shovel Research WRT is a traditional straddle pulley hanger for cantilever brakes, named and inspired by Louis Villemus and the Lewis brand, who designed and manufactured bicycle components in the mid 1930s to the late 1940s. They weigh 10 grams (0.35 ounces) each, are sold in pairs, and will be available in five color ways: silver or black body with silver or gold pulley, as well as black/black. The WRT pulley hangers are machined from 6061-T6 aluminum and anodized in Portland, Oregon. The initial run will be available only from Shovel Research’s web store today at 12 p.m. PST.

In Conversation

Exchanges and ideas that caught our attention in the site’s conversation section…

What’s Your Favorite Surly Color Name?

Every time we announce a new Surly in the Dispatch, a conversation spins up about the brand’s endless trove of whimsical and sometimes irreverent color names. This week’s announcement of the new Dust Bunny Purple Grappler was no exception. With that, we thought it would be fun to compile some of our favorite Surly names from the last 15 years and ask our reader’s to vote on their favorites. Please select three from the list below (or if you don’t see your top choice, use the “other” field). We’ll release the top 10 next week!

Around the Community

News from around the bikepacking world…

Firsthand Framebuilding Takes Over Reynolds Distribution in North America

Chris Blandford, owner of Blandford Bicycles in Portland, Oregon, just announced he’s taking over the distribution contract for Reynolds tubing in North America. The new venture is called Firsthand Framebuilding. The website is live, and it sounds like this is just the start of a Portland-based bicycle framebuilding “hub” Chris is working toward. Learn more at Firsthand.Bike or by following them on Instagram.

Taj in the Woods

Mountain biking is much more than heart-pounding GoPro footage, high-stakes speed, and precision-engineered components. In this video our friend Taj Mihelich reflects on the quiet joy of escaping the noise of daily life and finding peace in the woods. While working in marketing sometimes feels at odds with his values—he credits this discomfort to formative years influenced by Bill Hicks—he strives to remain genuine in his work. For him, the true essence of mountain biking lies in its ability to inspire moments of stillness and connection with nature. Mihelich hopes his perspective encourages others to seek the same solace among the trees and take a few deep, restorative breaths along the way.

Jambz Distribution Is Closing

This week, Jorja Creighton, founder of Jambz Distro in Australia, is shutting down after seven years of service. Here’s some insight from the Instagram post: “There is a lot of reasons for this… which I will make a YouTube video of. But the main one is that it’s become increasingly obvious that I will not have the time, resources and energy to bring her back to previous function let alone grow her to a place that is able to hire people again. Making it something that will likely just continue to swirl around in a dysfunctional state. Even with people offering their free time and labour to help me it feels like it’s time.”

Stomplox Trail Worm Shoes Overview

Designed in collaboration with Ronnie Romance, the Stomplox Trail Worm shoes are a lightweight, barefoot-style shoe with interchangeable insoles for traveling by foot or bike. They launched via Kickstarter last month, and there’s a week left to support the project and save yourself 10 to 15% off retail pricing. Ronnie put together a detailed video explaining what the Trail Worms are all about and you can watch it above.

2025 Mike Hall Bursary

Since its introduction at TCRNo8, the Mike Hall Bursary has supported riders from all over the world, introducing new people and voices to the race and community. The Bursary aims to make the TCR more inclusive by supporting riders who otherwise couldn’t afford to have the chance to race across Europe. Applications for the 2025 bursary open on December 8th. It’s open to individuals aged 18 or over with an annual gross income of no more than €19,000 (£16,700) and who have not applied for a place in the race through a general application. Learn more here.

Monumental Loop: DangerBird Weekend

Our friends Justin and Jaron recently took a trip down to Lac Cruces, New Mexico, for DangerBird weekend on the Monumental Loop, and things didn’t go exactly as planned. Justin broke a set of titanium bars and Jaron broke something bigger. Watch their video above.

Cascada Celebrates Sixth Anniversary

Italian cycling apparel brand Cascada celebrated their six year anniversary this week, and to celebrate, they released a new “At The Cabin” cotton T-shirt that comes with a matching poster. Find the anniversary T-shirt at Cascada.cc.

Arctic Fail: Winter Bikepacking alone in East Iceland

Tom Wall of the Cycling 366 YouTube channel went on a solo winter bikepacking trip in Iceland. He chose to tackle the Eastfjords, but due to some issues with the weather and closed roads, had to make some big changes to the plans. Watch the video he put together from the trip above.

Weekly Social

Some things we found around the ‘gram and elsewhere. This week, a handful of photos from the 2024 Hunt 1000 event in Australia that wrapped up last week…

Further Reading

Make sure to dig into these related articles for more info...

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