Surly troll custom-built, (advice needed) is it worth it?

[stevenalleyy]

Hi, I am buying a touring bike soon and I came across this Surly Troll on eBay linked below. Is the price of this bike worth it for the long term tourer I'm looking for? I want to travel as far as I can (at least six months at a time)

http://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/BRAND-NEW-CUSTOM-BUILT-SURLY-TROLL-BIKE-LARGE-/122407764716?hash=item1c801242ec%3Ag%3AGuUAAOSwx6pYqGTx

I'm new to cycling and I don't have much knowledge when it comes to bike specs etc. I also don't have a huge stash of cash, would it be appropriate to ask for discount? How much would you ask for?
Thanks for your time, all advice is much appreciated!
Steven

[bobs]

First of all the Troll is a very good bike and many people have gone around the world on one. I think that one is a bit overpriced.  But you are getting racks with it and you could convert it to a Rohloff if you wished.
You could contact them direct and if you were from them outwith eBay a discount would be possible as there would be no ebay/paypal fees .

Bob

[stevenalleyy]

Thanks Bob, those are very good points. On their FB page it was on for 1600 so they have popped the price up a little bit probably to allow for eBay charges and or people asking for discount.

The racks new are 100 each so that is a big plus! If you were looking to buy this specific bike personally how much would you be aiming to spend?

https://www.evanscycles.com/ridgeback-expedition-2017-touring-bike-EV289256

This is an expedition bike more suited to my budget. A ridgeback expedition 2017 which had a good review from a long time tourer.

ThankS for the response

[jags]

Is it the right size for you 

[bobs]

I honestly don't  know,  for that money  I would go down the second hand route. You could  look at Surly Troll, Ogre ,ECR. Thorn  Sherpa, Raven or Nomad all which would be within your budget.  Personally I wouldn't consider the Ridge back but that's just me.

Bob

[stevenalleyy]

Yes Rags it is haha I definitely checked that, actually I re checked the size about 5 times! Hahaha

Ok Bob thank you for the advice, hopefully someone else can chime in on the ridgeback and help me make a move on one of the two bikes! You are right, going second hand would be better, and much more cost effective thanks again,

Steven

[Bill C]

i'd get in touch with sjs and ask about a Deore spec sherpa, probably cheaper than that deore troll (i think it's way to much cash for the spec, Frame was around £500 that leaves a whoppng £1150 for components)
the racks at a £100 each are ott (i have them on my sherpa) you could get tubus on ebay.de in stainless for less, ie cosmo and nova
i'd love a troll and went through the Troll vs sherpa mindnumber, in the end i decided i wanted the best touring bike more than an awesome utility bike which for me is what the troll is
so far approx 8 years and no regrets

atb Bill

[jags]

Steven the sherpa with the new Tiagra 10 speed  custom wheels would be hard to beat .it's built like a tank but super ride ,the only thing i didn't like about it was the  front fork way to heavy for my liking ,but if your going to be doing  heavy loaded touring  then yeah it will never let you down..
best of luck whatever you go for spend wisely 

jags.
(anto)

[bobs]

I had a Troll built up with a Rohloff and although it was very good I prefered a Thorn.

[Danneaux]

Hi Steven, and welcome to the Thorn Cycling Forum!

Not meant in any way unkindly, but I've always taken to heart the old Packard (long retired American brand of luxury car) slogan, "Ask the man who owns one" when it comes to researching my buys.

Be it tents, sleeping bags, bicycles, cars, or appliances, those online user reviews and marque-specific forums can really give a fuller picture of how a product performs across a wide range of users in a variety of conditions over time. Sometimes, a premium product that is priced higher than competitors will get such uniformly good reviews as to reassure a potential buyer. Western Mountaineering sleeping bags are like that. 

This being a Thorn-sponsored Forum, you're most likely to get steers toward Thorns here, and they're well worth considering. If a new one is a stretch, a number of used ones often appear in this season at fantastically low prices as people move on to new steeds before embarking on Spring/Summer tours. Our own Bikes For Sale board is a good first stop to see what's available: http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?board=16.0 Also, Thorn's sister company, SJS Cycles, often runs specials on demo bikes and premium-condition used bikes. See: https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/search/?term=thorn&category_list=757

Thorn/SJS Cycles also sell a wide range of bikes on eBay, ranging from shop demos to serving as a broker for trade-ins. See: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/sjs_cycles/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

I can echo Bill C's suggestion to take a good look at a high value Sherpa spec. They're incredibly versatile, good bikes that will see you through most touring challenges.

As for your other question...

I also don't have a huge stash of cash, would it be appropriate to ask for discount? How much would you ask for?

...generally, when an item is listed on eBay at a "BuyItNow" price, there's no room for negotiation like there is when a seller offers the item with a "Or Best Offer" option. I always consider the "BuyItNow" price to be firm, as eBay actively discourages price negotiation or offsite haggling at the expense of auctions or listed prices.

Best of luck in your quest and all good wishes in your touring plans,

Dan.

[Andre Jute]

... you could get tubus on ebay.de in stainless for less, ie cosmo and nova

I don't know about the Nova but I have the Tubus Cosmo stainless rack, and I don't think much of it. Here's a par from an earlier post by me: "I have long been dissatisfied with the mean width of standard Tubus racks, like my stainless Cosmo, which might look good on a road bike but on a balloon-tyred bike, like most touring bikes these days, simply looks skimpy and is definitely suboptimal in use (and that's before you even get to Tubus cheap practices of gouging customers for necessary fittings like bolts (!), and then gouging them some more for extension sets that should be included in the price). As for the popular Fly, to me it looks like a schoolboy's tie scissored off an inch under the sloppy knot because the headmaster has made a tie compulsory..."

If you're on a budget, just the Cosmo extended bracket set by itself is half the price (once you add carriage) of a good quality rack from someone else, and in the end I had to raid the fittings of a rack on another bike to have enough bolts to fit the Cosmo; by the time it was fitted, my Cosmo cost something like a third the price of a perfectly competent offroad bike from my LBS. (Okay, I'm not on that tight a budget, but I'm a Calvinist, so I expect value for money.) A pox on Tubus. They sell because many of the alternatives are even more poncey.

[Bill C]

Hi Andre
tubus cosmo on ebay full kit inc fittings £68 plus £12 postage,
£80 for a stainless top of the range rack and you say that is expensive?
hoff owners  spend a grand on a wheel and then penny pinch the rest of the build 
i got the nova and cosmo for the xtc, much lighter than the surly racks on the Sherpa, 10 year warranty irc and i don't need to worry about rust or them getting tatty and they are more than adequate for a full complement of carradice Kendalls and a camper longflap
i agree on the tubus fly....... the airy is so much nicer

if you want a wider rack then try a surly nice rear rack, i havea spare nice rear rack i'd trade it for your cosmo any time, only lightly used (tibet n back by previous owner)

[Danneaux]

... (and that's before you even get to Tubus cheap practices of gouging customers for necessary fittings like bolts (!), and then gouging them some more for extension sets that should be included in the price)

Oh no! So sorry to hear of your bad luck, Andre. I have a Tubus Logo Evo, a Cargo Evo, a Duo and two Taras and all came with high quality stainless hardware (including some spare bolts in a longer size for the dropouts). Both rear racks arrived with stays, bracket/stay clamps, hardware to attach and rubber caps to finish. I sent for some spare cranked stays and found them very reasonable in price at USD$6.50ea plus reasonable shipping in a padded envelope.

Maybe the yours were lost in shipping? My hardware was all packed in a heavy mailing tube with plastic end caps, the lot cable-tied to each rack for shipping.

I agree the Logo (Evo edition in my case) is too narrow to support a rack pack nicely, so I made a wider platform for it out of a thin sheet of Dupont Zytel. The top is now a standard width and the lower rails still support my pannier hooks without interference. See: http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=11800.msg85804#msg85804

All the best,

Dan.

[Andre Jute]

Hi Andre
tubus cosmo on ebay full kit inc fittings £68 plus £12 postage,
£80 for a stainless top of the range rack and you say that is expensive?

There's an extra-long fitting kit, required if you fit the biggest Big Apples on 622 wheels, as I did. I made enquiries before I bought a Cosmo, and was told by some ignoramus on their so-called "help" desk that I wouldn't need anything more than is supplied with the rack. That was quite untrue. It cost €18.90 just for postage from Germany, plus the excessive cost of the extension kit. Also, the standard kit's bolts were of inferior quality to the ones already on my bike (supplied by a German baukast that really takes care of details) and too short. After that sort of nuisance, a rack had better be perfect. The Cosmo isn't: it's a poser for roadies, not a serious tourer's rack. I don't possess a single piece of luggage that doesn't hang over the Cosmo's sides, and the triangulated struts interfere so stupidly with the pannier rail that the hooks on my fave Basil pannier baskets get ripped up long before the rest of the basket shows wear.

hoff owners  spend a grand on a wheel and then penny pinch the rest of the build 

Rubbish. No penny-pinching on my bike. It's the narrow Cosmo's wheel-pinching feminists object to.

if you want a wider rack then try a surly nice rear rack, i havea spare nice rear rack i'd trade it for your cosmo any time, only lightly used (tibet n back by previous owner)

I know (as we say here in the green and beloved island in a caring-sharing voice to express extreme disbelief), a little old lady rode it to church on Sundays. Only thing is, her pastor is the Dalai Lama.

***

I'm happy to hear you're happy, Dan. I keep the Cosmo because my experience is that aluminium racks fold up when assaulted by carelessly driven Range Rovers (two ali racks heroically sacrificed themselves to save my bike) and the Cosmo inflicts expensive paintwork damage, marking the car and the owner for when I catch up with her and embarrass her in public. In my service steel racks rust before they wear out. But if there were another stainless rack available, I'd be on it like a flash. There used to be a pretty competent stainless rack available in the States but in very spotty supply over here, and it went off the market just as somebody told me about; it might have been called the Montana. I actually looked at the Tout Terrain bike with the welded-on rack at one stage, I was so fed up with inadequate racks, but decided I wasn't ever going to tour that far! (I'm anyway a credit card tourer; when I camped in Africa it was with a white-coated steward to serve drinks -- check him out, here, even including an obligatory cycling reference, but be warned, political incorrectness abounds: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/541710-the-robust-commonplace-book?comment=34615372#comment_34615372)

***
BTW, both my decently satisfactory ali racks were also by Tubus, though they were of superior, more ergonomic design, and called by the name of the wholly-owned German sister company that makes them -- in particular they were a small but crucial fraction wider than the Tubus racks, which just goes to show that even Tubus knows that their racks can be improved. Pricey, of course, but I liked them, except for being too easily bent in impacts. I discovered the ali Tubus line because they were low cost options on Utopia (I think there was maybe a few Euro uncharge over a steel Tubus that came as standard on the bike).

[stevenalleyy]

Hi Bill, thanks for your response! I am pretty set on that surly however I realise its far too expensive. If I was going to negotiate with the dealer what are some good points I could use to make my case? If you were me and wanted to purchase this bike what price would be GREAT, and how much would be reasonable? I appreciate your help guys! 8 years on the same bike!? Crikey that does sound good.

Thanks for all your advice Dan, I appreciate your time replying, and you too jags