The Karate Monkey is a steel
bike from Surly made with that
ethos, billed as an all-mountain
hardtail trail bike. Capable
of being built with 29” wheels
and with two buildkit options
including a rigid version with
a suspension-corrected rigid
fork plus normal seat post and
the version I’m reviewing which
comes with 27.5-plus wheels,
Rockshox Sektor RL suspension
fork up front and a TranzX
dropper post.
Both versions are specced
with SRAM NX shifting, 1x11 NX
on the rigid with the suspension
model picking up the extra gear
and range of 1x12 NX Eagle,
SRAM Level brakes with 180mm
and 160mm rotors front and
rear respectively. WTB’s 40mm-
wide i40 TCS rims and Surly’s
house brand 27.5x3.0 Dirt Wizard
tubeless ready tyres.Design
Upon building the bike you can
see a fair amount of thought has
gone into the finer points of the
design. First thing I noticed was
the huge amount of attachment
points. As a trail hardtail you’d
probably only end up needing
one water bottle mounting point
but there are two extra, ready to
take on many more accessories
and attachments. Pannier rack
points on the rear seat-stays
combine to make this
a versatile bike packing or
touring machine.
External cable routing is the
order of the day, with the only
piece of internal cable routing
being where the dropper post
cable slips inside the frame
above the bottom bracket after
being run down the lower side
of the downtube. The derailleur
cable, rather than being routed
down the downtube comes
along the lower edge of the top
tube and then follows the seat
stay down to the rear axle, as
does the rear brake hose. It’s a
simple setup that lends itself to
quick repairs should any cables
need to be replaced, repaired
or inspected.
Up front at the handlebar
there's a decent amount of
slack built into the cables from
the factory to allow attachment
of bags, accessories or other
items to the handlebar such as
a lightweight sleeping bag, tent
or other items to use for bike
packing expeditions. There are
three water bottle mounts in the
front triangle, one under the
downtube, one seat tube and
one on the upper downtube that
also has three points on it.RIDDEN & RATEDJUDGE'S NOTES
Name Ben Sykes
Age 40
Weight 82kg
Height 183cm
Riding Style Trail / E nduro
Home Trail Blue Mountains
Size Tested Large
Fork Pressure 80psi
Tyre Pressure 20/23psiRATINGS
IN THE STAND
7.5/10
ON THE TR AIL
8/10
OVER ALL
8/10Main: The Karate Monkey
is comfortable on long
bikepacking adventures.Above: Ripping up track in
the Blue Mountains.