Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

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serensmum
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Joined: 18 Jul 2011, 10:53am

Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by serensmum »

I have been touring (front and rear panniers) on a Trek 7.3 fx wsd for some time and it has served me well. However, next year I will have a trailer bike plus all the panniers and I am thinking I may need something a bit beefier with disc brakes to stop the extra weight. I have been looking at the Surly Troll and Ogre (some saving up to be done.) and I am not sure if the 26 wheels of the Troll or the 29's of the Ogres will be better. (the Trek runs 700's) The most off road touring I have done so far is camp site tracks and I mainly tour in the UK and Holland. I am very small and would probably have to go for the 16inch frame if this makes any difference. Or if anyone can suggest an alternative I am all ears.

Thanks

Kim
irc
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by irc »

What about the Surly Long Haul Trucker disc version. Comes in a 16.5 inch 26" wheel version. More than tough enough for canal banks, forestry tracks, footpaths etc. Not sure how beefy you need to go. I use a 700c Long Haul Trucker carrying me (16 stone), 30 pounds of gear in four panniers and up to 7 litres water with no problems with flexing.

http://surlybikes.com/bikes/disc_trucker
No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?
Malaconotus
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by Malaconotus »

I have a 26" trucker. I rode it back from a trip down south yesterday and the all-up weight of bike, rider, four panniers and a Camper Longflap full of luggage, food and drink was 185Kg, or just shy of 29 stone. (I'll not disclose how much of that was rider!) It has V-brakes. They are more than powerful enough even with that load on board. My next bike will have discs, and yes, they are more powerful, but no-one needs them. V-brakes are more powerful than anything which was fitted to tourers thirty or forty years ago.

The braking requirement alone is not sufficient justification for the new bike but, of course, the Troll and Ogre are lovely bikes so you shouldn't need a reason.
Last edited by Malaconotus on 23 Mar 2012, 2:03pm, edited 1 time in total.
andyh2
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by andyh2 »

It sounds like you like your Trek. Are you planning on keeping it as well or replacing it?

I'd prioritise being able to use bigger tyres over disc brakes as you can then use more of whatever braking power you have and still maintain grip on the road.

If most of your day to day riding is unladen and on road you might find the Troll / Ogre to be less lively/fun than your Trek. Since they're designed around their MTBs the bottom bracket will be higher off the ground. Useful off road, but it makes it harder to control a laden bike when coming to a stop / setting off. The Long Haul Trucker would be better in this regard with a lower bottom bracket height. If most of your riding is on road with occasional forays on tracks, then the LHT is more designed for that job and, as mentioned, there is now the choice of V or disc brake versions.

Do you already have the trailer bike? Those who have used the rack mounted and seat post mounted ones report the rack mounted ones to handle better. Unfortunately the options for rack mounted ones are limited and more costly. I'm not sure if Isla bikes still make theirs.

If you haven't already got a trailer bike, you might want to consider a Circe Helios tandem. Base model cost would be in the same region as a Troll / Ogre. It would be better handling than a trailer bike and Little One would be easier to communicate with, being closer. Then instead of buying a rack mounted trailer bike you could save that cost and hang to your Trek for day to day riding.
serensmum
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Joined: 18 Jul 2011, 10:53am

Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by serensmum »

Thanks for the advice. We already have a burley trailerbike which we bought second hand but it was only used a couple of times. I guess we will see how it goes and upgrade if the need arises.
reohn2
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Joined: 26 Jun 2009, 8:21pm

Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by reohn2 »

Take a look at the Salsa Fargo or Vaya,there is the Surly LHT disc.
Discs are the way to go IMHO.
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mrjemm
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by mrjemm »

Aha, r2 beat me to it... I ride a Vaya and love it, bar my concerns about choice of sizing... But from your choices of Surly I felt the Fargo the one to look at. Salsa are a bit more pricey than Surly, but I believe lighter- don't know the numbers, but folk always talk of how heavy the truckers are, whilst my Vaya is not something I'd describe that way at all.

My partner's got almost the same Trek as you (hers the 7.5), and despite being way smaller than me, had great fun riding the Vaya round the car park after I'd put the seat right down. Can't get her off her new steel build now though!

Though right now, I am very very up on the idea of a Disc Trucker frame to build up...

Agree with r2 about brakes also, but as ever, that's a personal choice in an subjective (emotive) matter.

Cheers, Jem.
DougieB
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by DougieB »

I am switching from a LHT (700c) to a Troll. The LHT is a fantastically comfortable bike, day after day of 7 to 10 hours in the saddle and I'm quite happy to jump back on it and cycle to the shops. Maybe the lower BB height, maybe just the overall dimensions.

is the LHT heavy ? no idea, not something I think about. an extra few hundred grammes are really not important; I'll always lose much more that myself when touring (and I've never finished a tour at TdF pace due to weight loss). on the other hand, those extra grammes may be the reason the LHT is so stable, not because the weight itself but maybe it's got strength in the right places. it's remarkable just how stable the LHT is, when you hang all your bags off it.

Me and the LHT have been through some rough old times. I have a habit of touring in the winter, in the UK. I 'cycled' over the North York Moors in a blizzard, slithering down the other side and using up a fresh set of v-brake blocks in a single day. Similarly I toured around the north of Scotland a January or so ago, taking the Corrieyairack Pass (rocky/rutted track) which was again under snow. And more recently I'm now in the Pyrenees, and when the tarmac stops I'm able to just keep going, up and down whatever rocky track happens to be the path forward. The LHT simply does it all without fuss, and there is never a feeling of doing any damage to it.

I am switching because off-roading in winter/bad-weather wears out rims, I have worn out rims. I always wished the LHT had disc brakes when I bought it; the disc brake version is fairly new. This is probably the root of the switch. Nothing to do with braking performance (stopping power), just that discs suit dirty riding. Why the Troll and not a disc LHT ? The lower BB height on the LHT is (I think) great for comfort, but off-road it requires extra care not to keep cranks/pedals into rocks and ruts, at the expense of on-road comfort. Why the Troll and not the Ogre (29"), is to do with riding outside Europe and spares availability. And lastly, the Troll is designed to accept a Rohloff hub, which is something I want to try out because I am going for a long cycle in the Americas.

The style of riding you are talking about, is well within the LHT's capabilities; minor off-road and hard-packed surfaces. If you prefer a more road orientated bike.

cheers,
DougieB
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by DougieB »

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but Cass Gilbert is/has tried out the Troll and Ogre (and Thorn Sterling): http://whileoutriding.com/2011/02/23/a- ... osta-rica/, albeit in much more testing conditions than you'd encounter here.

cheers
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531colin
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by 531colin »

serensmum wrote:............... I am very small ..................


This is the important fact to me.
The difficulty when designing small bikes is to get the handlebars within reach while avoiding toe overlap, where the riders toe can foul the front wheel/mudguard.
Some riders don't mind this, I would hate it on a bike towing a child. Designing for drop handlebars compounds this problem, as the "hoods" are so far in front of the headset compared to the grips of straights. Also the bigger the (front) wheel, the more likely toe overlap becomes. Look on the bike data for "front centres" the distance between the front axle and BB axle.
The riders weight will be the dominant weight even when towing a child and carrying panniers....V brakes work for "Malaconotus" who is actually a giant.
The Trucker's famous stability loaded comes from a very rigid frame, not from overly stable steering....the 700c Trucker has steering geometry very similar to many audax type bikes (72 deg head, 45mm offset). [There should be a fairly close relationship between head angle and fork offset....it bothers me when different size bikes have different head angles but the same offset....often done to shorten the reach in small sizes]
Small bikes often use the same tube sizes as big ones, so they are unlikely to be too flexible to take a heavy load.
I would like a low bottom bracket on a bike towing a trailerbike, for stability when stopped.
mrjemm
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by mrjemm »

Hi Colin, I don't know geometry at all well and your post is helpful, but I am just struggling to get the last bit- how does a low bb affect stability when stopped? Do you mean with one foot down, the other is up high, so pushing the bike over, and with the added weight of the trailer it may be too much?

If interested, I've just been comparing the BB "heights"- actually the Surly site quotes BB drop (I assume normal...) and the results are-

700c- LHT/DT: 78mm, Troll: 68mm= Truckers have 10mm lower bb (assuming same tyre). (Edit, Vaya 75mm, not as low as Truckers, Fargo 70mm, not as high as Troll).

26"- LHT/DT: 47mm, Ogre: 40mm= Truckers have 7mm lower bb (assuming same tyre). (Edit, Vaya 50mm, not as low as Truckers).

Also, thinking about the reach issue, the geometry of the LHT seems to suggest the reach of the smaller bikes is more extreme than the larger- effective top tube length against seat-tube length ratio increases with size. Does that make sense? Suggests OP, Serensmum's arms would be reaching forward, while Malaconotus' reach more downwards.

Edit... Something else just occurred to me; frame size & leg length vary far more than crank length, so a short person will find their knees bent more, surely?
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531colin
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by 531colin »

Mr Jemm...

A most insightful post for somebody who says they don't know about frame geometry!

Low BB means the saddle is closer to the ground, as the rider sets their saddle height to pedal comfortably, a low BB means more foot on the ground when stopped/stopping/setting off, so more stable, important with a tandem/trailerbike.

Some quote BB height (from ground), some BB "drop" from a line between the wheel axles....just do the sums with tyre radius.
DT = disc trucker? A tourer normally has a lower BB than a "mountain" bike...one needs stability stopping etc. with a load on, the other needs pedal clearance off road.

No, reach doesn't make sense!! Not at first, anyway. Generally, on small bikes the top tube is longer than the seat tube, middle size bikes are "square", big bikes are shorter than they are high. Generally, going up one size, the reach increases half as much as the height. This makes a bit more sense when you factor in that big bikes generally have a longer stem, and maybe longer reach (drop) bars. But as I said above, the issue with small bikes is getting the reach short enough without kicking the front mudguard.....the laws of physics do tie the designers hands!

Those who are fed up to the teeth with me banging on about this should look away now........

http://www.spacycles.co.uk/smsimg/uploads/touringgeometry.jpg

These are Spa's tourers, my geometry.
On the 48cm, I have dropped down to a 26" wheel, in order to avoid toe overlap and have a sensible reach. All the 700c bikes have exactly the same steering geometry (head angle, fork offset)

http://www.spacycles.co.uk/smsimg/uploads/audaxgeometry.jpg

Those are Spas audax bikes, all 700c, all the same steering geometry, you see the smallest has (relatively speaking) a "long" top tube, this is because I wont sit a "new" cyclist on a bike where overlap is unavoidable. (If somebody doesn't mind overlap, thats fine by me....but not on a production frame which can be bought by "anybody").
We are currently prototyping a 50cm audax bike, in order to get the top tube shorter than the 52 we are looking at 71 deg head and 54mm offset, the same geometry as the tourer. This means no carbon fork on the 50cm audax, but no overlap either.

So, for the tourer, I have dropped the wheel size to get toe clearance, on the audax I have dropped the carbon fork to get clearance, as I think there is resistance to 26" wheels from audax bike customers.
What I don't like to see is where, in order to get clearance, the designer alters just part of the steering geometry, eg change the head angle alone, as that changes the steering characteristics. There is a little leeway, but for me 72 deg and 45mm offset is right, 71 deg and 54 offset is right, 71deg and 45mm offset raises an eyebrow.
(I'm talking of touring bikes......racers have an obsession with short wheelbase)

There is a market for "short reach" frame variants, Thorn do some. Thorn won't publish their complete geometry figures (in case I want to copy them!) but their "short" audax bikes won't take a carbon fork (45mm offset) so I guess they do what we are prototyping for our 50cm audax..

Crank length.....yeah, we are stuck with what they make..........at least I alter the BB height to account for different crank lengths!
But I think its something like thigh bone length that should set crank length....the longer the thigh bone, the more the foot lifts for the same angle of thigh bone movement? Certainly cranks too long means too much "reach" for the knees. ..stretching for the bottom or too high at the top.
mrjemm
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Re: Surly Troll or Ogre or something else?

Post by mrjemm »

Thanks Colin, and sorry serensmum!

Yes, I did mean disc trucker. Had wondered if indeed the geometry would be identical, which it is with the figures I looked at. When I bought my Salsa frameset, I am sure there was reference to a longer and shorter frame option for some sizes, but no sign now.

I think we've been lucky with my partner's Mercian KoM in that they've created a frame with 700 wheels for a short girl with no overlap and is reportedly comfortable/handles very nicely. Only time will tell how perfect it is, but no idea of the geometry as they haven't supplied it (and admittedly I've not measured it). When I say we've been lucky, I think I should add the disclaimer that that should perhaps be defined as lucky to afford the skill of experienced craftsmen, not that we've been lucky that they managed...
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