These things do come around fearful fast, don’t they? One minute, you’re all Mondayed out, trying desperately to remember why you’ve put your pants in the fridge, or whose house you’ve woken up in, and the next you’ve faced the onslaught of all the week can bring, and you’re facing the onslaught of the weekend. Friday night curry? A beer or two? No worries – don’t mind if I do. Grilled Ocelot? Why not? It’d be best to quell your fevered brow, though – to temper your trepidation with some emollient. A soothing balm, to while away the long hours of tortured madness that hungover fridge-indecision can bring – the weeping question of which cereal to have on a Saturday morning – Rice Krispies, or that weird vanilla one covered in characters from Frozen that you can’t remember buying, but NEVER SEEMS TO GO DOWN.
I digress*
The point I was orbiting (at quite long range, I grant you. Less satellite; more Voyager probe) was that looking at photos of bike-related kit makes us calm. If the working week has you rocking backwards and forwards with a thin but steady stream of drool from one side of your mouth (just me? Oh.) then this might well be the panacea you’ve been looking for. Welcome to Fresh Goods Friday.
*NO, really?
Trek Fuel EX Jr
After last week’s photographic farrago with the Cove Hustler, here comes another slightly-tricky-to-photograph-if-you’re-hopelessly-incompetent machine. This one is the Fuel EX Jr, which is (as you might have spotted) a full sus modelled on the – erm – full sized EX, but which is ‘perfect for little rippers’. Well quite. It’d designed for people (or kids, natch) between 4’4″ and 5″ tall.
There’s an X-fusion shock at the back, and a 2×10 drivetrain with 160mm crank arms.
Similarly, we’ve got a 600mm handlebar on a short stem, draped with lots of Deore componentry to handle go and stop duties.
A clutch rear mech should minimise any chain clatter on descents, and…
…an X-fusion Velvet fork is mated to a Bontrager wheel (similar to the one at the back, but with fewer cassettes). 26″, naturally. Looks like a whole heap of fun.
Price: £1,400
From: Trek
Shimano Saint Brakes
In for more grouptest Brake-dancing (see what I did there? … Suit yourselves) are these Shimano Saints. Four pots per end of ultrafast stopping should enable you to slow down from 300mph to a standstill in slightly less than two picoseconds*. Ice rotors will ensure that such organ-pureeing stopping power is less likely to come at the expense of overly hot or faded brakes.
Price: Saint Brakes £149.99 per end. 203mm rotor £44.99. 180mm rotor £39.99. Adapter posts £9.99 each
From: Madison
*might be a slight exaggeration
RaceFace BSA30mm BB
A bottom bracket to fit RaceFace fat-axled Cinch cranks, in appropriately threaded 68/73mm format. This one is destined for Barney’s test Swarf – he’s going 1x, to see if he can bulk up his spindly little legs*.
Price: £39.95
From: Silverfish
*no chance
Thule Infant Sling
A specially designed sling for carting your proto- chaos creator about in a Thule Cougar bike trailer/pushchair/skiiing trailer (Skiing? Seriously, how awesome does that sound??) , like the one wot we’ve got in on test (recommended for pushchair format only). Barney is planning on carting a couple of tykes about for a while. Yes, they’re his own – although thankfully they resemble their mother more than they resemble him. We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief about that.
Price: £74.99
Thule X-12 adaptor
An axle so you can cart the aforementioned tykes in the aforementioned trailer around with your X-12 142×12 rear-axles steed. Actually, if I ever refer to bikes as ‘steeds’ again, you have my permission to shoot me*
*well, glower at me disapprovingly in any case – for those who might be somewhat literal minded
Price: £79.99
Both from: Madison
Sweet Protection Bushwhacker MIPS Helmet
A fine looking helmet, with MIPS, which is a system designed to enable your helmet rotate about your head in the event of a crash. Which doesn’t sound too handy until you consider the alternative, which is your head rotating about your brain. Which hurts a wee bit, but more importantly it might render certain things tricky. Like thinking. And let’s be honest, our Jamie here needs all the help he can get.
Price: £169.99
Sweet Protection Hunter Enduro shorts
Stretchy ‘Enduro’ shorts (it says here) with room for kneepads, and a hops of pockets (well, the collective noun for hops is pocket so it follows that the reverse must be true. Doesn’t it? Oh, shut up).
Price: £99.99
Sweet Protection Mudride Shorts
Could these possibly be shorts for mud riding? Well, by jiminy, they ARE! Contrasty zips (which I can’t see getting dirty at all, oh no), lots of breathability and waterproofingness. So you’re delicates will remain cosseted and in a similar state to the one you left them when you put the shorts on, barring accidents. Best not to think about those too much.
Price: £119.99
All from: Sweet Protection
Wickens & Soderstrom No.4 Suspension Lubricant
We featured this in a story recently, and we’ve now got some in to test! Co-developed with the good folks at TF-Tuned, this stuff claims to react the parts of forks that others can’t. We’ll be lubing up and shouting out ASAP!
Price: £14
TEA OF ORSUMNESS
The lovely folks at Zyro have sent us some mugs and some of the Greatest Afternoon Beverage Ever Made – TEA*! Thank you, guys!
From: Zyro
*coffee in the mornings; tea in the afternoons. Them’s the rules in my house/digestive tract**
**that’s not to imply that the two are interchangeable. My house is quite tidy.
And that’s it for today. Let’s hurtle headlong into whatever the weekends brings*, eyes wide open and tyres freshly pumped up. Have a good one!
*unless it’s a lorry. That would be bad
Oh, and you might be happy to know that Kung Fury is now available on youtube! If you’re the type of person who relishes ridiculousness beyond stupidity piled into a half-hour ‘story’ about ’80s cops travelling back in time to fight Hitler and meeting dinosaurs, machine gun wielding vikings and Thor on the way, if might well be for you:
There’s even a dinosaur policeman called Triceracop. What’s not to love?
Comments (5)
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So for us dinosaurs, the future is buying kids bikes in XXL?
I see the random tautology generator has been usurped by the random prolix-i-fier… 🙂
You’ve got to admire Trek – naming a 26″ rim the AT-650 to confuse the casual observer 🙂
Kung Fury could do with being 20 minutes shorter.
Who writes these, I genuinely find them quite amusing – is something wrong with me?