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Zyro Open House: Report 3

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It is The Law that every pump company must have a retro track pump complete with wooden handle in their range. The Campione track pump from Genuine Innovations.

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This metal bracket carries four co2 canisters and bolts on to your frame’s bottle bosses. For quicker access than rummaging around in saddlebags or panniers. For expedition rides/races it also means you can fit a little bit more Soreen in your bags.

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Genuine Innovations Mountain Pipe. Looks like a bong but it’s a minipump-co2-canister combo. It’s Presta valve-flavoured by default so that silvery thing in its mouth is a Presta-to-Schrader converter.

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Continuing the theme, the Mountain Pipe has a “stash chamber”. For glueless patches apparently. Yeah, right…

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A few more grams shaved off. Old valves on the left, new valve on the right.
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Another can of bike maintenance-based stuff from Fenwicks. This is for spraying on after you’ve cleaned your bike and it should make it a little bit more difficult for filth to cling on to when you next go for a ride.
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Jonathan from Fenwicks demonstrating their new foamy-and-clingy non-drip chain cleaner. Say goodbye to chain baths. As with their other products, it’s very neutral, not-too acidic or akaline (it’s PH 8 for all you chemists out there). As reference, a lot of other brands’ stuff is around PH 12 or 13.

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It doesn’t atomise and end up in disc calipers/pads. Neither does it drip very much. A little bit of agitation (with a brush or rag etc) is required before rinsing off.

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Hold on to your hats folks… it’s the all-new trigger head for Fenwicks’ classic FS0-10 Bike Cleaner. No more third-finger crushing upon full trigger compression. It was designed by the guy who designs gear knobs for Bentley don’t you know? What you can’t see is a new interior straw that works even when the bottle is inverted through some clever ball-bearing actuated valving. You can let go of your hats now.

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The “Aero” post-pack from Altura. More disc-brake friendly than panniers. Useful for touring, trekking and huge mileage endurance events like The Great Divide and the like.

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The “Aero post-pack’s clunk-click quick-release bracket makes for quick and easy rack removal.

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The Altura Fuse pannier heads up their new welded seamed luggage range. As waterproof as other brands out there but much, much lighter.

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These fabric side-loops are for attaching rear LEDs to for extra visibility on the roads.

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The backside of the Altura Fuse pannier.

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The slightly less-featured “Arc” pannier bag.

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A savoury flavoured energy bar. Pretzel flavoured chewbar from Powerbar.

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FAO FixieTwits – here’s the Panaracer Pasela tyre in white.

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Panaracer are getting back into the “performance” mountain bike market again after a few years concentrating on road/urban tyres. To this end they’ve signed up Cedric Gracia to help design and promote their new range. This is the new Panaracer 4XAM tyre. 2.35 size. The tyres behave differently depending which direction they’re run but Panaracer won’t be dictating which way you choose to run them as Cedric thinks the intended riders are quite happy to play around with tyre directions, pressures etc. A unique concept with the new tyre range is what they’ve done with the rubber compound (dubbed “Combo Compound”). Basically it’s sticky rubber with a 1mm-ish hard rubber shell over the top. Stay with us here… The idea behind it is that the tyre knobbles can still deform and splay like a soft rubber tyre (for increased footprint) but they will be more durable and have better rolling resistance.

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The Panaracer XC 2.1 tyre. Yes, the centre knobbles do indeed spell out Cedric Gracia’s intitials. The XC and the 4XAM are the first in a larger range of Cedric-approved tyres coming out throughout 2010.

Orange Switch 6er. Stif Squatcher. Schwalbe Magic Mary Purple Addix front. Maxxis DHR II 3C MaxxTerra rear. Coil fan. Ebikes are not evil. I have been a writer for nigh on 20 years, a photographer for 25 years and a mountain biker for 30 years. I have written countless magazine and website features and route guides for the UK mountain bike press, most notably for the esteemed and highly regarded Singletrackworld. Although I am a Lancastrian, I freely admit that West Yorkshire is my favourite place to ride. Rarely a week goes by without me riding and exploring the South Pennines.

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Comments (7)

    Why can i not help thinking the panaracer 2.1 xc cedric tyre will shoot from under me on the first root i happen to be within a metre of.

    …and clog with mud at the first opportunity.

    Savoury energy bar might make a pleasant change though.

    “Basically it’s sticky rubber with a 1mm-ish hard rubber shell over the top. ”
    so it’ll be a sticky rubber tyre after the 1st ride then?

    You take 1mm of rubber off of a hard compound tyre in one ride?
    If that was the case you’d take all of about 5 rides to make a medium chunky tyre completely slick?
    The CG tyre really doesn’t look right. Like angryratio said, they don’t look rootfriendly whatsoever. With the long sections like that I don’t imagine they’ll have much of a grasp on pretty much anything? Wet grass, slop, loose rock .. ?

    Ohh the new Fenwicks spray trigger was a Dragons Den product don’t you know.

    “You take 1mm of rubber off of a hard compound tyre in one ride?
    If that was the case you’d take all of about 5 rides to make a medium chunky tyre completely slick?”
    dont base other people standards by your own ;) yes I’m getting through tyres fairly quick with the amount of miles I’m logging.

    Me likey the Fenwicks chain cleaner, esp if it doesn’t go everywhere. Liking that Altura seat rack and bag. Any idea of volume? Looks good to boost my shopping capacity without having to go for full on rack and panniers.

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