Moonlander II Early Thoughts

I have been riding a new Surly Moonlander II on snow for a few weeks now (plus another month on dirt) and I have some thoughts. Obviously, Surly pulled some of the design for this bike straight out of my brain, but that doesn’t necessarily make the best bike in the world.

The Bike

First off, the rims are the same diameter as what gets called 24″ wheels, but these are nowhere near 24″ wheels. The outer tire diameter is bigger than my so called 29×3″ tires. The tires themselves are huge.

The bike is long, it does not like to be flicked around in tight woody singletrack trails, at the same time, it is not a dumptruck , and it rides much more like a mountain bike than you’d expect from the looks.

I set it up tubeless (there will be a rant about why later) and it made a massive and measurable difference in handling and rolling resistance. I am never going back to tubes on this bike.

The Pinion gear box is a smart solution to a common fatbike problem, that being the chain dragging on the tires. The weird conical chainring spider uses 104bcd chainrings, and so common chainrings can be used to alter the gearing. The rear cog is actually a spider on the cassette interface, which also uses the very common 104bcd chainrings that I have many of. I may use some parts from my bin to reduce the overall gearing.

The range on the Pinion gearbox is absurdly high. No one needs to pedal this bike at 60km/h, but they could. I would gladly trade half the range for more closely spaced gears. As it sits, there are only 4 gears that I realistically use, and maybe a 5th if there was a road section interrupting my snowy bike tour. Unfortunately, there is not a reasonably priced Pinion option with a good range for fatbiking, so it’s not Surly’s miss, but rather the lack of an exactly suitable product that is the issue. Still, I am tempted by the Pinion C12 as a better alternative to the C9. My friend Guy warned me about this.

My Ti Mukluk fatbike has a Rohloff hub, so the twist shift gear changing using push-pull cables and being able to shift gears while stopped is familiar to me. The Rohloff has 14 gears in a smaller range, and so it does present a good argument as a better choice for fatbike riding. The Rohloff does have slightly more drag in the cold, while I could not detect any in the Pinion (though only down to -20ºC).

I am fine with weird, high, swept bars, and the one on this bike is a good shape. But my hands get cold, and I am not interested in heavy aluminum bars on winter bike. After my first cold ride, I swapped the bars to some RaceFace Era bars, and now I have warm fingers. I may consider putting something more swept on in the future. The carbon bars and a lighter stem accidentally dropped over 300g of weight as well.

The length of this bike makes it easy to install a rack capable of hauling some serious winter gear. I own an Old Man Mountain Fat Divide rack, and though it isn’t using even close to all the available space, it is what I want, and it installed easily. I don’t imagine that installing racks in general would be a problem.

The Ride

This bike is lighter than it looks, but nothing makes it light. When I move from my carbon Blizzard to this beast, it is indeed noticeable. I am not a weight weenie, I don’t mind rocking a 50 pound bike if there is a good reason for it, and there is sort of a good reason for it. That said, swapping the bars, seatpost, can save an easy couple of pounds, and the rest is pretty much bike. Tubeless did save me a few grams, but the stock TPU tubes were pretty light.

The Tektro brakes are not great for cold weather, so I am surprised to see them on this bike.I will likely switch them out for Sram Level brakes, which are affordable and work fine down to about -40ºC. I would also be comfortable with Avid BB7, Paul Klampers, or Avid Dominions, albeit at a higher price.

The only true showstopper that I have found on this bike so far has been the TPU tubes. They appear to have been made from a cylindrical tube folded into a circle. They are in no way donut shaped, and both of mine have already failed at (one each) of the many creases on the inner side of the tube. Keep in mind that it takes hundreds of pump strokes to get these up to 3psi, so there is a lot of work involved in limping a leaky tube a few km up the trail. I would be angry indeed if I was hoping for these to hold air for the ITI in February. Fortunately, the tires do set up brilliantly tubeless, but I now have no other option.

Last week we had a bit of a cool snap, as well as a good bit of fresh snow. I alternated the week between my Moonlander and My Rocky Mountain Blizzard. The Moonlander was obviously the better steed in the deep snow, but the Blizzard more than held its own. In back to back testing, speeds riding were similar since the Blizzard made up for the extra pushing with extra speed everywhere else. Depending on weather conditions, and depending on riders’ willingness to push, it will be either the best or the worst bike to have.

I am still undecided on whether this bike will come to Alaska with me or not, but I am about 90% certain that I will take my Blizzard instead. The Blizzard is probably the best fatbike currently on the market, and mine comes in around 27 pounds with pedals and a rack, for racing, that is pretty compelling. The Moonlander will totally have a place in my world, and many of my winter camping tours, especially when I am carrying extra gear for others, will be exactly the right trips for the Moonlander.

So Is It the Best Bike in the World?

I am not delivering any conclusions, this is just not that kind of bike. If you ride groomed trails only, you don’t want it. If you are bikepacking or racing long, ungroomed routes, then you might. It is definitely in its own class, and they have done an amazing job in not following any trends. I would very much like them, however, to fix the tubes.