Surly Disc Trucker 2021

Surly describes its 2021 Disc Trucker as 'a pure-bred drop bar touring bike suitable for travelling anywhere in the world on mostly paved roads'. And miles of riding both unladen and loaded to the gunwales leads me to think that Surly has summed it up pretty well.

The Disc Trucker really is a super-comfortable, long-distance cruiser that coped more than adequately with my local mostly paved roads. They are mostly paved but autumn and winter weather has left potholes the size of a small country, which the Surly's wide tyres dismissed – without a hint of surliness, I'm pleased to say.

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It tackled unsurfaced routes, too, with equal confidence. We're not talking full-on gnarly off-road trails but if your journey happens to throw a few miles of canal towpath or loose gravel tracks and the like at you, the Surly will take it without murmur. I reckon this would also include the sort of corrugated unsurfaced roads that are – or were – a familiar feature of rural Australia.

The disc brakes that give the bike its name are cable-actuated, for, Surly says, when 'load, climate and terrain demand a bit more braking than a standard rim-brake Long Haul Trucker can provide'.

It also has 'a horde of useful mounting points', shortened chainstays to 'up the Disc Trucker's stiffness and manoeuvrability around corners', 'captured thru-axles for tool-free removal and installation', dynamo compatibility, a top-tube that slopes more than before, extra height at the front, greater tyre clearance and a vast range of sizes for riders up to and beyond 6ft 6in tall. Phew!

Ride

The main quality you want from a touring bike is day-after-day comfort. If you're hoping to notch up 300 to 400 miles a week for a month or two (or more), you don't want to finish a day in discomfort or wake the next morning too stiff to want to start. While I have also toured on aluminium and titanium bikes, steel has a reputation for comfort that the Disc Trucker does nothing to diminish.

Today's modern wide tyres, and their extra volume of air, add even more plushness to the mix, with the final advantage of tackling poorer surfaces better than their predecessors.

The riding position here is touring bike typical – upright. This puts no strain on your back and you can watch the world go by – probably at a pretty leisurely pace – as you pedal, pedal, pedal mile after mile. Riding the Surly you really do feel like a king (or queen) of the road – or gravel track or towpath – as you take in your surroundings.

With a considerable weight just north of 13kg, and that's before adding rack and pedals, this isn't a bike you're going to be sprinting anywhere on, but that's not the Surly's role in life. The wheelbase is a centimetre shorter than last year's Disc Trucker, but our 56cm model's is a still-lengthy 1,051mm, while the largest, 64cm model, has a 1,090mm wheelbase. These figures ensure great stability at all times, which is something else you really want when you're riding from noon to nightfall.

But load it up – and the Disc Trucker has a gazillion mounts and fittings for racks and bags – and the frame is stiff enough so there's no brake rub or wobbling from your baggage. I tested it largely in classic touring bike mode, but with its wider tyres, greater tyre clearance and extra mounts, bikepacking is very much within its remit.

Frame and fork

While I have toured on aluminium and titanium frames, I did my first extended tour on a steel Raleigh, and the material has long been the tourer's go-to material of choice. It may not be able to compare with other materials when it comes to lightness but it's strong and comfortable, and a well-looked-after steel frame should outlast you and me unless it suffers a catastrophic failure. (I gave my 1984 Raleigh to a charity a couple of years ago, when it was still riding well with over 50,000 miles on the clock.)

It is also an oft-told tale that a steel frame can be repaired pretty much anywhere in the world by a half-competent welder. While there is doubtless an element of truth to this – and I have actually met one cycle-tourist who did have his steel frame repaired in the back of beyond – I'm guessing this is a one-in-a-million happening...

Both the Disc Trucker frame and fork are made from Surly's own 'Natch' 4130 chromoly steel. At first glance 4130 steel looks like quite a modest choice – it's essentially the same as Reynolds 525, while Reynolds 725 is the same alloy with added heat treatment. (If you want to know more, Surly answers the question, 'Is Natch just 4130 chromoly?', at some length, on its website.)

Surly's original Long-Haul Trucker has a history dating back to 2007, but it's no surprise to find that disc brakes have taken over from V-brakes on this model, though it's cable-actuated discs rather than the more luxurious hydraulic stoppers.

The geometry has been tweaked a little for 2021, with the frame taller at the front than last year's model and the new handlebar adding another 30mm. Other changes are very much of our time, the Disc Trucker gaining 12mm thru-axles and an extra 5mm tyre clearance.

Thru-axles are well entrenched in today's gravel and road bikes and are – somewhat inevitably – making inroads into the world of touring bikes. One of the Disc Trucker's North American competitors, Kona's Sutra Touring, went to thru-axles for 2020. While you could argue that quick-release axles are more standard the further off the beaten track you go, I can't see this really being an issue, and thru-axles do contribute to better braking.

While the 2021 Surly has gained front and rear 12mm thru-axles, unusually these are combined with an old-school open dropout. It makes for quick wheel changes without any diminution of braking power and accuracy.

The front thru-axle is also compatible with Shimano's UR-705 dynamo hub, which would be a very sound choice for battery-free lighting. This is clearly something Surly has considered, as the new fork has internal routing for dynamo wires.

Groupset

Whereas last year's model had a 3x10-speed setup based around Shimano XT with bar-end shifters, the 2021 model has dropped down the Shimano hierarchy to 3x9-speed Sora and Alivio – with STi combined brake and gear shifters. There was a time when bar-end shifters were the go-to lever for tourists, but I've done my three major tours with STi setups and would have no qualms using them pretty much anywhere in the world.

That said, considering the Surly's hefty £1,900 price, I'd have liked something a little further up Shimano's food chain. I guess this is partly down to the US-UK exchange rate, as, while I wouldn't be surprised to see the same cost in dollars and pounds, the US dollar price is a much more appealing $1,749 – around £1,310 as I'm writing this. Maybe you could fly to the US with a clunker, ditch it for a new Surly Disc Trucker and hope Customs don't notice on your return, not that we're condoning such behaviour...

The Surly's gearing is, of course, low. When you're loaded to the gunwales with kilos of kit, clothing, food and spares and reach the foot of a steep, long climb, you're going to want the lowest gear possible to avoid straining every sinew in your body. The Disc Trucker's biggest 34-tooth sprocket and 26-tooth inner chainring combine for a bottom gear of around 20in, depending on the size of the tyres, though Surly could have gone even lower.

The most obvious way to do this would be with a 36t sprocket, but you could really have stretched the lower gearing by pairing that with a Shimano 40/30/22 chainset. The resulting 22x36 bottom gear combo would be a more touring-friendly 16.62in with 35mm tyres, which your knees and back will thank you for during a long day on the road over rolling terrain. In my opinion, you can never have a bottom gear that's too low – that's one of those things that just doesn't exist.

The TRP Spyre disc brakes are some of the best cable-actuated disc brakes around and an improvement over V-brakes. Okay, so you don't have the single-finger super-powerful stopping of a hydraulic setup, but if I was in the back of beyond – and I've ridden in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and off-the-beaten-track on unsurfaced roads in Australia and New Zealand – I'd fancy my chances fettling a mechanical rather than a hydraulic setup, even with my ill-trained fingers and thumbs.

Okay, mechanical discs don't offer the super-light action of hydraulics, but the Spyres are consistent and well modulated in all weathers and regardless of rim condition. The latter is a fact that isn't always considered, but fault-free braking even with knackered rims is a pleasing gain from the move to discs, especially considering the quality of surfaces you're likely to meet.

Wheels and tyres

One of the other familiar changes on the Surly is that the internal rim width has been boosted to 21mm, allowing you to fit tyres up to 50mm wide without mudguards, which should cope with just about anything you can throw the bike at. Along with the extra width, the other near-inevitable change for 2021 is that the Alex rims are now tubeless compatible. And while press pictures of the Disc Trucker show 32 spokes, I was glad to see the cycle-tourist's favourite 36 spokes on our model (and the frame has a spoke holder for a final pleasing touch).

The tyres are from Surly, in the form of its 41mm ExtraTerrestrial rubber, which Surly describes as a 'heavy-duty off-road touring tyre that shines on hardpack surfaces'. It features nylon in the sidewalls to protect against cuts and Kevlar under the treads to reduce punctures. The low-profile tread is designed to offer 'enough width and traction for the soft stuff and won't bog you down on smooth or hard surfaces'.

In the weeks I spent riding the Disc Trucker I'd say they pretty much hit that sweet spot. They're never going to roll quite like a slick tyre on tarmac but they weren't bad, and they were decently grippy on loose stuff, grit, gravel, muddy towpaths and even mulched fallen leaves.

That said, if the Disc Trucker was to be my only bike I'd probably drop down to a slicker, narrower 32mm tyre for commutes and day-to-day riding, keeping the wider ExtraTerrestrials for touring duties.

Finishing kit

As with the frameset's touring-friendly features, the Surly's finishing kit is also well chosen, with little if anything that I'd consider changing. The WTB Volt Sport saddle and 27.2mm Promax alloy seatpost were fine, complementing the comfort of frame, wheels and tyres, and the ProMax stem is typical stuff.

However, there are a couple of components at the front that do add a little more quality to the mix. The Cane Creek 40 headset is a highly rated piece of kit but my personal highlight was the Surly Truckstop handlebar. The drops are flared out by 12 degrees for improved handling, but the big advantage for touring is the extra height the Truckstop bar delivers.

Its 3cm rise works in combination with the extra height of the 2021 frame to deliver a magisterial upright ride, which is just what you want when you're racking up the miles. You don't want to be nose down, backside up; you want to be able to see everything, to experience your surroundings. So the even more upright position of this model – higher stack, riser bar – is a real boon.

Value

There's no doubt that the newest incarnation of Surly's Disc Trucker hits the spot when it comes to the ride quality and impressive load-carrying options – I don't think I've ever seen so many bosses on a single frameset. But, possibly as a reflection of today's financial realities – which have seen Specialized, Giant and Canyon up their prices by 12 per cent – in the UK at least, the Disc Trucker doesn't major on value.

Surly can't quite match the value of Spa Cycles' steel-framed Wayfarer, which manages Shimano Sora with a Deore rear mech for just £1,351, or Thorn's Club Tour MK5. The Surly does slightly undercut the Thorn's cost by about 30 quid but then again in the build we tested (£1,870) the Thorn has Shimano 105 levers and triple chainset, and a Deore rear mech.

The similar Sutra from fellow North American outfit Kona also looks good value. This has a similar setup to the Surly – steel frame and fork, TRP Spyre brakes, triple chainset – but it costs just £1,499 and it comes with 3x10-speed Deore with a wide-ranging 11-36 cassette. Out of the box it has a Brooks saddle, mudguards (complete with mudflaps) and rear rack for a well-specced package.

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Meanwhile, Genesis's 2021 Tour de Fer 30 is £100 more than the Surly but looks to be good value as it is not only specced with a Shimano Tiagra triple, but comes with front and rear racks and dynamo-powered lighting, adding a lot of bangs for your bucks.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed riding the newest incarnation of Surly's Disc Trucker and would have no hesitation taking one for a loaded tour pretty much anywhere in the world. I'd have preferred a slightly lower bottom gear, but then again I always would! But good gearing, decent brakes, excellent long-distance comfort and a frame that, with a little care and barring a catastrophic accident, should last a lifetime all mean that there's a lot to appreciate about the Surly – though it's also a lot of cash to part with when compared with some of its competitors.

Verdict

Dedicated steel tourer with a regal ride, long-distance credentials and great load-carrying options