After a busy week of deadline madness – arguably the freshest of fresh goods would be Issue 76 – we’ve arrived at the end of the week, and here’s our traditional look at everything that’s come through the front door. We’ve got everything, from posh forks to socks…
Fox 34 Float CTD 160 forks
The 34mm Fox chassis may have originally been made for long travel big wheel forks, but this year 26″ wheeled riders (and 650B if that’s your thing) get a chance to occupy the middle ground between the lighter 32 series and the hard hitting 36 line. The fork has 160mm of travel using the new, more linear and coil-like air spring assembly and the sealed FIT damper. It’s available as a travel adjustable TALAS model and comes with 15mm through axle and tapered steerer.
Price: £899
From: Mojo
The damping adjustment now uses the three-position CTD system, where you can pick from lots of platform damping in Climb mode, hard-medium-light levels in Trail and fully open in Descend. It’s designed to be easier to understand and use, being the same system that’s used across their rear shocks and DOSS adjustable seatpost – both of which we’ll be reviewing in the next issue of the mag.
Endura Coolmax Socks
Made from a mix of Coolmax and Lycra to keep your sweaty feet as cool and comfy as possible, these socks have an extra stretchy instep to keep them nicely in place. They come in packs of three and you get multicoloured options too. As a bonus, these will make an excellent Christmas present for anyone you know called Max…
Price: £11.99 for a pack of three
From: Endura
Endura Thermolite armwarmers
As the season of eternal drizzle approaches – well, yet another one – it might be time to get some arm warmers in. They’re a versatile way to keep warm, retaining the option to quickly strip them off should you get too hot or the unthinkable happens and the sun actually shines. We’re not bitter. These models are made from Thermolite material to keep you warm without too much bulk and they have silicone grippers on the upper arm to hold them in place.
Price: £14.99
From: Endura
Endura MT500 shorts
Made from a tough Cordura and Lycra mix outer with polypropylene inner to wick away moisture, the multiple panels connected by Kevlar stitching. They’ve got seamless legs with silicone grippers to stop you giving too much away and there’s a drawstring waist to keep your belly in place. The liner is Endura’s stretchy multi density foam 600 series pad and a women’s version is available too…
Price: £64.99
From: Endura
Charades anyone?
Endura Baabaa baselayer
Sim, art director and sometime electro-robot is modelling the BaaBaa short sleeve base layer. It’s made from pure, fine gauge Merino wool with flatlocked seams for extra comfort and anti-pong properties.
Price: £37.99
From: Endura
It’s also available in this green, which New Wave/camp rave Jon demonstrates.
CTS Products Stable Table
If you ride a bike with flat bars and have got rather annoyed at its inability to stay upright when you turn it upside down for a fettle or keep damaging bar mounted gadgets and levers when you’re whipping the wheels off, Chesterfield based CTS have a solution. The Stable Table holds the bars clear of the ground and also provides a base from which to work. It’s designed to be small enough to pop into the car or to keep in a more confined workshop/your front room…
Price: £TBC
From: CTS Products
CTS Products Steady Eddie
The Steady Eddie is the portable version of the Stable Table, letting your bars stay above the muck, preventing any damage to and bits and pieces on your flat barred bike. Your bars sit in the folded groove and they hold in place using elastic cord, which has a neat pull-ring to ease fitting and removal.
Price: £TBC
From: CTS Products
CTS Products Stead Stand
Made for either storing or working on your bike, the Stead Stand is constructed from tough but light 3mm aluminium plate. It holds the bike by the chainstays, allowing you to spin the wheel and cranks freely for setup or lubing duties as well as bike storage. CTS say that it’ll fit any bike with parallel chainstays, whether they be 26″ or 29″. The chainstays sit on covered hooks with rubber grippers to prevent any damage.
Price: £TBC
From: CTS Products
CTS Products Camel Spana
Early Camelbak bladders could sometime be a right bugger to get free, requiring violence, swearing and a load strength. The Camel Spana is a simple solution to that problem, giving your loads of extra leverage to make entry easy.
Price: £TBC
From: CTS Products
Kinesis Strut R750 Carbon bar
Kinesis have got some new carbon bars! They weight a scant 166g for both the flat and 15mm rise versions but they come in at a all-rounder friendly 750mm width. Made from unidirectional carbon, the flat versions have 0° upsweep and 6.5° backsweep while the risers have 3º upsweep and a backsweep of 5º.
Price: £99.99
From: Upgrade Bikes
Just because they have cut mark doesn’t mean you have to…
Cannondale Airspeed Max pump
Cannondale do a tidy range of parts and accessories to compliment their bike range. This is their packable mini-stirrup pump, which has a collapsible T-hand and locking foot stand. It’s got a twin screw-on head on the extra-long hose and the pump can be switched between high volume and high pressure modes, so you should be able to do fatty MTB tyres as easily as road bike ones. The guts are fully rebuildable too…
Price: £29.99
From: Cycling Sports Group
You just need to twist the body to switch pump modes..
Zefal Profil Mini Trackpump MT01
If you can’t be bothered lugging a trackpump around in the car – or really, really hate pumping tyres up with a tiny pump – then this is the thing for you. At a fairly chunky 345mm long, the aluminium bodied pump has a fold-out stirrup with rubber base, folding T-handle and a flip-leverhead that’s compatible with both types of valve. It’ll pump up to 130psi too…
Price: £29.9
From: Zyro
It’s a whopper isn’t it? iPhone for scale…
Cannondale Airspeed Plus pump
Back to the world of genuinely mini-pumps with Cannondale’s small but perfectly formed Airspeed Plus. The aluminium barrel houses a retractable hose with screw on head and it’s about perfect for shoving in the rucsac for everyday use…
Price: £24.99
From: Cycling Sports Group
Shimano IceTech pads
We’ve been riding about on various Shimano IceTech equipped brakes for a while now and we’ve been very impressed with them. It’s about time for some new pads though and we thought we’d replace them with the proper, heat-sink finned items from Shimano to get full advantage. The fin is sandwiched inbetween the metal backing plate and the sintered pad itself, conducting heat away from the system to ensure consistent, fade free braking, weighing roughly bugger-all as a side effect. And they look pretty cool too.
Price: £29.99
From: Madison
Brunox lubricants
We were sent some Brunox Deo fork lube a while back and were massively impressed with it’s ability to reduce stiction and remove dust from suspension forks and shock – but here’s their full range. From left to right, we have Top-Kett, a lube that they say lasts up to three times longer than other bike lubes. It comes in dropper and spray bottles.
Next up we have Turbo-Spray. It’s a multi purpose lubricant, creep oil for freeing sticky bits and also removes all kinds of dirt and acts as a polish. It doesn’t contain any PTFE, Silicon or graphite, instead using Brunox’s proprietary Turboline, which is totally harmless to the environment and smells nice to boot. They only use 3% propellant in the can, so you get plenty for your money too…
Lub & Cor does what the name suggests, preventing corrosion and lubricating anything from rifles to your inline skates – assuming you own both of those items. They reckon it’s perfect to stop bikes being damaged by outdoors storage, so we’ll be coating our commuter bikes in plenty of it.
Epoxy Brunox isn’t maybe all that relevant to bikes, but it’s still rather cunning. It’s a rust treatment primer, destroying the rust and leaving a surface that can be treated with paint or any similar top coat. They say it penetrates 7-10 times deeper than conventional emulsion products. We’re going to introduce this to the mild scabbing on Jon’s other half’s 1985 320i and see what happens…
Brunox is the brainchild of a world renowned chemist and they supply lubricants to people such as BMW, Audi and the Mercedes F1 team. Based in Switzerland, they’re well known over on the continent, being the brand leaders in the cycling lubes in Germany. If it’s good enough for them…
From: Bicyclebitz – 01430 827510
Torq Bars
The Torq bar has had a bit of a tweak. They’ve still got the same flavours and organic UK manufacture but the bars now integrate into a more joined up sports nutrition system, the bar giving the same amount of energy as a gel or 500ml of drink, meaning you can choose whichever form of nutrition you desire as long as you take it at the same intervals.
They’re actually rather tasty, so don’t put the fact that they’re “ultra high in carbohydrate, very low in fat and with ingredients wide-ranging in glycaemic index for immediate and sustained glucose release” put you off. There are four flavours available – our personal favourite is Raspberry and Apple. It goes well with their Rhubarb and Custard gels for an extremely pudding flavoured energy hit…
Price: £32.40 for a box of 24
From: Torq
Comments (20)
Comments Closed
How does the axle to crown length of the 34, 160 forks compare to the 36, 160’s?
Give me a mo, I’ll break out the tape measure…
Edit: The 34 160s are 535mm and the 36 160s are 545mm – hope this helps.
If they’re cheap I reckon a set of Steady Eddies might find a home in my shed/back of car.
I have used the brunox spray on fork lube, mid 12 hr races and its like getting an instant lower services. It’s very good stuff no replacement for a real clean out but it works well in the field.
Thanks Jon!
Must be a typo 160g for a 750mm wide bar?
Charades pic easily the best thing on STW for months
Do the fins on the Shimano pads really make a noticeable difference? I’m impressed with the XT’s that I’ve just fitted, but dubious of the finned benefits
I have a pair of Endura MT500 Bib shorts that I bought in 1996. They are still in one piece and useable (wore them on one of my long commutes this week). The pad in mine is rather “old fashioned” but has never rubbed me up and cos of the material that the short body is made from they haven”t worn thin, even round the pad seam (an area that can be very embarrassing/exhibitionist depending on your POV, with some shorts as they wear). I’m pretty sure I paid £65 all those years ago, but as said they are the bibshort.
If the new ones are half as good I reckon they would still be a class bit of kit.
Personally I’m looking forward to these new Endura bibshort/race baggy combos. Possibly the items I have been crying out for for years.
Just spat coffee all over a very expensive Eizo monitor – thanks for the Charades pic!
“Do the fins on the Shimano pads really make a noticeable difference? I’m impressed with the XT’s that I’ve just fitted, but dubious of the finned benefits”
About 50°C reckons Shimano (on a long Alpine-style descent). Combine that with 50°C reduction from Ice-Tech and the combo should lower your temperatures by 100°.
I’ve had to avoid drinking coffee at my computer today as that charades photo keeps cracking me up. 🙂
QR15 on the Float34s…WHY??!?!
But thirty quid for brake pads!!!!!!!!!!!!
For the record I picked up a stead stand at the recent SITS event and and found it bang on, you know the sort of thing in the middle of a flat field a mud clogged bike and the only option of resting the bike against the car or laying it on its side and having the oh my back moment whilst cleaning mud from the front mech with a stick…recommended
charades pic – hahaha!
fox 34’s – mmm want-y
160g 750mm bars – scary light! is that weight correct??
£899 for those forks?? *goes rigid*
Help on the charade pics would be very appreciated.
charades pic is truly epic
Charades pic is obviously Lord of the rings – Fellowship of the Ring!