Fresh Goods Friday 153

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Welcome to this week’s Fresh Goods, where we invite you to take a look at what’s arrived to prod, poke and puzzle over in the office….

Osprey Zealot 16

We saw the Osprey Zealot in the blur of trade shows at the end of last year and were instantly interested. We’ve liked Osprey’s riding packs a lot but there was a bit of a gap at the burly end of the market. The Zealot fills it, with plenty of space for body armour and a full face helmet, plus super neat roll-out toolkit that lives at the bottom of the pack. It’s got all the other features we’ve come to like – the Airscape back, loads of neat storage pocket on the waist and shoulder harnesses and their neat magnetic attachment for the reservoir hose.

Price: £79.99

From: Osprey

ABUS Hill Bill helmet

German brand ABUS are well known for their locks but they’ve gradually been moving into the world of helmets too. This is the Hill Bill, their high end mountain bike offering. There are a total of nineteen vents to keep the wind rushing through your hair and it’s made using a two part outer shell ‘double in-moulded’ to the EPS foam protection. There’s a new retention system with a quick to adjust dial but we really like the new colours – designed to match the Altura range of mountain bike clothing.

Price: £89.99

From: Zyro

Bryton Rider 20

We had a quick look at the Rider 20 GPS unit from Bryton at distributor Zyro’s open house show earlier last month. While being about the same size as a standard cycle computer, it provides all the same features without the wires thanks to GPS. As well as the normal functions such as speed, time, distance and laps, it’ll also calculate calories burnt and record tracks. With optional extra sensors you can also measure heart rate and cadence.

You can analyse all the information to your heart’s content later on a PC or Mac with the browser based software and it comes with training programs that’ll help you to help yourself hurt…

Price: £99.99 or £139.99 with heart rate monitor

From: Zyro

Xpedo M-Force.Eight pedals

Xpedo might not be name that springs to mind when you think pedals but they’re actually the high end brand of Wellgo, the massive Taiwanese pedal manufacturer. They’re taken what they’ve learnt from making everyone else’s pedals and put it into their own range. These are the mid level clipless versions, with a forged aluminium body and CroMoly steel axle. Weight is claimed at 285g per pair although an investment cast titanium model is available too if you need to lose more mass. They roll on a pair of DU bushings and a cartridge bearing per pedal and they’re SPD compatible, though they do come supplied with a set of 6° float cleats.

Price: £69.99

From: Nemesis Active

SQ Labs 610 Active saddle

SQ Labs are a German brand created by an ex-motocross rider that suffered a horrific injury, leaving him in pain when he was using standard cycling components. With the help of a doctor, he started redesigning the contact points of a bike to make them fit different body sizes and shapes to help eliminate pressure points and pain. This cromoly railed high end saddle is available three different widths (14, 14 and 16cm) and has a dropped centre to relieve pressure on your bits. You’re fitted at the bike shop by sitting on a simple bit of corrugated card which reveals how wide your sit bones are. It turns out Matt’s body is so warped it appears to have but a single hip, which explains why he walks in circles so often.

Price: £109.99

From: Zyro

Hope Headset

While pick’n’mix used to be favourite petty theft item for kids, it’s now back thanks to the multitude of headset shamdards out there. Hope now offer four ‘off the shelf’ fitments for your bike and serve almost every other demand with 18 pick and mix options. They’re all made in Barnoldswick using high quality stainless steel bearings and metalworking machines the size of your house. This particular one is destined for Jenn’s Long Termer Cotic Solaris build…

Price: From £60

From: Hope Technology

Hope Seatclamp

Machined from a single lump of billet, the classic Hope seatclamp has been tweaked over the years to this, a neat design that can be bought as either a bolt up and QR version and converted between the two painlessly. The QR version has a solid and durable brass bushing and long lever to make it easy to grind through the inevitable coating of wet mud. They’re available in 28.6, 30.0, 31.8, 34.9, 36.4 and 38.5mm diameters and all the colours of the anodised rainbow.

Price: £20

From: Hope Technology

Point One Racing Podium Rebuild kit

Jon tested the Point One Racing Podium flat pedals around a year and half ago and they’ve basically been welded into the cranks of every bike he’s ridden since then. While the pedals themselves aren’t cheap  at £149.99, they’re built to last and this kit allows you to replace the four cartridge bearings that sit in each pedal, plus new seals and mounting hardware. To save you bashing bearings out with a screwdriver and sweet abandon, there’s a neat two piece tool to drift them out.

Price: £24.99 for bearing removal tool and £16.99 for rebuild kit

From: Hotlines UK

Xpedo Traverse.Seven pedals

Xpedo do a load of flat pedals as well as the clipless options and these use a cromoly steel axle with CNC machined aluminium body and replacable studs. They run on three cartridge bearings per pedal

Price: £69.99

From: Nemesis Active

Motorola MotoACTV 8GB

It’s part MP3 player, part watch and part personal fitness trainer, using GPS and ‘Accusense’ sensors to monitor distance, speed, pace and heart rate. You can analyse your data with your Motorola Android smartphone or online at motoactv.com. It’s also got a build in FM radio receiver and the touch screen display is made from scratch resistant ‘Gorilla Glass’. The MP3 music player learns what tracks motivate you most by measuring your performance against your music and then uses those songs to create a personal high-performance playlist. That’ll be three hours of gabba techno followed by a heart attack then…

Price: £250

From: Nemesis Active

Niner RDO forks with 15mm Maxle

Chipps has got these forks in for next issue’s ‘Dream Bikes’ test. You’ll have to wait and see what they’re going onto, but these are the brand spanking new 15mm Maxle compatible versions of the full carbon fibre monocoque tapered steerer fork. They’re extremely stiff, have no rider weight limit and at 630g they’re really rather light. Axle to crown length is 470mm with a 45mm offset and they use a post mount brake. Best of all, you can get them in the lovely tangerine colour…

Price: £489

From: Jungle Products

Maxle axle will keep you stiff as you like…

What? You shouldn’t use a screwdriver on the crown of your very expensive forks? Ehhhh?

LowePro Apex 30AW and Rezo 60 camera packs

Sim reckons the Apex 30 AW (left, £24.99) is perfect for mounting his Ricoh GRD to the straps of his Camelbak (other hydration packs are available). Has a little pull out water resistant cover too. The Rezo 60 (right, £29.99)is made to fit Canon G series cameras and others of about that size. Can also squeeze in a spare card and battery.

From: Lowepro

X-Fusion Hilo Dropper 27.2mm

Behold! Rejoice! It’s a 27.2mm dropper post! Stop trying to weld a bit of scaffold tubing into your old frame ‘cos this will fit in the seatpost size that became redundant so quickly. There’s 100mm of travel and it comes with both a seat and remote mounted adjustment lever. The head is a an infinitely adjustable type too…

Price: £199.99

From: Upgrade Bikes

Oregon Scientific ATCMini

The ATC Mini records 720p HD video and 1.3MP stills straight to a micro SD card, expandable up to 32GB. It’s powered by a rechargeable lithium polymer battery which has a claimed life of over 1.5 hours. The unit includes both a TV-Out jack and Mini USB allowing you to watch video on your TV plus Edit, Save and Share via your PC / Mac. It’s also waterproof to a depth of 20 meters making it suitable, so it should survive British weather happily. You can buy a range of bar and helmet mounts too..

Price: £119.99

From: Oregon Scientific

Osprey Talon 22

With a volume of 22 litres, the Talon is made for longer trips and adventures – or just for serial over-packers – whether that’s on the bike or off. There are woven stretch side and front pockets for jamming in waterproofs or similar.

Price: £69.99

From: Osprey

Charge Spoon saddle

Apparently Charge Bikes boss Nick Larsen was so disgusted with the brown saddle on Chipp’s otherwise beautifully colour co-ordinated Kinesis Crosslight Pro6 that he put this gleaming white Spoon saddle in the post. Despite being the bargain-tastic cromoly steel railed model it weighs a claimed 240g, which isn’t bad at all.

Price: £24.99

From: Cycling Sports Group


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