It’s the penultimate Friday before Christmas. The weekend’s almost here. It’s Fresh Goods Friday…
First up and hot off the presses we’ve got our Christmas card. We can’t send one to everyone who uses the site, except by the medium of internetz pixels. So here you all go. Merry Christmas, we love you all. Now back to signing the hundreds we need to post…
Surly Karate Monkey
The Surly Karate Monkey was one of the first production 29er singlespeeds (and indeed 29er bikes) back in the day. The frame is a custom drawn 4130 CroMoly steel frame with a curved seat tube to bring the rear wheel forward, shortening the wheelbase. The Karate Monkey features horizontal dropouts with a derailleur hanger allowing you to fit gears if you’re too weak to keep the one speed going.
Our test bike is a rather lovely Safety Scissors Blue, comes with Avid BB7 160mm mechanical disk brakes (no cantilever bosses) an 80mm suspension corrected rigid fork and all the attitude you’d expect from a Surly bike.
Price: £1049.99
From: Ison Distribution
Cannondale Trail SL 29er 3 SS
Next up for our upcoming singlespeed grouptest is the Cannondale Trail SL 29er 3 SS billed by Cannondale as an ‘affordable superbike’. The frame design has been completely overhauled for 2013 and has been modelled on the high end Flash frames to create a lighter, smoother, stiffer bike. The frame features a 1.5in head tube with a Fatty 29er rigid fork.
The Trail SL 29er SS is kitted out mainly with own brand components. An EBB allows chain tension to be adjusted. Stopping power comes courtesy of Shimano 160/180mm mechanical disk brakes, propulsion is all down to how hard you can pedal it.
Price: £599.99
From: Cannondale
Charge Custom Spoon
A Charge Spoon for Christmas cheer? A saddle to match that jumper your nan knitted?
You may not be able to get this festive design but Charge is now offering custom spoon saddles.
Price from £69.99 to £119.99 and lead time is 30 days from order.
From: Charge Bikes
Alpkit Stingray Framebag
Chipps has just received his custom Stingray framebag from Alpkit. It’s UK made with Dimension Polyant VX21 panels, 100D Cordura edge panels and YKK PU-coated coiled zips. Ordering is pretty simple; trace out the shape of your frame onto a sheet of card and send it in with your order.
Price: £65.00
From: Alpkit
Chapeau Hot Coffee and Cream Gift Pack
Stuck for a last minute pressie? The Chapeau Hot Coffee and Cream gift pack comes complete with a 200ml Original Chamois Cream, a 200ml Warm Up Balm, finest house blend coffee and Chapeau’s ‘Finest Liquid Delivery Vessel’. A perfect mix of pre and post race goodness.
Chapeau Dry Shower Gel
Need to get clean but you’ve got no access to water? Chapeau Dry Shower Gel is perfect for a quick clean down after racing or finding yourself in a ditch the morning after that Christmas party. Price: £8.99
From: Chapeau
That’s it for this week. We’re saddling up and heading into the hills to make the most of the solitude before the festive bingeing begins. Hi-de-ho everybody, hi-de-ho.
Comments (16)
Comments Closed
I hope you are going to have a charity auction for the charge saddle…it would go so well with so many Xmas jumpers!
Fatties Fit Fine – applies to both tyres *and* riders. Trust me on this 😉
I thought the black Karate Monkey looked nice, but i do like that blue 🙂
Merry christmas to all at singletrack,see you at some events no doubt 🙂
Oooh dilema now – that monkey is *my* blue – and I was all set on the Cooker SS :-@
This is the first time in a long while that I’ve actually wanted to spend my hard earned cash on a Cannondale
I likes!
The karate monkey does look ‘just right’
I saw that cannondale in a shop the other day and couldn’t believe the price tag.
ok – it’s singlespeed and fully rigid, but it looks super slick and it’s light.
That “affordable superbike” has an isoflow crankset? Ie, the **** ones you get on £250 halfords bikes? Nice.
Rad Christmas card!
but…. do they know it’s Christmas time at all?? And why is the Pope on the wall??
is that cannondale a medium? what kind of heights of folk is it fitting?
Has Chipps been applying that Chapeau cream to his face? he looks somewhat err, ‘younger’ than I remember
i have last years model of that cannondale, could you try fit a fat bike wheel in the fatty fork?
No suspension, gears or hydraulic brakes and it’s still above £1k?!
The cannondale really does look like a rather nice starting point. I’d imagine the people it’s aimed at already have a few buckets of spairs they can upgrade the various low rent bits with… Have to admit I’m mighty tempted…