While the Royal Mail is still in anarchy after a few inches of chaos powder fell from the sky, we’re glad to report that a few hardy souls have made it though with treats for us to test.
We had a quick interview with Dorset based framebuilder Will of Hammoon Cycles a while ago (see HERE) and he’s sent through this rather bling build of his new Hammoon trail bike. Made from a mix and Reynolds 853, 725 and T45 steel, each frame is custom made with a BB30 bottom bracket shell and a 44mm internal diameter headset so you can run a tapered, 1.5 or standard steerer fork. We’re looking forward to getting out on it..
Price: £TBC
From: Hammoon Cycles
Will’s put a slighty bling finishing kit on this one…
Headtube badge is cut, shaped and polished by hand.
Very lovely paint too..
Tidy modular dropouts with replaceable hanger. We think this bit has been polished quite a lot too.
It’s geting close to Christmas so that means time for trifle…
It also means that our care package of Buff headwear is especially welcome. Jon is modelling the Buff Headband which has lovely synthetic animal fur on one side and a discreet camouflage pattern on the other. It’s very comfortable and fits well under helmets although it take a leap of fashion confidence to wear it as a standalone item.
Price: £21
From: Buff
It’s been a tough year and Mark might just snap, and then stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. Thankfully we don’t have any proper weapons in the office so the rampage consisted of making gun noises with a set of forks, but we digress. He’ll keep his ears and head nice and warm whatever happens thanks to the beautifully soft merino Wool Buff.
Price: £22
From: Buff
For really cold temperatures we’ve got a Polar Buff Thermal Pro, made from a seamless tube of nice soft, warm, high loft Polartec fleece material.
Price: £24.99
From: Buff
This is the Windproof Buff which, as the name suggests, uses Goretex Windstopper material to prevent horrible cold chills from breaking into your winter clothing cocoon.
Price: £30
From: Buff
We’ve had shortage of tubeless sealant fluid around the office lately (‘tubeless jizz’ if you’ve got the sense of humour of an adolescent boy – which we have). Thankfully Ben from Paligap came through with this bottle of Stan’s Notubes Tire Sealant. It stands out amongst others as it’ll stay liquid even in sub freezing temperatures. It’ll help seal non-tubeless tyres when used with a Stan’s tubeless rimstrip setup and you can run it with a full on tubeless setup to reduce the chance of punctures.
Price: £19.99 for 32oz
From: Paligap
We’ve also got a Stan’s ZTR Crest rim, which is up for a Singletrack Reader Award (vote quickly, we’re closing the compo on Monday). It’s a hybrid of the ZTR Race and the ZTR 355 which aims to provide a tough rim without a weight penalty. It’s designed to be used with tubes or a Stan’s tubeless rimstrip and this one comes in the new white powdercoat. It’s to be used on Craig ‘tired skeletor’ Woodhouse’s Alfine 11spd hub gear build, so keep your eyes peeled in the magazine for that…
Price: £73
From: Paligap
We first saw this Airace Speed F2 pump back at the Cycle Show in London and were impressed with how many features they’d managed to pack into a small pump. The alloy body pulls apart to reveal a mini floor pump with stirrup and extendable hose with reversible valve head. Despite being slim it’s all satisfyingly chunky to use.
Price: £32.99
From: Fisher Outdoor
Cunning eh?
The Airace Dual Jet TS pump also manages to pack in plenty of neat features. The alloy body will provide up to 80psi of inflation for mountain bike tyres, the high volume body helping to get the pressure up there quickly but take the cap off the other end and there’s a shock pump that’ll go up to 300psi. Althought there’s no gauge this feature should be perfect for those bits of ‘trail tuning’ that end up with a deflated shock…
Price: £27.99
From: Fisher Outdoor
The pump automatically switches from tyre to shock inflation too…
Here at Singletrack we’re a mechanic’s worse nightmare. You’ll never see more expensive kit coated with a patina of rust unless you’re into restoring old Italian cars. The Muc-Off Chain Doc and Chain Cleaner promises a clean chain in 19 seconds, which probably the exact amount of time we spend on maintenance as it stands. Clip your chain into the Doctor, give your bike a bit of a pedal while spraying and the nylon brushes and baffles should free grime and grit in a minimally messy way. The Chain Cleaner is also biodegradable so you won’t make any animals cry by using it.
Price: £19.99
From: Muc-Off
The bright pink colour will be familiar to anyone who’s been riding for any amount of time but Muc-Off Bike Cleaner has been updated over the years and now uses rather tiny ‘Nano Scale’ material which promises to get into incredibly tiny surface cracks to clean better than before. It’s safe to use on carbon fibre, anodising, brake pads, rubber – basically all of your bike. You can even use it on your car alloy wheels if you’re running on sweet dubs, like Matt’s new Volvo.
Price: £6.99 for 1ltr
From: Muc-Off
Smelly helmet? The terrible social affliction can be cured! Muc-Off Foam Fresh. The foaming action is designed to get deep into pongy clothing, be it body armour, shoes or headwear and replace the rotting smell with the much more pleasant stench of citrus. We look forward to using it on Jon’s 5.10 rock shoes, which were so minging that when they were left in the car overnight he started searching the air vents for the dead animal that must have crawled in and died.
Price: £6.99 for 1ltr
From: Muc-Off
On to more pleasant things now. Muc-Off Silicon Shine spray is ideal for stopping clag sticking to clean frames, lubricating shock seals and making stuff shiny. This week’s top tip is to spray some on your car window seals to stop them sticking in the cold.
Price: £6.99
From: Muc-Off
The dinky Airace Fit Tele M pump will pump up to 80psi despite being tiny enough to be lost in the bottom of a rucksack for weeks. The extractable, extendable head should prevent the valve tearing woes that panicked pumping with a small pump can cause and the alloy body, shaft and lever will be durable too.
Price: £21.99
From: Fisher Outdoor
Mini pump TRANSFORM!
Sim’s needed to bleed his new SRAM X0 brakes to fit them through the swingarm of his Orange Five Long Termer so we’ve had the new Avid Professional Bleed Kit through the post. Designed for the professional mechanic rather than the home tinkerer, there’s loads of metal hardware and chunky adaptors making for a much sturdier setup than the standard kit.
Price: £59.99
From: Fisher Outdoor
Stephen from Fisher sent Sim these Bloc Leopard glasses to prevent him from being blinded by brake fluid (we’re quite predictable) but their main purpose is of course for riding. The lenses are interchangeable, with yellow, clear and tinted ones included. They’re excellent value and should be good for keeping snow glare out of our eyes…
Price: £39.99
From: Fisher Outdoor
To finish off, here’s Tiggy the cat in bed. It’s exactly how we feel.
Comments (26)
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Nice headtube.
Chain a bit long on the Hammoon, other than that it looks very nice.
where’s the GD minimovies
?
avid professional bleed kit…. because the professionals at Avid made such a great job of bleeding all their brakes?!?
Cat in bed. Bad scene man.
Moderators, someone said jizz
nice pussy!
Nice Fight Club quote
A merino woolly buff is a good idea actually.
The camo earwarmer thing is a bit survivalist though.
Iain, would you prefer ‘sperm’ or ‘ejeculate’?
🙂
frame only would be SWEET ! guess pricey though !
yeah just checked nearly 700 squid for the 4X hells bells !!!!!
Amazing – Avid make an even MORE expensive bleed kit!
Royal Mail ain’t in anarchy are they….thought it was the couriers…….?
Royal Mail have been trouping through up here through the worst over the past few weeks. It was courier firms like Home Network Delivery that have spat the dummy…think a retraction is in order!
I thought Avid were taking the pish with there normal bleed kit but the pro rip off is just awesome. If anyone actually buys one they need there head hitting against a tree.
That Hammoon looks very nice; I wonder if he has any plans to make anything a bit shorter travel?
Andy
We’re just bitter about the Royal Mail because our subs copies are at the bottom of the backlog pile. We love our posties really.
Is that a New Singletrack Mug in the background of that Foam Fresh photo? 😉
ZTR Crest is to be run without a rimstrips, just the yellow tape. You could use a 355 strip, but it kind of defeats the point of the redesign.
white bars – nasty
That Harrmonn bike, wow, a collection of very expensive parts, but looks terrible.
Headtube, too long, too big diameter compared to downtube.
Headbadge, polished, nice, but pop riveted? Go to all that effort, you should drill/tap and bolt it in place
Bar/stem and saddle look really cheap and tacky
Bikes look great in photos in the big chainring/jockey wheels vertical position, not small chainring/12t sprocket.
As Dave says, the bike looks wrong. It might be great and superb but looks plainly wrong. The head tube is too fat compare to the other tubes, the decals look cheap and the head badge looks cheap too. Also, the chain appears too long, too.
Besides, those white bars and stem seems nicked off a Halfords special.
Overall, just like the England team in the last test – potential but no delivery.
the bloc glasses are good value compared to oakleys but you can get a pair of mirrored uv glasses and a clear pair of glasses for £20 at your local safety supplies company
Check the Hamoon site, headbadge is bolted. Its a nice frame, just not a goodlooking build.