ALL-CITY GORILLA MONSOON BUILD AND REVIEW!

GORILLA MONSOON OR DIE!

First, some Bull Shit:

I wanted All-City's new Gorilla Monsoon. I wanted to see what this whole "Fat Tire Road Bike" scene is all about. 

So, I got on to the ordering website, selected my size –55cm– and ordered it.

What showed up the next day was not no dang fifty-five centimeter bike frame. It was like a 1,000cm frame! Freaking huge! Shaquille O'Neal couldn't ride the damn thing.

I go on All-City's website to read the geometry specs, thinking that maybe the 55cm on the label refers to some other measurement. But NO! There's not a single doggone measurement on the supposed "55cm" frame that even comes close to fifty-five centimeters! 

Go ahead and look for yourself:

Utter nonsense. So then I send a message to All-City, complaining and asking whuddup with their numbers. Their response, three weeks later: 

“That's just how we do things. Want to make sure you are paying attention! It is always a good idea to look at all the measurements to make sure you know what you are getting.”

Very informative, All-City.

Anyway, a hundred dollars in shipping later, and now I have the correct size, which I guess is a "52cm" for some reason. 

Whatever. 

BUT HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS:

RIP in Peace, Mr. Monsoon

Despite the size labeling, I do verily proclaim that the Gorilla Monsoon is a swinging little pony. 

Named after the same 400-pound pro-wrestling champ and color commentator whom my sister and I mimicked for many a childhood bounce fest on my parents' bed, the Gorilla Monsoon bicycle fits into a poorly defined and ultra-niche corner of the bicycling world called "Monster Cross."

Geometry-wise, it's road bike. If it weren't for the sloping top tube, the GM's frame numbers wouldn't look too out of place under Eddy Merckx on his 1969 Tour victory. But the GM is no more a road bike than Shaq is a Kung-Fu sensei. 

Let me state the obvious: Them are some big ol' tires. They say 2.4" on the side, but measure out to 2.3". But still.

The stock 27.5" by 2.3" mountain bike tires sit at roughly the same height as a 700x32c cyclocross wheel – or if you follow All-City's sizing, "the 401kwh by 6.39dm tires fit like ∞x∯c wheels," grrr. This means the GM is slow, but rolls as steady as a chubby toddler down a hill. I'd go as far as to say it's probably the smoothest riding stock road bike I've ever pedaled (which still means it's rougher than any mountain bike, but I'm sure the future suspension options will fix that). 

But then again, it's slow. Did I say that already? 

On its first ride, with a steady Lake Michigan tailwind, I managed to mash the bike into the smallest cog, and there pedaled at around 90 rpm, sweat beading on the brow and rolling down my nose as there was no airflow to push it off my face. The tires sang out in high pitch, and squirmed a little; taking a corner I felt the rubber re-conform as I rode up the sides of the tire's profile. 

Thinking I must be some kind of bad ass record-setter, I chanced a peek at the speedometer. My heart-pounding, speed-limit-be-damned terminal velocity? Twenty-one miles per hour. I could have been passed by a rollerblader. 

I managed that pace for maybe three miles, until the path curved and I lost the tailwind advantage, then fell back to my cruising speed, about twelve miles an hour – which is still pretty fast when you're huffing and puffing over two 30psi mud guppies. 

What's more, it maintains that speed whether on dry asphalt or grass. Mud and sand hardly make a difference, aside from spraying all over my legs and back (as of this writing, there are no proper 27.5x2.5" full-coverage fenders – but the frame has mounts!). Mountain bike wheels or no, the GM feels just like a cushy road bike. 

A cushy road bike that can also climb rocks and hop down stairs and dirt piles and run over smaller bikes:

It handles snow well too. The road bike geometry and components lead to decent weight distribution between the wheels for better control on slippery ground. Obviously the big tires are nice on the slippies too. Read more about that here.

Ride Conclusion: The Gorilla Monsoon is a goof-off mobile that can also do distances and normal road/cyclocross bike stuff, albeit at a more contemplative pace. 

The GM is the best new gimmick I've ridden in a long time. Since it has some real, practical value, I'm tempted to keep it around for a while instead of just selling it after I write my review, like with all the other bikes on this blog. 

Now Let's Look at the Build

All-City typically provides its models with decent stock components. Excepting the saddle stick and h-bars, which I'll get into soon enough, there's no need to go about upgrading anything right away. I'm especially impressed with the top-quality rubberized bar tape and branded plugs. Details like that add to the $2,000+ MSRP, but show All-City is a premium brand, despite their dumbass sizing and crappy explanation. 

 The GM is not for the first-time bike builder, and I'd hazard any prospective buyer away from ordering online. The thing came boxed in a hundred pieces, and hardly any of the mounted parts were fastened at the correct torque spec, a detail I discovered on my first ride when the drive-side crank came loose five miles from the shop. I also had to level-out a nasty burr in the seat tube and do a little surgery to the rear hub to get the bearings rolling smoothly. I don't blame All-City for any of this, a good mechanic should always double-check the factory's work. My point is that yahoo wrench jockies should keep their filthy butt-scratchers off the goods. 

All-City bikes come with uncut steerer tubes too, which is cool if you're particular about your fit (as you should be at this price point), though it slows the build process down. On the plus side, it comes with internal rust-proofing, which saves a lot of labor time from stripping the frame and spraying it with Frame Saver. 

Don't get me started on the stock "Cow Chipper" handlebars. Uh-oh, looks like ya did. Prepare for my opinion: They're stupid. The wide sweep makes it hard to get through cars and tight spaces, and the shift levers splay out awkwardly. I ditched them for some normal, cheap, Zipp Service Course 70's, which provide a nice flat transition to the brake hoods. 

 I'm really not wild about the SRAM APEX rear derailleur. It's plastic-y, and you have to thread the cable through this little tunnel to get it to the securing bolt. It works well enough, and there's a pulley-lockout feature that allows you to put extra slack on the chain to get the tire in and out easier, but it doesn't have a one-way clutch or any other do-dads like the more expensive models in its line, nor the initial quality of similarly priced ders offered by other brands. The SunRace cog set feels cheap too, and will probably grind away after two or three chains.

At thirty pounds, the Gorilla Monsoon won't float away from you. The beefy wheels, 15mm axels, disc brakes and other chunky components make up a lot of that weight, but the frame and fork are made of welded and brazed oversized steel tubes and lugs, and to the best of my knowledge this model does not come with weight-saving hydrogen gas pockets hidden inside. 3T and some other brands make carbon versions of this bike if weight matters that much, and they cost $1000 more, and they come with lame paint. If you needed to lighten up this rig for, say, a cyclocross race you could shave a half-dozen pounds with 700c wheels and tires, a different fork, and maybe some magnesium-plated pedals, but that's not really the point of this bike. The Gorilla Monsoon is built to be robust; it's more Mad Max than Fast and the Furious. 

Hold on, I almost forgot the best part! DROPPER POST ROUTING!

I may have mentioned elsewhere on this blog (like here or here and now here) that I'm really into the dropper post thing. Apparently, so are the designers of the Gorilla Monsoon because they put a little hole near the bottom of the seat tube, as well as cable guides along the down tube. Due to the placement of that hole, right by the rear tire, I pretty much had to plug it with something or else muck would get in and drip down to the bottom bracket. Can't have that. Might as well install a dropper post. No choice, really. 

That center cable just curves right up in there. 

One of my previous posts details how I connected the KS dropper post to the left SRAM shift lever. The modification was easy, but installing the cable and getting the housing to the correct length took an hour or more. It wasn't difficult, just tedious. Here's a little guide to help if you're thinking about getting into the DP thing. 

Here's the Deal:

I don't know whether to consider the Gorilla Monsoon to be a gimmick bike or not. Or maybe, like, it's so excessively trendy that it circles back upon itself and becomes something more. It has all the buzzy components: dropper routing, through axels, fatty-boom-batty tires, 1X drivetrain – yet all these things work great on this bike, and seem to direct the rider into a style of no-shits-given cycling heretofore off-limits to most roadbike-bound civilians. Maybe I'm wrong about this whole gimmick thing altogether. The Gorilla Monsoon might just be what a normal bike should be: capable, tough, fun, versatile. If it weren't so damn slow I might say it's the ultimate road bike. But really, it's not a road bike, it just looks like one – a buffalo in wolf's clothing. Monster Cross bikes, if that's the genre name for things like the GM, are legit, and worth purchasing for any kind of adventurer or rough-road commuter. If I hear anybody asking for a nice bike for riding, not racing, I'll interrupt whoever responds to send them to the Gorilla Monsoon. 

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Next post: Fat Tire Time Trial Bikes:

Just kidding.

Personal parts list:

For them's that's curious, I put Kona Wah-wah pedals on, which I highly recommend. They stick to your feet as if you were clipped in. The stock stem weights half-a-ton so I put on a Ritchey Pro. The shifters are both APEX but the OE does not match the decals on the OEM, which upsets me, but I guess I have to get over it. The left shifter is attached to a KS Eten I office chair spring. I had to supply my own orange cable ends, which is an oversight All-City will need to fix. The lock is a Kryptonite folding thing. It's sort of cheap and hard to use, I recommend the Abus folding lock instead. The saddle is a Brooks Cambium with a cut-out. H-bars, as mentioned earlier, are Zipp Ergo 70's. The build doesn't come tubeless-ready so that'll be a winter project, if I feel like it. 

And hey, if you like this post, maybe you'd like my article about MONSTER CROSS.