Just about a bike: Surly Cross-Check [UPDATED]

Early in the summer of 2001, about six months after I bought my first Surly, a Steamroller, I bought my second, a Cross-Check.

I had visions in my head back then of trying my hand at cyclocross racing.  At the time I thought I might excel in the format.  But to this day, I've yet to enter such a race and don't think I ever will.  That ship has surely sailed.

Just about a bike: Surly Steamroller [UPDATED]

4.8:1 gain ratio, 65.6 gear inches

Long before I got my Pugsley (which of all my Surly bikes ride most often these days) I got a Steamroller (and then, a little later on, I ordered a Cross Check, too). 

Mud brown, the first-generation (circa 2000) Steamroller was only sold in that color and, likewise, only as a frame-set.  

I like to imagine that I was an early-adopter of the whole fixed-gear thing.  Not true by a century or two, I know.  But still, in these parts, when I bought it way back when, there weren't very many of us riding fixed gear bikes, that's for sure.