Surly Cross Check Drop Bar Vintage-Look Road Bike Build

Last Updated on May 7, 2022 by FAB Jim The Cyclist

Check out my beautiful Surly Cross Check:

I decided I wanted to try and combine what I like about vintage and modern road bikes.  Vintage bikes have a really nice smooth ride, but I really like the shifting and drivetrain of a modern bike.   There is also much I like about the look of a vintage bike.   

First thing I needed was a steel frame.  I thought about updating a vintage frame but decided to go with something newer.  After searching around, I decided on the Cross Check.  The frame is 4130 chromoly steel and has straight, round tubes with a curved fork, so I think it has a good old-school look to it.    I picked it up used and it came with the Tektro brakes, seatpost, headset, and barrel adjusters.  Sadly, it came with a lot of scratches and chips which I spent a good deal of time cleaning up.  I also replaced many of the decals since those were also damaged. Never buy an Ebay frame without real good pictures, even if they claim it’s lightly used.   

So now I started planning the rest of the build.  I didn’t want it to just look like a modern road bike with a Surly frame, so I decided to try to give it a vintage-look.  I found a nice silver, 10-speed groupset from Microshift to use and added lots of other silver.  Here are some of the components:

Microshift 10-speed Centos shifters/brakes

Microshift Centos 10-speed front derailleur

Microshift R10 10-speed rear derailleur

Microshift CS-G100 Lightweight Cassette

Stonglight Impact Double Crankset 48/34

KMC X10 Chain silver/black

Whisky No 7 F12 Silver drop bars

Wellgo W-01 Pedals

Jagwire Silver Braided cable housing and cables

Origin8 Uno Road Bike Saddle

Zac19 Wheelset

Bontrager R3 tires 32mm

Joytech Skewers

Here are some more images:

Weight is about 24lbs

I’m pretty happy with the weight given I have been a bit restricted by the vintage-look.  I can’t go adding a bunch of carbon parts after all.  It’s in pretty good company from a vintage road bike perspective.  In 1974 the Schwinn Professional Road Racing Paramount was listed as 23-25lbs.  Now that I know I really like this bike I do wish I had gone with a more lightweight bottom bracket, but I think I can shed quite a bit of weight still. 

Fit

So far, the fit seems really good.  The Whisky bars seem to be perfect; I went less wide than I usually use at 38cm.  They also have 12 degrees of flare which helps the drops feel more comfortable.  The hoods are also angled inward a little which also feels great.  I need some longer rides outside to know for sure, but this bike was even comfortable on the trainer.

Ride

Really comfortable ride.  With the steel frame/fork and the 32mm tires, the bumps of the road are absorbed nicely.  Microshift drivetrain is working well with really good shifting, and I really like the shift levers.

Look

I’m really happy with my attempt at a vintage-look.  All the silver parts look great, and I think really go well with the frame.  The Stronglight crankset looks like it could be out of the 70s, so it’s perfect. My original plan was a silver stem, but I kinda like how the black stem looks with the silver bars.  What do you think?

Really enjoying this bike.  Because of this I already have some upgrade plans.  Some to lighten it a bit, and others to work more on the look.  I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say this is the best-looking vintage-look Surly Cross Check built in Wisconsin by an amateur mechanic with a Microshift drivetrain.  Stay tuned for updates.