As Wikipedia states ‘Friday is the day between Thursday and Saturday’ but let’s not think of it as blocking our way to the weekend. Oh no! For Friday brings Fresh Goods to the shores of the island of Singletrack and we’ve pulled in the nets to capture a massive shoal this week.
Read on; it’s all here for you to cast your eyes over…
Santa Cruz Tallboy LTc
First up this week is Santa Cruz’ featherlight, yet aggressive all mountain 29er: the Tallboy LTc in a lovely fast banana/custard colour. Our test bike is in the XT AM build guise with full Shimano XT drivetrain, XT brakes and a Rockshox Revelation RCT3 29er 140mm travel fork.
Fox takes care of the rear suspension with the frames VPP linkage giving 135mm of rear travel. A stable pedalling platform combined with a distinct lack of weight should see the LTc flying up climbs before hooning back down. You can see how we liked it in the next issue of Singletrack Magazine.
Dave’s been a big fan of the Highball carbon and has been positively salivating at the thought of getting his leg over the LTc, luckily the carbon is wipe-clean…
Price: £5199
From: Jungle
Giant Trance X 29er 1
The Trance X 29er is a new addition to Giant’s line up for 2013. The tapered headset holds a Fox 32 Float 29 CTD with QR15 thru-axle and the bike comes with a SRAM X9/X7 2×10 drivetrain with Avid Elixir 3 brakes doing the stopping duties.
The Trance X 29er offers 120mm travel front and back. Giant reckon ‘Maestro Moves Mountains’, with this bike heading up north for a long term test with Sanny we’re going to be testing that concept to the max.
Price: £1999
From: Giant
Castelli
A courier with clothing courtesy of Castelli caused Shaggy and Sim to cavort, or should that be catfight confusingly? (That’s enough alliteration. Ed) Sim hoped the power of windstopper would somehow protect him but it proved unable to overcome the sexy sight of Shaggy’s skinsuit. Phew.
Sim models the Castelli Mortirolo Due Jacket with Windstopper X-Fast2 front, perfect for spring/autumn conditions or drier winter days with zipperered chest vents to allow thermal control. The high-viz colour scheme and reflective tabs on chest,back and rear pockets make it a great commuting or road jacket.
Shaggy meanwhile is wearing the Castelli Cross San Remo Speedsuit a cross specific one piece with thermoflex fleece fabric and 3/4 sleeves to ‘take the chill off’.
Price: Castelli Mortirolo Due Jacket – £175, Castelli Cross Sanremo Speedsuit – £190
From: Saddleback
Islabikes Creig 26
Possibly the best little persons’ bike we’ve seen and not just because of the mango colour scheme. The Creig 26 is aimed at the 9+ market for ‘kids who are serious about their mountain biking’. A 7005 aluminium frame, SRAM X5 1×10 set up with 11-36 cassette, Elixir 3 brakes and a 80mm Rockshox XC32 SoloAir fork all add up to us wanting to be kids again. Dammit.
Price: £699
From: Islabikes
Clif Bars
A box of white chocolate, macadamia nut Clif bars? What were they thinking? Let’s face it they’re not going to last long are they? Moar please.
Price: £16.99 per box of 12
From: 2Pure.co.uk
Mountain High: Europe’s 50 Greatest Cycle Climbs – Saddlebag Edition
A book that gives maps, routes,profiles, lengths and heights of Europe’s 50 greatest road climbs. Read it, lube up, wax off and tick em off.
Price: £9.99
From: Independent bookshops that pay their tax.
Bont Vaypor MTB XC Shoe
Handmade carbon monocoque construction chassis for a stiff pedalling platform, replaceable grip sections on the soles, memory foam padding and scuff protection for the shiny shiny uppers. Probably the most thought out XC and ‘cross race specific shoe we’ve seen this year.
Price: £225
From: Saddleback
TRP Parabox
TRP’s hydraulic disc adapter for the ‘cross generation, allowing any drop bar brake lever to run ‘proper stoppers’ (they advise against using them on Di2, but we’ve ignored that and had no issues). Barrel adjusters allow on the fly adjustments and the whole master cyclinder sits neatly under the stem.
Price: £349.99
From: Upgrade
Praxis Works Chainrings
Forged cyclocross specific 110BCD – 48/36 rings engineered and coated in ‘super slippery LiquidAno’ to shift in the worst of conditions. We’ll see how they like the local grit and mulch mix.
Price: £119.99
From: Upgrade
Manky
A proven success in the NZ mtb world Manky Maps are maps, err, on a hanky. Featuring either single or double sided print you can navigate with, wear, mop brows or even have a picnic on your Manky. No sweat navigation.
Price: TBC
From: Manky Maps
Magicshine MJ-872R
The Magicshine MJ-872R offers a claimed 1600 lumens for a burn time of 2.2 hours using 4 x CREE XP-G LEDs. A remote switch makes scrolling between four light levels easy work. We’ll be adding this to our upcoming mini grouptest.
Price: £110
From: Magicshine.co.uk
Fusion SpeedLED
The Fusion SpeedLED boasts a claimed 3000 lumens with run times of 4-5 hours in a one piece integrated light and battery design. A solid build should ensure it survives any mishaps. We’ll be using it to un-dark the night rides we’ve got lined up and will report back on performance.
Price: £499.99
From: Full Beam
Thule Pack ‘n’ Pedal bags and racks
Lastly we’ve a whole stack of Thule brand bike luggage and racking, enough to head into the sunset and never be heard of again until we’re found living on a diet of sticks because we forgot to pack a stove. As you’d expect from Thule it’s rugged and well thought out and includes PDA and iPad carrying options for the more up to date tech savvy traveller.
The racks boasts the ability to attach to both the front and rear of the bike (even if you don’t have rack mounts) with a nice plastic platform to strap your baguettes to.
Tote – Black £70.00
Large Pannier – £100.00
Seat Bag – £15.00
Black Rain Cover Pannier – £17.00
Black Rain Cover Handlebar – £12.00
Wallet – £35.00
Handlebar Bag – £85.00
iPad/Tablet/Map Sleeve – £40.00
Sport Rack -£75.00
Tour rack – £85.00
Side frame set -£25.00
Handlebar Mount -£35.00
From: Thule
Comments (22)
Comments Closed
That Tallboy is nice, but £5199 for a bike is a bit steep!
That Thule rack looks uncannily like the Freeload Sport Rack. I presume they’ve bought the design. Anyone know?
Far too spendy for my pockets, but damn that LTc is nice!
£1999 for the Giant and
£5199 for the Tallboy
Not sure I have to go on…
“£1999 for the Giant and
£5199 for the Tallboy
Not sure I have to go on…”
Is supect the carbon version of the Giant Trance X 29er will be £5000+ when and if it comes out. The Anthem X 29er carbon is £5999.
Agree though, thats crazy money,,,
3000 lumens…. I’m so out of date..
How does a bright yellow Santa Cruz somehow look more ‘stealth’ than a black and white Giant?
£2k for the Giant seems sort of affordable – unless you feel the immediate urge to remove brakes, wheels and finishing kit to upgrade to your preferred / lighter / better equipment.
Don’t worry about the price of top end bikes, I test rode two recently, including the LTc around Cwm Carn. Found it nigh on impossible to see any meaningful difference between it and my old Trek. I suspect 80% of riders out there (if they were honest with themselves) would find the same. Whereas after eight year’s riding, two sessions of bike training have produced real improvements.
Just me or does that isla creig26 look more in proportion than the tallboy LTc?
Whats going on with the seat angle on the 29er TranceX though? Looks maverick-esque
That Trance is one ugly mother
Where to buy the book that’s not Amazon, owned by Amazon, or ‘powered by’ Amazon?
That trance looks really awful.
The trance looks worse in the flesh, makes the anthem 29erX look like a princess
Could the manky also double as a ****?
Giant lost any chance of selling me a bike when they invented ANOTHER headset standard.
Who cares how (relatively) cheap the Giant is…it looks SO wrong…
I really like the way it looks. It’s definitely grown on me. As for how it rides, keep watching this space!
Yes Thule bought Freeload lock stock and Harrell – a great success for the Dunedin boys. Great product.
Well I was lucky enough to ride the LTc around the Dales this weekend and found it fantastic, brilliant fun and makes my Heckler feel a bit old fashioned now. Sadly I’ll never be able to afford one.
Any chance of a properly scientific light test as some of those figures seem to be from the marketing department rather than anything provable 🙂
mikewsmith –
“The Fusion SpeedLED boasts a claimed 3000 lumens…”
“The Magicshine MJ-872R offers a claimed 1600 lumens…”
We’re well aware of the difference between factory lumen ratings and how a light performs on the trail. Don’t worry, we tend to ignore the former and focus on the latter when we’re testing… 😉