Calling you hardworking denizens of offices, workshops, spare rooms, laboratories. You fastidious computer users, shufflers of paper, sorters of laundry. You diligent princes, paupers and penpushers of all stripes. Put down your tools! The lathe, the chisel. The trusty spade! The mighty hoe! The venerable hamster!
Look up, with eyes to see! Gaze upon the mighty, and TREMBLE.
This!
Is!
FreshGoodsFriday!
(kicks minion down well)
Turner Czar
Well now, look at this. More orange than a carrot with a fake tan made of Irn Bru, it’s the Turner Czar*. 100mm of XC travel, and some very smooth lines indeed. We like the way this M version’s top tube segues wonderfully into the seat stays.
*Actually, some people think it’s ‘burnt ochre’ or something. Which is possible, I suppose, but I honestly have trouble seeing more colours than the normal six**
**Yes, six. Newton only turned ‘purple’ into ‘indigo’ and ‘violet’ because he was a mentalist, and thought that 7 was a holier number. HE DID! Would you trust someone who deliberately looked into the sun because everyone told him not to??***
***He went blind for quite a long time. Well, duh.
Comes complete with rear suspension designed by D.W. Link, who is a very clever man. Clever family, actually – look at brother Horst, and Yeti employee Switch. Arf.
This one has had an Easton-flavoured upgrade with EA70 bars, Haven stem..
… and Easton Lockon grips which are 33mm wide. In a fetching orange, natch. Real orange, this time. Although there wasn’t a word for it in the late 15th Century – it was just called yellow-red. It was only when Portugese traders brought orange plants to Europe from Asia that we had a word for people who overuse tanning salons (apart from mentalist).
Lovely grease ports nestled into all those unctious folds and crevices like um .. uh… *suffers metaphor collapse and falls to the floor, twitching*
The Turner’s also got Easton EA90 XC wheels, shod – actually, I don’t like the word shod – let’s try for wrapped. No, enveloped. That sounds more chocolatey. EA90 wheels, lovingly enrobed with lashings of luscious Onza rubber in a Canis 2.25 flavour.
Can tread patterns look fast, yet meaningful? I suppose to some people. Purposeful? Or perhaps (if we’re being literal) patterny. Treadful? (arf arf). Anyway. Here are those Onza Canis tyres again.
There’s an Easton Haven carbon seatpost to keep that SDG saddle aloft at the appropriate arse-cushioning altitude.
Token arty shot. Nice screwed-in headbadge, mind. That’s classy, is that.
Price:
- Frame: £2395
- Seatpost: £119.99
- Wheels: R – £439.99 F – £399.99
- Tyres: £44.95
- Bar: £49.99
- Stem: £79.99
- Grips: £24.99
All from Silverfish
Suntour Axon Werx 27.5 fork
I’m glad to hear that Axon Werx*. A carbon-tinged 100mm travel XC fork from Suntour. Hollow crown, lockout and nicely carbonated (arf) fork legs.
*Don’t fret – I’m consumed with self loathing as it is.
DO NOT USE YOUR XC 100mm TRAVEL FORK FOR FREERIDE EXTREME! Those, my friends, are wise words. All Mountain is OK though. Can someone tell me what All Mountain is these days? Anything up to and including Red Bull Rampage?
Price: £639
From: SR Suntour
Lauf Carbonara
http://vimeo.com/126390164
I get hungry for pasta every time I see this fork. It’s not very heavy, but it is (like other Lauf forks before them, but EVEN MORE SO) very odd-looking. Here’s a pic:
See? Carbon and fibreglass, undamped, with 60mm of travel to take away any trail chatter that your 5in wide tyres let through. Still, it’s very attention-grabbing and no mistake.
Price: $990
From: Lauf
Norrøna Clothing
Here’s Tom, ladies and gentlemen. He’s modelling some lovely kit from Norønna (I copied and pasted the funny letters from last week’s FGF, if you’re worried). And, yes, there are more photos of Tom, you lucky people. If you’re good I’ll put them at the bottom – only if you’re good, mind.
- fjørå lightweight shorts – £99
- fjørå equaliser lightweight long sleeve (M) – £79
All from Norrøna
CarbonCycles eXotic Full Carbon Riser Bar
750mm, full carbon riser. Svelte and shiny. 9 degrees backstop and 3 degrees upsweep, and 157g claimed.
Price: £60.49
CarbonCycles eXotic Carbon Seatpost
A carbon seatpost with aluminium reinforcement on the last 29mm.
Price: £43.44
CarbonCycles eXotic Alloy flat Pedals
No carbon here, just good old-fashioned aluminium in a marvellous orange colour. It occurs to me that we’re running quite a lot of orange this FGF – I have to reassure you that it’s not intentional. I don’t think. Maybe Chipps is auditioning for a new Tango advert.
Price: £33.79
CarbonCycles eXotic Monocoque UD Rigid fork
Construction flows from tip to toe in this monocoque fork. This one is QR; a thru-axle is available soon. Uses a combination of unidirectional and high modulus 3k carbon to produce an extremely light and stiff fork (it says here). It also says there are no cable guides ‘to simplify right or left hand brake positioning’.
Price: £263.99
eXotic Meta L Stem
A stem about a stem. 3D forged 7050 alloy and designed with soft angles to avoid crimping your carbon bars
Price: £23.26
From: CarbonCycles.cc
Discobrakes.com pads
Lots of pads in a variety of flavours from the good people at Discobrakes.com
Price: Varies – but from £5.25 per pair
From: Discobrakes.com
Rock gardz Downtube protectors
Purest carbonium in a downtube protetor/sacrificial carbon stylee. Pop them in hot water to soften, stick them on your frame and away you go! The one on the left is for Rich’s Mondraker Foxy, and the one on the right goes on James’ Kona Process. They’re available for a wide variety of bikes. Here’s what Rich’s looks like on the downtube:
All sorts of shiny carbon loveliness all over your BB. Mmmm.
Price: £35
From: Rock Guardz
Q Rings QX1 chainring
A 34T 12% ovalisation chainring in a 104BDC stylee. You can also get it in a 36T. Apparently you can’t go smaller than 34T on a 104BCD with an oval like this because physics.
Price: £75
From: Rotor
Sock Guy Socks
Our Richard’s surname is Lane. So we gave these to him. Can you guess why? The top word starts with a ‘P’ by the way, not an ‘F’. Although it might also be apt.
Price: £9.95
Well, don’t we all?
Price: £9.95
Both from: Silverfish
Clif Pizza Organic Energy Food
Pizza flavour energy chod. OK, whut? Launched at Sea Otter, so only vague details so far, but expect them at a sports shop near so soon (or a babyfood aisle)…
Price: TBC
From: Clif Bar (eventually).
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
Yes, this has nothing to do with bikes. Yes, it’s a bit nerdy. No, I don’t care. Excellently informative graphic novel (with copious footnotes) about Babbage (Victorian computing pioneer) and Lovelace (daughter of Byron, maths whizz and the first programmer), and what would’ve happened if Babbage had finished the Analytical Engine and he and Lovelace had gone on to FIGHT CRIME. It’s also very funny indeed.
Price: £15ish
From: Good Independent Booksellers everywhere (or Amazon, if you must)
Skratch Labs powders
Energy/fuel/food/powder – you get the idea. More of the healthy; less of the sugar, apparently, in a range of flavours. One of them also has natural caffeine in, so you can feel wired and pure at the same time!
Price:
- Single portion: £1.50
- Box of 20 singles: £24.95
- 1lb bag: £13.95
- Bottle: £7.95
From: Silverfish
Skratch Labs Feed Zone Book
An excellent tom with lots of riding food recipes (75 of them) and stuff, so you don’t go hungry (or worse, bonk) out on the trail. Nom nom nom.
Price: £17.95
From: Silverfish
Right, that’s it! At half twelve (in a bit, folks!) we’ll be live Periscoping stuff from this Fresh Goods on.. er .. Periscope. If you’ve not got the Periscope app, you can get it here. It will, rest assured, be disconcertingly amateurish. Hopefully the twitters will let you know when we’re actually on – and you can watch it for 24 hours after than on Periscope, apparently.
And with that, we’re off to ride bikes (or drive to Salisbury for a thing, if you’re Barney – which is a looming way from Yorkshire) So toodleoo!
…Oh, one more thing. Did you think we’d forgotten? Seeing as you’ve been good, here’s a couple more pics of Tom (and trusty sidekick Greg). Enjoy:
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Yes, well. That wasn’t entirely random.
“60mm of travel to take away any trail chatter that your 5in wide tyres let through”
My fat bike already tries to launch me into the trees on every landing with it’s ‘rebound damping be gone’ rubbery excess.
Another 60mm of sproing is going to have me heading down the trail like a flat stone across a mill pond.
The intermittent contact with terra firma will save on tyre wear, I suppose.
Great write up this week!
Also – the new Rotor rings are seriously awesome (three rides in as compared to the old SS ring) and the Feed Zone Portables book is great. Baked eggs for the win!
Yep, thoroughly enjoyed that!
When are Turner going to release a carbon 5-Spot replacement? Then I can sell a kidney to be able to afford it.
Beer at you desk Friday appears to have begun Thursday night and not stopped.
Someone has been at the funny coloured pills, methinks.
Orange pills?
Yes, no more smarties and coffee for you.
Oh can I have the Turner please, I’ll be ever so nice to it and Mark owes me a price from Builth Wells:-)
Cookbook sounds interesting, as long as it’s not add 50g of skratch lab product to x and then add some more skatch lab product, etc.
Thanks for that, it cheered up the end of a shitty week.
I have the cook book and can recommend it… if you are organized enough to prepare the food before you go for a ride.
Who does the Seven cyclocross bike belong to?
The Seven monstercross/CX/adventure bike is mine. It appeared in last year’s West Highland Way feature, among other appearances. I’m just waiting to find the next silly event to overcommit to and get it out on the trails again. 🙂
I am not a sidekick!
But you ARE a sidekick, Greg. You’re just not that trusty, that’s all 🙂
Damn it….at least I am thrusty.
Like an over-caffeinated terrier? 😉
Can I borrow the Seven? I have three epic day rides planned for the summer and it would be ideal. I’ll return it after the 3 peaks and even write a review!
It’s not legal for the 3Peaks, Thrunton, sorry. Too much tyre clearance. 🙂
@benji – the cookbook is really good, but uses American measures, so you need to check out your quarts, cups etc (or at least the copy we have does)
Like.
Particularly the humour.
Incidentally when are you going to add a ‘like/dislike comment’ button?
So I don’t have to write things like this ^
But we likes your werds scribber
“Lovely grease ports nestled into all those unctious folds and crevices like um .. uh… *suffers metaphor collapse ”
That was a simile collapse
HTH
Stilltortoise – are you waiting to be something else?
I love my Czar I do. You would not believe what that bike can get you up. Proper scary.
And the feedzone book has provided some lovely bike bites.
He/she as writ that
writ it very well
I is educated
so I can tell
More please
Copy and paste funny letters? You all use Macs, press and hold the letter that forms the base followed by a number to select the variant. Invoice in the post for this training or I’ll accept the Turner in lieu of payment.
Oh dear, carboniferous forks……..mmmmmmm.
Interested in your views of the exotic bars and post.