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Another week, another new Surly! Recently we’ve brought you news about the Pack Rat & the updated Pugsley and now we bring you details of the Midnight Special. Taking the place of the now discontinued (and dare we say unloved) Pacer as Surly’s road bike, the Midnight Special isn’t a run of the mill close clearance bike.
Constructed from Surly’s trademark 4130 tubing, the Midnight Special takes the Pacer’s traditional steel look but adds in a raft of updates to help it keep up with its contemporaries. As such you can expect 12mm thru-axles, flat mount brakes and a 44mm head tube to accommodate a tapered carbon fork if you decide to fit one.
Fans of low-maintenance riding will applaud the decision to stick with externally routed cables and a threaded bottom bracket. Aside from these, the most noticeable change from the Pacer is the adoption of the de-rigueur road plus 650b x 47mm wheel-size. This does of course mean that you can fit in 700c wheels, and in this case a very healthy 40c. Despite this, and that it appears you can even squeeze 650b x 2.25 MTB tyres in, the Midnight Special is touted as a road bike, as opposed to a predominantly off-road one.
Compared to most Surly’s the Midnight Special might seem under equipped with mounts but few mainstream road-bikes will have the capacity for three bottle cages, mudguards and front & rear racks.
Our good friends Shona & Rich at Keep Pedalling have confirmed that Midnight Express completes and framesets will be arriving in early March 2018. A complete bike will cost £2200, with the frameset costing £750. Surly’s own blog gives a complete run-down of the design rationale and features behind the Midnight Special and the product page outlining the frameset & full-build spec can be found here.
Last modified: 22nd February 2018
