{"id":182764,"date":"2026-10-05T19:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T10:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelug.com\/blog\/?post_type=global&p=182764"},"modified":"2026-10-05T17:58:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T08:58:53","slug":"surly-in-tokyo-through-our-eyes","status":"publish","type":"global","link":"https:\/\/bluelug.com\/blog\/global\/surly-in-tokyo-through-our-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Surly in Tokyo, Through Our Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi again, Kasper here!<\/p>\n

After coming back from Minneapolis, one question kept coming up between all of us who went on the trip: How do we bring this experience back to Tokyo?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not just the photos.
\nNot just the bikes.
\nNot just a report saying, “We went to Surly (or Mpls), it was great.”<\/p>\n

We wanted to find a way to share some of what we actually felt there – the brand, the people behind it, the city it comes from, its history, and the culture that has grown around bicycles in Minneapolis.
\nThat eventually became A SURLY HOLIDAY at Blue Lug Hatagaya
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

From Sept. 19th-27th, we filled part of the Hatagaya store with memories from the trip.
\nPhotos we took in Minneapolis, things we learned from the Surly team, old materials, bikes, personal collections, and more than 20 different Surly gathered together in one place.<\/p>\n

For us, the idea wasn’t really to make a museum. We wanted the space to fill alive. Something you could walk into, look around, ask questions, touch the bikes, ride them, and hopefully leaving knowing Surly a little differently than when you came in.<\/p>\n

Telling the Story Together<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

We kicked things off on Sept. 19th by inviting customers into the shop for a talk about Mpls and Surly.
\n\"\"
\nWhat I liked about the talk was that it wasn’t only us standing in front of everyone saying “Here’s what we learned.”<\/p>\n

We had customers in the room who have been riding Surly bikes for years. Some of them probably knew parts of Surly’s history better than I did.
\nSo the conversation naturally moved between what we had just experienced in Mpls and what Surly has meant to people here in Japan over the years.<\/p>\n

We talked about Minneapolis as a city.
\nWe talked about the Surly we had imagined before going there, and the Surly we actually met when we arrived.
\nWe talked about older bikes, current bikes, the people working there now, and some of the thinking behind where the brand has come from and where it could go next.<\/p>\n

That felt important.
\nBecause the relationship between Blue Lug and Surly didn’t start with our trip. There are customers, mechanics, staff members, and riders who have been building their own relationship with these bikes for a long time.<\/p>\n

Our trip simply gave us another chapter to add to that story.<\/p>\n