Fresh Goods

by 31

Welcome to the end of the standard working week! This serving of Fresh Goods is an extra chunky, full fat, deep fried, battered sausage of chattel-calories. There’s enough here to feed the five thousand – well, as least kit out their bikes and wardrobes to bursting point.

Now we’ve whet your appetite, here are some socks. Not just any socks, oh no, these are Inov8 Racesoc 16 socks. Inov8 make lots of trail running kit and these socks use lightweight Coolmax fabric, having thick soles for a bit of damping and thin uppers so your feet can breathe. Inov8 say they’re ideal for summer riding – they’d probably stay in our sock drawer for the next six months but these are going off to our friend Shaggy John of Iditabike fame. He’s made of much, much sterner stuff than us and cares little for insulation in the relatively balmy winter of the UK.

Price: £10 for a twin pack

Etoile* handmade bicycles at Bespok...
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From: Inov8

Okay, enough socks for now. We’re having a grouptest of 140mm travel trail bikes in Issue 63 to that end we have the Specialized Stumpjumper FSR Comp Carbon. Yes, if you’ve been paying attention you’ll know this is the second one we’ve had, as the horrible little rapscallions that broke into Matt’s house made off with the first. We’ve already ridden it in Sicily and we liked it a lot. The carbon fibre front triangle uses a tapered headset and press fit BB, with a set of Rock Shox Revelation Dual Air forks up front. The alloy back end uses a Horst four bar linkage as ever, with a special Fox/Specialized rear shock unit is integrated into the suspension linkage. There’s an X.7 2×10 drivetrain, Elixir brakes and own brand Specialized tyres and control bits finish it off. After building it up, we put it on the scales – 26lbs from the box, not bad…

Price: £2,549.99

From: Specialized UK

It’s rather pretty in red with bit of exposed carbon weave too…

SRAM X.7 – 10spd for the masses?

That shock has three position platform damping too…

Just the right amount of swoopyness we reckon…

Switching back to the soft gear, here’s the Inov8 Race Pro 18 pack. Designed for the fast’n’lightweight crowd of running, walking and cycling, it’s lightweight (470g) but offers 18 litres of storage. In addition to that internal space, there’s an extra large mesh pocket for storing jackets other stuff you need to get at quickly. The 2L H2Orizontal bladder inserts around the hips, keeping weight nice and low.

Price: £55 for pack, £18 for bladder.

From: Inov8

The bladder uses the neat Source flip and clip system and is segmented to stop the water sloshing about on the move…

Rickshaw Bags Pipsqueak

So, here’s a cute little bag from Rickshaw Designs. It’s one of those things that you didn’t know you needed until you got on. It clips over your bars and holds all sorts of useful things, like your keys, mobile and wallet. It’s easy then to unclip it and wander round the market buying your provisions. *Christmas hint for the boys here* The cycling ladies seem to love them */Christmas Hint*

Price: £22

From: www.minx-girl.com

Look how the Marin Mount Vision has grown! From cross country race winning roots under Paul Lasenby back in the day, the latest middle of the range XM8 version has 140mm of travel as well as being longer, lower and slacker than ever before. It’s more ‘all mountain’ and less ‘XC’ than ever. Also in for Issue 63’s test, the Marin sports a heavily hydroformed frame and swingarm with tapered headtube up front and modular dropouts at the back for a full choice of rear axle standards. The redesigned Quad Link 2.0 rear suspension has a new, thinner upper link for better clearance and is matched to a set of 15QR Fox Float RL forks up front. It’s also running SRAM x.7 2x10spd, but has Formula brakes and Mavic Crossride wheels. We’re looking forward to getting out on it…

Price: £2,499.99

From: ATB Sales

Chunky hydroformed downtube and tapered headtube show the more aggressive intentions of the modern Mount Vision. That head angle is 67.5 degrees too…

The upper Y shaped yoke now joins to the top of the swingarm in a much neater and stiffer fashion…

Future proof dropouts…

The length and angles look bang on…

Scouring pads! They’re versatile! They’re tough on stubborn stain! They’re in a value pack! Ideal for cleaning thick coffee stains from office mugs! Maybe we should regulate that caffeine intake a bit more…

The lovely people at Morvelo have sent us a bumper pack of T shirts, stickers and badges to bring a smile to our faces and style to our bodies. There are lots of new designs that non-cyclists won’t think you’re weird for wearing…

From: Morvelo

Bella in Sella

£20

RPM

£20

Night Ride – it’s glow in the dark! GLOW IN THE DARK! Woo!

£20

Power To The Pedals

£20 – This tee also comes in a gift pack from Morvelo with coffee tee, the Maggy’s coffee (below) and a neat Morvelo musette for £28.

Kick Back hoodie – it’s a slim fit so should fit cycling types nicely..

£40

We’ve also been sent this Magnus Maximus Coffee, which is always useful at deadline time. It’s a mix of Java and Mocha beans, blended in Jersey by Cooper & Co. and is full of delicious caffeine. It’s named after Paris Roubaix winning road cyclist Magnus “Big Maggy” Backstedt too…

Price: £5.99 for 227g

From: Big Maggy’s

Shortly after this picture was taken we found Sim in the toilet, sniffing lines of ground up coffee to keep him ‘focused’. He got through half the bag before we could stop him and when someone mentioned ‘knocking up’ a design he started to shout obscenities and threats before sobbing uncontrollably. We had to force feed him Ovaltine to bring him back down. Deadlines can be stressful on a designer. Chipps is feeling the pressure too. We found him in this outfit, pretending to be a wood elf.

Here we have Sim in happier times, swinging from this new Pendle Hang Up Bike Holder. It’s a redesign of their popular wall mounted range of racks, available in three different lengths to suit every garage. The long version, pictured here, has a steel loop that allows the bike to be held in place with a strap or lock to prevent excess movement or theft. Along with the mid length version it also has a tyre guide to keep the bike in place. Made from laser cut steel, they’re easy to assemble and the hook is rubber coated to prevent damage. If you have wobbly walls or limited space then the shortest version just holds the bike by the front wheel. They may go some way to making your bike collection look organised…

Price: Short £17.83, Mid £25.72, Long £32.20

From: Pendle Bike

Yes, all our walls are carpeted. Honest.

The 11spd Shimano Alfine SG-S700 internal gear hub is here at last! It’s got more ratios, improved sealing, quieter, smoother engagement and Shimano say it’s much more efficient than the old model too. Disc compatibility and the lack of exposed parts mean it could make for an excellent winterproof off-road setup or as a welcome aid to anyone that’s finding their singlespeed frame hurts too much nowadays…

Price: £429.99

From: Madison

We’ve saved the shiniest ’til last. Our very own 2011 Shimano XTR groupset has arrived! Although we first saw it back in June when Chipps took a thorough look at it HERE, and we’ve ridden it on the Scott Scale tested in the next issue of the mag (Issue 62, out soon…) this is our very own set of the Shimano’s finest. Who won the office knife fight to put it on their bike? You have to wait and see in our Long Termers section won’t you?

Here are the XTR M985 Race Front Wheels. We’ve got a 15QR and a normal QR version for the front. Tubeless Scandium rims, 24 direct pull butted spokes per wheel and angular contact bearings mean they should be light and strong enough to abuse, despite being a top level XC race wheelset.

Price: £399.99

From: Madison

Those hubs close up. They’re all Centrelock to keep weight low…

The  XTR M985 Rear Mountain Bike Disc Wheel has a 135mm spacing and QR fixture, again with 24 spokes and a new, quick engagement, titanium freehub body…

Price: £499.99

From: Madison

The rim bed up close. They have a 19mm internal diameter and can be run with up to 2.35″ tyres…

The XTR M985 chainset is just lovely. They’ve moved back to a more normal pinch bolt fixing over the old XTR’s confusing preload setup and it’s got a bit lighter too. We’ve opted for a double setup, although a triple is still available if you like a plethora of ratios…

Price: £439.99

From: Madison

Although we’ve gone for the light Race wheels we like to be able to stop quickly, so we’ve got the XTR M988 Trail brakes. There’s tool free reach adjust and adjustable pad contact, hinged clamps to easy fitting and the callipers sport the special heat sink pads for better performance under heavy braking. They also come fully bled, which is always nice.

Price: £199.99 per end

From: Madison

Here’s the new XTR M980 rear derailleur. It uses the Shadow design and has a revised leverage ratio for smoother shifting at the top of the range. The cage is half carbon fibre too…

Price: £149.99 per end

From: Madison

And here’s the front XTR M981 derailleur..

Price: £69.99 (not £439 as we’d originally put!)

From: Madison

You can’t shift without shifters, so here are the  M980 XTR shifters.

Price: £169.99

From: Madison

Here’s the M980 10spd cassette. Three alloy carriers, five titanium sprockets and a nickel plated coating to stop it going rusty. You need to sing that in the styles of ‘the 12 Days of Christmas’. You can them in 11-34 or 11-36T spreads

Price: £199.99

From: Madison


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