Normal Friday based Fresh Goods service has been resumed! Welcome to the usual selection of stuff that’s turned up in the office. Our 140mm fork grouptest is coming together nicely, we’ve got a set of Bombers to get owning trails with and a load of bits and bobs we found on our travels…
Marzocchi 55 RC3 Evo Titanium forks
There’s no denying that Marzocchi went through a bit of a bad patch a few years ago. After years of being known for utterly bombproof as well as being ridiculously smooth, a move to Far Eastern manufacturing ended up in widespread reports of reliability issues. Marzocchi have been trying to put that behind them and we’ve heard and seen plenty of good stuff about their latest forks especially these, the 170mm travel, Titanium coil sprung ‘freeride/all mountain’ 55 forks.
The RC3 forks feature an open bath damper that can be self-serviced and is designed to let the user tune the compression shim-stack to their own preference, like you’re a proper factory pro. The upper legs are nickel coated to reduce friction and wear and they’re internally tapered to reduce weight. Talking of that, claimed weight is about 2.4kg, just about perfect for owning someone with.
The external compression adjuster lives on the bottom of the leg with rebound, mechanical and air preload up on the tops. There’s a QR 20mm thru axle and you can get them in a tapered steerer version too. We’re looking forward to getting out on them seeing if the Marzocchi reputation of old is set to return…
Price: £879.95
From: Windwave
Fox Factory 32 Float FIT RLC forks
In Issue 73 of the magazine we’re going to have a forking great big grouptest of 140mm travel forks, with some 120mm 29ers thrown in for good measure.
This is the top end trail fork from the vulpine Californians. It uses the fully sealed FIT damper with rebound, low speed compression and lockout adjustment in one leg and a fixed travel air spring in the other, offering 140mm of travel. The legs themselves are covered in the shiny and slippy Kashima coating and use the new, low-friction SKF seals.
Price: £739
From: Mojo Suspension
We’ve gone for a set of 1.125″ steerer forks with 15mm QR axle, but you’ve got your pick of open 9mm dropouts with straight steerer and a tapered option with 15QR as well.
Blackburn Camber bottle cage
If you’ve bought an ultra light bike, shaved all your body hair off and you’re filling your bottles with deuterium depleted water to save all the weight you can, then why put up with heavy bottle cages? These carbon fibre items weigh a claimed 26g each and they come with a lifetime warranty. Only serious dehydration will save you more weight.
Price: £44.99
From: Madison
Shelter frame protection tape
If you want to protect the paintwork or carbon finish of your pride and joy (or bicycle) then Shelter have this multi-layered acrylic tape which is claimed to ‘dissipate impacts on two axis’, which we think means it’ll reduce the chances of dents, chips and dings. Jenn is going to slather the Pivot Mach 5.7 that turned up last week in it, just to keep that box fresh feel.
In the frame kit you get downtube, chainstay and headtube sized pieces with four cable rub sized bits in there as well. If you don’t mind getting all arts and crafts and cutting your own shapes then they also offer a 5m long and 54mm wide roll which should be enough for total bike coverage or a protecting a couple of bikes.
Prices: Frame kit: £26.99 Roll: £54.99
Ortlieb Messenger Bag
It’s a classic waterproof messenger bag from the German luggage specialists at Ortlieb. It’ll fit 30L of stuff inside it and has a proper rucksack style harness and waistband to stop everything moving about.
Price: £82
From: Lyon Outdoor Equipment
Girl Scout Cookies
Jon brought these back from the Santa Cruz launch in the US of A. No, we had no idea you could make cookies from Girl Scouts (shouldn’t they be Girl Guides anyway?) but you can and they taste of mints. Thanks to Mike and Kelley…
Benromach 10Yr Speyside Single Malt
Benromach is Speyside’s smallest distillery but they produce some of the best single malt whisky out there and this particular dram has a whole host of gold medals from various competitions. It’s matured in a mix of Bourbon and Sherry casks before being transferred to European oak Oloroso Sherry casks to mature. Benromach is also heavily involved with mountain biking, sponsoring the No Fuss Three 10 series. Resident whisky aficionado Chipps should be pleased…
From: Benromach
Twin Six & Morvelo clothing
Minneapolis based Twin Six make a load of stylish on and off bike kit. We’ve been sent got a selection of their T shirts, socks and also some shorts from UK based Morvelo, all from Always Riding…
Quick Energy
This supplement contains B-Vitamins, amino acids and caffeine. It’s claimed to help release energy without the associated slump you get after a normal energy drink. Each 59ml bottle contains just 5 calories and is sugar free. We’ve got some orange and lime flavoured samplers to try, although we’ll probably steer clear of mixing them with Jagermeister. Until later this afternoon evening at any rate.
Price: £TBC
From: Quick Energy
Comments (12)
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By eck lads, your early this week.
couldn’t sleep?
55 quid for a roll of frame tape… it better do what it claims for that price.
For that price I’d want the tape to self heal.
Ooooh those Fox Forks do look nice.
9.00am on a Friday morning and I’m now thinking about whisky, a wee dram won’t hurt.
How much is the malt?
Malt Whisky and talk of Jaegar bombs; ‘beer at your desk Friday’ has taken a bit of a twist this week!
Those Bombers are more expensive than Float 36 RLC, are they having a laugh?
Got to love Twin Six and Morvelo stuff – more clothing companies should take note from these guys – especially the Twin Six jersey styling!!
got a set of those 55’s, they are unreal. worth every penny. the make other big single crowns I’ve had feel like a bag of nails!
got the new 120mm Float rlc 29″ kashima for my nicolai helius AC on its way too – look forward to your thoughts as so many people are complaining about the lack of ultimate travel across the 120mm stroke………… ???
Have you seen the video of a fluorescent light tube covered in that Shelter stuff and being whacked by a lump hammer and not smashing? Fairly amazing stuff!