It’s Friday and freedom beckons! Before you get released from the metaphorical coal mine (or literal one if you happen to be a coal miner) here’s this week’s selection of the stuff we’ve been sent to test for you to love, hate or, even worse, be indifferent to.
Isabella the tiny human
Woo! A new Singletrack-ist is born. This is subs guy Jamie’s freshly hatched child – born last week, all pink and healthy. Mother and child are all fine, except for the lifetime of being embarrassed by dad that awaits…
Price: Priceless…
From: The Stork
The North Face Base Camp messenger bag
Made from the same waterproof material as their high altitude expedition duffel bags, this messenger bag has got a padded laptop compartment, 18 litres of storage space and plenty of zipped compartments and pockets for all your bits and bobs. There’s a padded shoulder strap and waist buckle to keep it in place as you pedal through the city centre on your fixie or in our case, down the canal towpath on an incredibly expensive all-mountain bike. They do a load of different sizes too, this one being the medium.
Price: £60
From: The North Face
Sunline V1 All-Mountain stem
Coming in your choice of 50, 60 and 80mm lengths, this CNC machined stem promises to be strong enough for long travel trail bikes but it’s still nice and light at 150g for the shortest version. It’s got smoothed clamp edges for carbon bars, a 34mm stack height and you can get it in gold, blue, red, black or silver, like we have.
Price: £69.99
From: One Industries Europe
Sunline V-1 Flat Bars
While ‘flat bars’ may conjure up images of terrifyingly narrow control units with bar ends, these triple butted bad boys are a stunning 762mm wide with only a smidgen of rise and similar sweep to the riser versions. Thanks to the flat shape you can cut them down to 660mm and still have room for controls – if you’re some kind of freak, that is. If you only want a bit of a trim then they’ve got etched width markers at the ends but we’re rather looking forward to finding out how many local trees aren’t 762mm apart.
Price: £59.99
From: One Industries Europe
Bryton Rider 50 GPS
Fresh from being tested for the next issue’s GPS grouptest, this a slighty cheaper option that has almost all the features of more expensive units. There’s 2Gb of internal memory plus a microSD slot to expand the amount of maps and training data you can store. It uses Open Street Map software and claims 15 hours of battery life with the 2.2″ colour screen. It’ll work with ANT+ sensors too.
Price: £199.99
From: Selwyn Sport
Satmap Active 10 UK Plus GPS
This unit ships with GB and world wide base mapping and they’ve just released this version with UK wide 1:50K mapping bundled on an SD card. You can navigate around the maps with the joystick and it comes with AAA Li Ion batteries plus a LiPol battery pack plus all the cables and mounts you could desire.
Price: £396.25 (inc. 1:50K UK mapping)
From: Satmap
Easton Haven Carbon bars
These are Easton’s carbon all mountain bars, using the their special UD carbon fibre. They’re 711mm wide with a 20mm rise and 9 degrees of backsweep and 5 degrees of up. Despite weighing 170g, they’re stronger than the 2010 MonkeyLite DH bar. Wonder why there’s a pair of them? They’re destined for Chipps’ tandem…
Price: £119.99
From: Extra UK
Karrimor Serenity Mid Ladies eVent boots
Although Mark is holding them, he isn’t going to be wearing them – no, they’re for other half Vicki to wear during all the events we’re off to this summer (including our very own Sleepless in the Saddle 24 hour race on the 6th and 7th August). Hopefully they’ll all be buff and dry but if not these boots have grippy Vibram soles and a mesh and suede mix upper with eVent breathable and waterproof lining.
Price: £82
From: Karrimor
Shimano FD-M980-E XTR front derailleur
It’s a 10spd specific E-type derailleur for triple rings!
Price: £89.99
From: Madison
Bleedy Finger
When soft flesh and hard disc rotor collide there’s only one winner – yup, the roflcopter. Matt was removing the wheel from a bike this morning when he let his finger stray too close to the rotor and -¡BOOSH!- pain happened. Ouch.
Price: Bit of blood, pain, lightheadedness
From: 17mm off the tip
Lowepro PhotoSport 200AW
This is possibly Sim’s favourite product of the last, well, ever. The problem with taking photo gear (in Sim’s case a Nikon D700 and a bunch of lenses) on rides is that you compromise in either camera safety and convenience or in the ability to take a hydration pack and normal riding paraphernalia. The PhotoSport allows you to store a DSLR and lenses in a compartment at the bottom of the pack which is accessible via a zip on the side of the bag and anything else you like in the top. Want to take a photo? Just swing the bag off your right shoulder and the camera compartment is there for you to grab your digital pinhole camera. Sim’s got a nights worth of bivi gear, clothing and a bladder in his along with the D700, 50mm and 14-24mm lens in his, which is pretty good going. It’s also got a valuable-electronics-saving waterproof cover hidden in the bottom to cover the pack when the going gets wet.
Price: TBA
From: Lowepro
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How fast was the bike going when he tried to take that wheel out then?
Damn. My Nukeproof Warhead bar is 760mm.. I think I need that extra 2mm in the V1 bar… Plus it’ll go with the V1 stem I already have!
Damn. That lowepro bag has ruined by business idea. You snooze you lose as they say.
seriously kids, how the hell do you keep managing to do that?
if the wheel is spinning, stop it first?
I’m happy to see silver bike bits making a fashion comeback…
My new haven carbon bars arrived today, just swapped off some ec70 and the two bars are quite different in diameter. The ec70 are wider/thicker – enough for the odi grips to need the clamps prizing apart to slide them off.
Whereas the same grips slide on and off the havens with almost no friction. The brakes – formula rx1 are almost totally cranked up in order to pinch the bar enough for them to not rotate when gently pushed.
Hope yours go in ok, I thought I was going to need a shim for the brakes. Great looking bars though and the first truly useful stem clamping graphics I’ve seen for a while.