Midnight Special VS VO Polyvalent

[Clifton Long]

I'm thinking about a new bike with wide tires and have narrowed it to these two.  I like level top tubes and lugged forks but the Surly seems like it might be a snappier ride.  Any thoughts, anyone ridden both?  I also have a Soma double Cross DC which will take a 650b tire of that size so maybe I should just go with that.  Any opinions if the other two would be substantially different rides?

Thanks,

Clifton

[Kevin M]

I haven’t ridden those, but the Black Mtn Road+ is certainly snappy! That’s not an adjective you usually hear in regards to Surly or VO.

[Randall Daniels]

What are you looking for, I recall the Polyvalent is more towards the touring side of "do everything bike" and is going to heavier and stiffer. I can't find my weight specs but I recall the MS was 5 pound frame and 2.5 pound fork and the VO was 5.7 pounds frame and 2.8 pound fork.

Also, you want low-trail or no?

[Jeff Bertolet]

The VO now uses 2xOS tubing (at least the DT). The previous iteration was OS. VO has gone to great lengths to eliminate shimmy/speed wobble, making everything very stiff.

I like my previous generation Polyvalent as a commuter/porteur, it was not so great as a brevet bike, too stiff.

I would say the Black Mtn Road + and Surly are more closely related than the VO.

Is this going to be a 'fast' lightly loaded bike? a light tourer?

[Clifton Long]

This will be a lightly loaded bike for gravel rides and a little pavement.  We are fortunate in Vermont that we have so much gravel road and all the roads are lightly travelled.  I typically ride 40-80 miles and am looking for a fair weather bike for those rides.  I have a VO Randonneur, which I love, but I want to try disc brakes and 650x48 tires.  It sounds like the Midnight Special will be better and I'll look at the Black Mountain Road plus, although I think it's a sloping top tube frame?  That's just an asthetic quirk for me:  I'm fine with sloping tube mountain bikes but would prefer a more traditional looking road bike.  I know Surlys are a little tankish but it sounds like it will be less so than the Polyvalent.

Probably moderate low trail or non-low trail.  I carry very little on these rides.  I think I would have a front rack and a small bag on the Surly, mostly to hide the absense of a fork crown.

Thanks for the input!

[Eric Daume]

I had the gen3 VO Polyvalent (and a Carmague), and found both of them quite stiff feeling.

My Cross Check and my Soma Doublecross (not disc) rode pretty much the same. And my recent BMC Monstercross was just a bit livelier than the Surly or Soma, though not as springy as a traditional non-OS road frame.

That's all for my XL/~62cm size.

Eric

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[derek zeitel]

If you are not familiar with Russ from Path Less Pedaled (youtube channel), check out his reviews. He reviews the kind of bikes you’re after almost exclusively including both the Midnight Special and the VO Polyvalent. He also generally will compare the current review bike against a few previous reviewed bikes which may be helpful to you.
Derek Z

[Will Vautrain]

I’d think in this price range you’re going to have diminishing returns over your Soma. I’d think hard about keeping that. Maybe get a nice light carbon fork if you want it to feel lighter. I switched to a Whisky fork on my Soma ES and the bike lost over 500 grams with that alone.

[Ken Mattina]

http://www.pathlesspedaled.com/2018/04/05/surly-midnight-special-review/

http://www.pathlesspedaled.com/2018/08/21/review-velo-orange-polyvalent/

On Sun, Mar 10, 2019 at 7:34 AM Will Vautrain <wvau...@gmail.com> wrote:

I’d think in this price range you’re going to have diminishing returns over your Soma. I’d think hard about keeping that. Maybe get a nice light carbon fork if you want it to feel lighter. I switched to a Whisky fork on my Soma ES and the bike lost over 500 grams with that alone.

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[Clifton Long]

I watched the Polyvalent and Mid Specreviews on PathLessPedaled:  What a great site! It does seem that the Soma may not be significantly different from the other two.  I also have a PopRadDisc that I have always thogught would be a great 650b conversion except for the lowish bb.  I think that would certainly be a snappy ride like I'm looking for and light.  I do have a set of 130mm width wheels from Bicycle Wheel Warehouse so I could lace those to 650b rims and not have to wident the rear to 135mm.  However, I don't even know if you could get a 42 in there and I'm pretty positive a 48 would never fit.  Maybe If I sell everything else I'm in the neighborhood of a custom frameset!  Happy problems though...

[edbra...@gmail.com]

No brainer - I'd put some 650B wheels in that Soma Double Cross disc. That frame should fit 42mm and perhaps even 48mm tires, and quick release 650B disc mtb wheels can be found on ebay for cheap money. "Crosslake sales" and "Randombike parts" are ebay sellers that usually have some decent Croft wheels.

Ed.

[Will Morris]

I agree with Ed. I ran 48mm tires on my 62 cm Double Cross disc. Really nice ride. Smaller frames may not fit 48s, but a 42s would be no problem. 

[Clifton Long]

I actually have wheels and tires: Stan's Arch and Teravail Cannonball 47c.  I tried them and they fit with plenty of room to spare.  The frame is only partially built up but I'll post some pictures when I get it together.  Thanks to everyone for all the advice!  This will give me a chance to see how I like the tires width, if only some of the snow would melt.  Another 4" today.

[derek zeitel]

Funny timing, this popped up today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNtabkAUnPU

Derek Z

On Saturday, March 9, 2019 at 8:27:47 PM UTC-5, Clifton Long wrote:

[Nick Bull]

I have a nearly-new Polyvalent (about 1000 miles) all of which are commuting to work and back.  I'm running 26" wheels with Rat Trap Pass tires and Avid BB7 brakes.  Setup like that, I find it a very-nice riding bike.  I carry a handle-bar bag that has about 8 pounds of stuff in it.  So the low-trail fork makes handling a little better with the handle-bar bag than without.  I bought it to be a commuter bike but also wanted to try out more gravel and also potentially use this as a brevet bike, though I'd probably want to use 650Bx42's for that.

FWIW, I measured the weight of the frame as 5.7 pounds and the fork as 2.5 pounds.

Nick

[Bob Lovejoy]

A couple in California have a Youtube channel (under Henrywildeberry).  He is riding a new custom Fitz Cycles rando (which is beautiful) but she is riding a new Polyvalent also set-up with Rat Trap Pass tires.  I have really enjoyed browsing through their videos and both are accomplished riders.

Anyway, a close up look at Therese's bike here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdvLCbwg2yo&t=264s

I have no preference, at least no reliable or set preference for disk versus non-disk brakes.  That said, the ability to design bikes using different wheel and tire sizes on the same frame is very cool.  And Therese has done big distance rides on that bike!

Bob