Brakes and Gear shifting for Surly LHT

Hello all,

I'm building a tourer for commuting and light weekend touring, but I am also planning on taking in some much longer loaded tours sometime in the near future. After plenty of reading and a chat with a few dealers, I'm sold on the Surly Long Haul Trucker.

Unfortunately, the complete surly seems to be much harder to get hold of in my area and much more expensive; so I decided to custom build.

I have one bike shop who wants to charge me over the odds for everything (and who originally wanted to charge me £100 just for a quote), but I managed to find the frame, drivetrain, wheels and saddle I was looking for online in the budget I was looking for, and another dealer who will put it altogether for a reasonable price, since I brought I fair lot of clothes and accessories from him today.

At the moment, the build looks like this: Surly LHT frame
Deore XT crankset, rear derailer, and cassette (the touring 'Txxx' Models)
Deore LX front derailer and chain (I was told I could save a little money here since they are comparable quality to the XT)
Brooks B17 Saddle
Nitto Randonneur bars
Some fairly cheap shimano 700c 9-speed wheels whose brand escapes me (I will upgrade before my big tour)

My problem comes with selecting the brakes. I have no idea what to get. I'm not keen on disc brakes, but I'm not sure what to get. The surly specs tell me that the frame takes "Linear-pull or traditional cantilever". I was originally looking at the Tiagra, but someone told me they wouldn't fit. I will need a set that is compatible with the drop-bar levers. Any know which of the shimano brands will work? Any other brands that I should be looking at. I'll need a set that will stop my fully loaded LHT on a downhill, but that are plenty reliable enough, still easy to adjust and maintain by a fairly inexperience mech like me, and won't cost the earth.

Also, I'm a little unsure on my choice of sifters. I would like a pair-of bar-ends and I'm not terribly keen on index shifting. I will pick up a pair of the dura-ace 9 speed shifters assuming:

A) They will work
B) I will get smooth and reliable index shifting with my choice of (non dura-ace) gearset above
C) It doesn't take a genius to re-adjust if the derailer takes a knock
D) I can convert back to friction shifting easierly if it does work out.

Your thoughts? If thats not the case, I would rather just get a cheaper pair of bar ends and run them in friction. Is it worth getting a more well-known branded pair, or will a cheap pair work just as well? Any recommendations here?

Last thing; I was looking to buy a Cane creek S-3 headset, since that is what comes on the surly completes, but is it worth spending £35 on one, or would I be ok with a cheaper model?

Sorry for the length of the post, and thanks in advance for answers

Regards,

Shaun.

The Shimano bar ends are a good choice. If your drivetrain is properly adjusted, then you may eventually find that indexed shifting is more convenient (faster to use) than friction shifting.

I have 8-speed Shimano bar end shifters, and they can be used in either indexed or friction mode, so I presume the same is true for both the 9-and-10-speed Shimano bar end shifters.

If you want to use Tiagra shifters (?!?), then you should opt for CANTILEVER brake calipers -- cantilevers are the norm for Cyclocross racing and they are still the preferred choice by most tourist (that could be due to inertia -- why change something that works well?), so you shouldn't consider them to be inadequate.

V-brakes gained popularity amongst MTBs because they provided the illusion of NOT having something sticking out that could be snagged by branches/etc.

Undoubtedly, V-brakes became common on OTHER bikes because it is faster (by a few seconds) to install on the production line than cantilever brakes.

BTW. My impression is that the difference between different cantilever brakes calipers isn't great ... at least, not in the Shimano line ... the Tektro are like the Shimano (not sure about the pads) ... there are high zoot cantilevers calipers which are used by sponsored CXers.

What are your other headset options? FSA? Chris King? One from your current bike?

Get barends and the Cain Creek Drop V levers designed to be used with 'V Brakes'. Some decent V brakes from Tektro and bob's yer uncle. For loaded touring, altho some cantis are 'OK', like the shimano ones, for loaded I think V brakes stop much better.

Thanks for your replies,.

I am going to go with the dura-ace shifters, unless anyone tells me that using them with the deore XT/LX components will result in rubbish shifting performance. As far as I can tell, I can shift them over to friction if I bang my rear mech out of alignment on a ride.

With regards to brakes, I was now looking at the Tektro Oryx and R200A levels, but I will look into the cane creek solution.

I was just wondering if the 25 quid for the s-3 headset was worth it, or if a cheaper 10 would do the job just as well (in effect, was I just going to be paying for the name?) I can't remember the brand of the cheaper model, but it might have been FSA or something like that.

If anyone else is looking into doing a build like this you should know that I started getting the quotes back from other shops in the area (ones that didn't charge (the majority), or charged very little). Almost all of them have quoted me 1400 or just over, and included some pretty low spec'd stuff where I didn't specify what I wanted. Guess what I told them my budget was.

With the shops were I asked how much they would charge to put the bike together from bits I brought in, adding the labour costs from the one or two that agree to that to the price of the components, even when taking into account the cost of a fit and postage costs, comes to just over a grand for a higher spec'd bike. Something to keep in mind if you are going down the custom route, methinks.

Regards,

Shaun.

As far as I know, the Cane Creek brake calipers & levers are made by Tektro.

Yep. Same lever. Tektros are $25 'round these parts.

Might be interesting for the OP to look at the setup I chose for my Bleriot. Same idea, but I chose 8-speed for durability.