Welcome to the leading thing to do a on a Friday lunchtime, save getting slightly hammered in the pub and then trying to stay awake until home time. It’s time to take a look at all the pretty things that have landed at the Singletrack office…
Cane Creek Double Barrel Air shock
We’ve just been sent this whopper of an air shock – the brand spanking new air version of the twin tube damped and eminently tweakable Cane Creek Double Barrel. Although lighter than the coil spring version, it definitely veers more to the heavy duty end of the spectrum. There’s a mass of adjustment, with independent high and low speed compression and high and low speed rebound working on different damping circuits. It comes with a load of air can spacers to tweak the bottom out feel too.
Price: £475
From: Extra UK
Hayes Prime Expert disc brakes
The Prime is the evolution of Hayes’ Stroker radial levered system. They’ve tweaked the hydraulics to improve the power and there’s a whole load of adjustment on this, the Expert, which has tool free free stroke adjustment and reach adjustment. They’ve canted the reservoir at an angle to improve the power and modulation at the end of the lever stroke, something of a bugbear with some radial designs.
Price: £139.99
From: Hotlines
Sombrio Highline Epik Freeride shorts
Sombrio are probably best known for their freeride-y gear, but this is part of their Epik range, designed for well, more epic riding. These shorts are just on the right side of close for baggies and are made from four way stretch material with a durable water repellent coating. We love a bit of DWR. They’ve also got thigh vents and plenty of zippered pockets for keeping your dinner money in.
Price: £89.99
From: Hotlines
Sombrio Vagabond Tech Riding shirt
The casual-looking-shirt-for-riding-in thing is really starting to take off. This is Sombrio’s nicely lumberjack-esque take on it, made from a polyester/cotton mix. Zippered underarm vents should stop you from getting too warm – or at least help to share your stench.
Price: £79.99
From: Hotlines
Cicerone Mountain Biking in the Yorkshire Dales book
In a digital age, the humble paper guide book still has a place. This has thirty different routes across the Dales of varying length and difficulty including some classic big hill loops. They reckon that there are also a few routes that’ll come as a surprise to even seasoned Dales riders – although we imagine you’ll be able to pass many an hour arguing that they’re the wrong way round.. 😉
Price: £14.95
From: Cicerone
Sun Ringlé Charger Pro29 wheelset
Benji tested the regular sized Charger Pro wheelset a while ago and he liked it a lot. The 29″ version uses the same tangential spoked cartridge bearing hubs with the ability (and included adaptors) to fit your pick of QR, 15mm or 20mm axles at the front. An adaptor to convert the rear to 12mm is available separately. They’re aimed at the emerging supersize all-mountain bracket with 28mm wide rims and they come complete with a Stan’s Notubes rimstrip tubeless kit fitted – and some sealant too.
As an aside, we might just start referring to 26″ as regular, 650B as large and 29″ as supersize – it should make ordering things easier down the bike shop when everyone has three different versions of the same product;
“Can I get a tube please?”
“Wanna supersize that for just £1.50?”
etc…
Price: £449.99
From: Hotlines
Hubs are red while the rims are available in your pick of white or black…
Fenwick’s Stealth lube
Made using Moth Wing technology, harvesting the tiny, lubricating flakes of dust from the bright light loving creatures – sorry, wrong product. This is actually Fenwick’s super long lasting lube, developed by a trio of specialists in lubes, materials science and surfactants and nothing to do with moths at all. It’s entirely synthetic and is said to penetrate deep into your chain, bond to the metal and keep you running smoothly for hundreds of miles, even in filth. We’re rather looking forward to that if it’s true…
Price: £9.99 for 100ml
From: Zyro
Fenwick’s Stealth Mountain Bike Kit
Obviously, with the time you’ll now save not having to lube your chain you can now keep the rest of your bike cleaner with this handy cleaning kit. Well – that and the Stealth lube works best if applied to a nice clean chain. This kit includes some of their excitingly foamy chain cleaner, some concentrated and dilute bike cleaner complete with spray nozzle. You also get a chain sponge, normal sponge, some disc brake cleaner, suspension lube and multi purpose lube – and of course, some Stealth lube.
Price: £48.92
From: Zyro
Answer Rove AM stem
Need a dinky strong stem? This could be the answer! See what we did there? This stem is 3D forged and then CNC machined from a chunk of 6066 aluminium alloy with a respectable 40mm stack height and lengths that range from 60 to 100mm. It also comes with a top cap and a couple of stackers, which is handy…
Price: £64.99
From: Hotlines
Fox Flygirl jersey and Women’s Ventilator shorts
A load of Fox ladies clothing dropped in to the office – quite literally. Here we’ve got another technical shirt, made from quick drying and breathable aircool fabric. The trails are going to look quite smart if this carries on. What next, technical cravats? We digress. The Ventilator shorts have loads of erm, ventilation built into the four way stretch fabric and come complete with an Evo short liner. They’ve got internal waist cinches and a zipped waist pocket for your valuables too.
Price: £40 for jersey, £80 for shorts
From: Fox Europe
Fox Women’s Sierra jersey
A nice lightweight women’s specific jersey here, with not-too-girly graphics on the airtex style fabric.
Price: £36
From: Fox Europe
dnb Ladies Merino S/S Roundneck base layer
dhb do some great value and well made British designed kit. This merino wool top uses super fine yarn for a super soft feel and it uses pretty lightweight fabric, so it should be ideal for a summer outer layer or next to your skin in colder weather.
Price: £30.99 (although they’re on sale with 25% off at the moment)
From: Wiggle
dhb Ladies Clip sleeveless jersey
Probably one for the summer this – a nice, thin sleeveless top. It’s high breathable and has anti bacterial properties too. Yes, black is available too.
Price: £37.99
From: Wiggle
dhb Ladies Chevron Air
It’s a super wicking technical top with a full length zip and anti-pong fabric – we like the stripes. at the back there’s a zipped side entry pocket and three nicely flat cargo pockets, so it’ll have storage for the road bike but sit well under a rucksack on the mountain bike – assuming you care about that sort of etiquette.
Price: £37.99
From: Wiggle
Fox Women’s Digit gloves
Some lady sized trail gloves for lady hands. They’ve got a nice thin one piece clarino palm and flex sections on the uppers, which make it super easy to throw signs or more likely, hold onto the bars comfortably. They also come in a black, if pink isn’t your thing…
Price: £26
From: Fox Europe
Intrepid Apparel Campaign shorts
Matt really liked the last Intrepid shorts he tested lots. The brand may be pretty new, but they’re off to a good start. These are their freeridey/DH shorts, made from a tough three way stretch material and nicely long cut.
Price: £85
From: Intrepid Apparel
O’Neal Boogie jacket
A proper minging weather jacket now, just in case you thought all this summer kit was a bit premature. It’s made from super breathable material with removable helmet friendly hood and poacher’s pocket style fold out flap to cover your bottom to protect it from spray.
Price: £149.99
From: Fli Distribution
Limar Ultralight + helmet
It’s the world’s lightest helmet! It’s so light it’s actually floating out of Matt’s hands – well, not quite but at a claimed 175g for a medium (office scale are broken sorry, fact fans) it’s as close to wearing nowt on your head as possible. There are loads of vents in the co-moulded shell and a simple but effective ratchet system to tighten it down at the back.
Price: £129.99
From: Today’s Cyclist
PHD Yukon Pullover down top
Beautifully handmade in Stalybridge with a Drishell outer, this top should be good to -15°C thanks to 900 weight down. PHD is the choice of mountaineers and Arctic explorers the world over, so it should stop definitely Chipps getting cold on his way to the shops or in a damp field at the races. You can see his PHD factory visit here for the lowdown on how they’re made.
Price: £262
From: PHD
Lake MX100 shoes
With a nicely treaded Vibram sole, these clipless pedal compatible shoes are designed to be a good crossover between touring and hike-a-bike friendly mountain bike shoes. They’ve got a reinforced toe box, loads of heel support and ripstop softshell panels on the outer.
Price: £79.99
From: Today’s Cyclist
Oakley Radar Lock glasses
Chipps ‘Zoolander’ Chippendale is modelling these brand spanking new photochromic versions of Oakley’s Radarlock glasses for our upcoming grouptest. They’ve got a certain look of the classic M frame about them we think….
Price: From £195
From: Oakley
Comments (3)
Comments Closed
you’ll love the db air, although it has instantly made my float feel like an uncontrolled bag of spanners
float forx that is
RE- ‘the casual-looking-shirt-for-riding-in’ .
Is this some sort of joke?