This Surly Karate Monkey is ready for the gnarliest gnar. We call it the Manslaughter Monkey because it's "murdered out," which is bike geek slang for "all black." We call it manslaughter, however, because this happened mostly by accident. 

So what makes this bike so incredible? There's a lot going on here. We've added a Sid XX fork with 100mm of travel and a remote lockout. This is one of the lightest, stiffest, and blackest forks on the market. There are a few folks out there who enjoy riding rigid bikes (myself included), but for most a suspension fork on a trail bike is a must, so we thought we should use a fork that's really, really good.

Next, the bike has a SRAM XO1 1x11 drivetrain. Hubs, crank, cassette, rear derailleur, shifters--all of it's XO1. It's light, efficient, and has that new 42-tooth cog in the back for steep climbs or those times when you're either tired or not in a hurry to get to the top. Thanks to SRAM's narrow-wide chainring and type 2 rear derailleur, you don't need any kind of chain retention device to prevent your chain from flopping off the chainring. There's no front shifter or derailleur to heft around or worry about adjusting. It's simple, clean, and awesome.

The wheels are hand built to Velocity Blunt rims. They will be tough, light, stiff, and reliable for a long time to come.

Shimano XT brakes, of course.

The bars are Thomson Downhill bars, which are 780mm wide. That's just about how wide your grin will be when you ride these bars, by the way.

To top it off, we removed the white decals in exchange for black. 

There's an X-Fusion Hilo dropper post, a Maxxis Ardent 2.25 tire in the rear, and a Continental Mountain King 2.4 in the front.

There's no such thing as the perfect bike, but we think this one is pretty darn rad.