Surly ECR (Bikepacking Bike) Full Review

Description

In this video I do a Full In-Depth Review of the Surly ECR, a killer Bikepacking Rig by Surly. I break down the build of a Stock model & also talk about my Custom Rig.

Music By: Thunder/Dreamer

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Tags: Bikepacking,Adventure cycling,Surly Bikes,Surly,Surly ECR,gear review,Bikepacking.com,MRP Carbon,Salsa Woodchippers

Video Transcription

what's up guys it's Darwin so today I figured I would finally make a video in a four view of an amazing bike that sir Lee makes they specifically designed for bike packing and the rig that I'll be taking on my through ride of the Arizona Trail at the end of October it's this early ECR

so like I said in the beginning the surly ECR was specifically designed for bike packing in mind and as certainly says was kind of a love child born out of the ogre the Krampus and the long-haul trucker

very similar to the Krampus yet having a lower bottom bracket drop and quite a bit of a longer rear triangle like the long-haul trucker so a very capable bike of doing just about anything that you want it to do because the ECR is a 29 plus platform surly went with the nard 29 by 3 inch tire sitting on the rabbit-hole wheel set and the surly ultra front up on the side of the fork I'll steal for you can see they gave you a ton of different attachment points a bunch of different bosses to put gear or any water bottle cages they decided to go with the avid bb7 mechanical disc brake on running a 180 rotor on the front and then it's a 160 rotor on the rear we go up here to the cockpit of the bike you'll notice the Jones H bar which is really good frightening extra gear off the front like a sleeping bag Micro shapeshifters and then the avid brake levers moving down to the drivetrain of the bike you get a surly OD crank set with a 20 to 36 chain ring a shimano SLX front derailleur they put a KMC silver chain on it and then ad or LX rear with a 11:36 cassette so just like the troll and the ogre surly put a direct trailer mount into the rear on both sides and bosses for racks and gears they be a pretty stock saddle with steel rails and a steel seat post but overall the ECR is fully built stock ready to get out on the trail load up with some gear and get into a great adventure right off the floor so as you can see certainly gives you a pretty sweet stock set up but like any bike geek I have to completely change my rig and do some customizing to it to kind of fit my writing needs so right off the bat I'm a pretty big drop fan drop bar fan so I went with the salsa wood chippers that is a those are 42s but as you can see to give you a super wide stance on the front end of the bike really nice big reach especially whenever you're going down into something gnarly tetro breaks and I went with a Shimano dura-ace bar and shifter really like that classic touring style I also took off the steel fork and put on the MRP rock solid carbon post fork that's the 490 which clears the tire pretty well and because I lost my bosses I just kind of zip tied some cages to the fork it's working for now I might try something different but for now it works aside from that I pretty much kept the drivetrain pretty much the same thinking about upgrading some parts to some XT maybe some xtr stuff but right now it's working just fine for me and then I put on a 3t mountain carbon seat post which has been super comfy and kind of ditched the stock saddle that I had on there and went with the sella atomic ax super comfortable saddle really nice leather kind of sits like a hammock and really holds me in there really well and super happy with that really comfortable in the long run but yeah that's pretty much my setup as of now I'm thinking about changing a couple more thins working just started working with a company called gravity works who is a carbon

and talking about putting some 29-plus carbon rims on there especially for my ride of the Arizona Trail which number one is going to lighten up the bike quite a bit and obviously make it handle completely different and a lot nicer so really looking forward to that and aside from that I've been really really happy with the ECR not only do I write it bike packin trips I also write it everyday to work

cruising around cruising down to the bar riding single track just everything it's a really great all-around bike for me and I really love it hopefully you guys enjoyed this video like or dislike the video subscribe to my channel if you haven't already go over and check me out on Instagram I post a lot of new pictures early on in the week and even some previews of the video that I do every Thursday I'm getting really close to starting my through ride of the Arizona Trail less than two months away in about two weeks I'll be doing a full breakdown gear review of my entire rig that I'll be taking on the Arizona Trail so keep an eye out for that and as always guys thanks for watching you