Outfitting a Surly Karate Monkey with a Nice Rack

Surly’s Karate Monkey is an extremely versatile bike, but it lacks standard braze-ons for mounting racks. In order to install a Surly Nice Rack on my Karate Monkey, I had to get a bit creative. The bottom of the rack mounts to the braze-ons just above the rear drop-out, as per the instructions that came with the rack. (Be sure to use a short enough screw on the drivetrain side, lest the screw protrude through the frame and destroy your chain when you shift into the smallest cog.)

The frame, however, lacks mounts for the upper supports of the rack. I found that I was able to use my V-brake mounts to attach the upper part of the rack to the bike frame. There may well be hardware out there to accomplish this task — I think that Old Man Mountain makes a relevant bracket — but I found that I was able to accomplish my end by using steel L-brackets (1.5″) available at my local hardware store. To make the connection to the rack, I had to ignore Surly’s instructions and mount their clever tubing brackets to the side of the rack (rather than to the top).

Below you can see how the rails run from the side of the rack to the brake mounts. It takes a bit of fussing to get everything aligned and level.

Below is a detail photo of the angle bracket mounted on the brake boss. I had to drill out the hole on the bracket to make it large enough to accomodate the screw. I used stainless steel machine screws to attach the bracket to the rails. I also wrapped the loose end of the bracket in electrical tape, to cover the somewhat sharp edge.

I’ve been using the rack to carry a single Arkel commuter pannier. Given that most of the force pulls straight down, I am fairly confident in the strength and stability of this mounting method for heavier panniers, but be sure to test this setup thoroughly before putting on a heavy load.

Extrawheel Bike Trailer Review

My wife, brother-in-law, and I recently used Extrawheel bike trailers on a 400-mile bike tour in Vermont. (We were following the beautiful Green Mountains Loop, mapped out by Adventure Cycling.)

Although I have not used another style of trailer myself, I can say that the Extrawheel system works great for road touring. We pulled our trailers up very steep and long hills, including Middlebury gap, which is a 12% grade. On descents, we routinely exceeded 30 mph, with few problems. (However, when my trailer was loaded in excess of 30 pounds, my trailer and bike did shimmy substantially if I rode much over 30 mph. With a lighter load, this was not a problem.)

Interesting, we each shed quite a lot of gear after we finished the camping portion of our trip, and the weight reduction of 10-15 pounds made no noticeable difference. With the full-sized wheel, this trailer can haul a substantial load fairly easily. You know that the trailer is there, to be sure, especially on long hills, but the trailer didn’t slow me down much.

The mesh saddlebags hold dry bags that come with the trailer. The dry bags work very well. We rode several hours in hard rain with no problems. Furthermore, it’s very easy to tuck rain gear or extra water bottles in the mesh bags for quick access. (It’s harder to accomplish this with other styles of trailer.)

The Extrawheel trailer was designed and manufactured in Poland. As best as I can tell, one entrepreneur imported a shipment to sell in the United States. We purchased our trailers from BicycleTrailerShop.com, from which we received great service.

Having pulled this trailer for about 650 miles, I can highly recommend it for road touring. It’s especially easy to connect and disconnect to your bike (using the provided rear skewer), it has a lightweight and simple design, it tracks wonderfully, and it has a tight turning radius. For a couple more pictures, see my Flickr photo set.