Ah yes! We can practically smell it! The weekend fast approaches, engine redlining, tyres squealing and struggling to find purchase on every bend. It appears as a speck on the Monday horizon, but by now it’s clearly visible; a huge 4×4 of Pure Awesomeness, in the air over bumps as much as it is on the ground. If you look closely, it seems to have a couple of bikes strapped to the back – oh, you know good times are ahead!
Your task is to catch it before it hurtles past and leaves you stuck in Monday again.
It’s doing well over 100mph.
You have a small fishing net, a can of fizzy pop and a kazoo.
Go.
Cube Stereo 140 HPA Hybrid Race Nyon 27.5
Arriving slightly too late for our electric bike story in this issue, the Stereo Hybrid (as it will now be abbreviated to) is a 49lb bouncy bouncy pedal-assist jobber with a rather impressive pile of kit strapped on to it. And a durty gurt motor, innum?
A durty gurt motor, yesterday. These jobbies are Pedal Assist, so you have to pedal them to get the motor to work, and they cut out at 17mph.
It’s got colour-coordinated Pikes on the front, and check out the hub! Yup, it’s definitely green, in case you were wondering. 
Stereo. Curiously, only written once… the plot thickens.
A picture of the battery, and not of a spaceship from StarTrek. It’s got a key, so you can bring it in to charge it, or, I dunno, ply it with booze. Can’t imagine the latter will do it much good, mind.Or you, (please, drink responsibly).
Common to all Stereos, and not just the Hybrid, that is one looooong linkage…
Price: £3,399
From: Cube
Brakes!
Grouptest product is like buses – you wait ages for it, and then it ALL arrives at once! Here’s some of the gear for issue 99’s grouptest of ‘light and powerful brakes’ – Alps-worthy stoppers that won’t weigh you down in your day-to-day rides, either.
Magura MT7
These lightweight (claimed 375g an end) four-pots should fare well in the power stakes too. Danny MacAskill rides the limited-edition BRIGHT YELLOW Raceline versions, but we’re not Danny, so we get regular black. Sob. Mind you, that time I tried the fence somersault it didn’t go so well. That’s one kidney I’ll never get back.
Price: £219.99 an end
From: Zyro, zyro.co.uk
TRP Slate
Hot on the heels of last week’s Quadium (what a name) comes TRP’s brand new Slate. So new, in fact, that UK importers Upgrade flew a set over especially for us. Thanks Upgrade! 🙂
Another spaceship shaped thing… well sort of. If you squint.
At a claimed 279g for the front, they are light, competitively priced – and it’s another four-pot system, so we’re looking forward to seeing how their power fares.
Price: £89.99 an end, rotors £32.99 to £39.99 each
From: Upgrade, upgrade-bikes.co.uk
Tektro Draco
And here’s a two-pot system from TRP’s sibling brand. Low on dollar, still a reasonable 327 claimed grams and still – we hope – high on power.
Price: £74.99 an end
From: Upgrade, upgrade-bikes.co.uk
SRAM Guide Ultimate
Another in the two-pot camp is SRAM’s Guide. SRAM sent us the Ultimate: claimed weight of 360g.
Price: £229.00 an end
From: SRAM, sram,com
Formula T1 Brakes
Very JPS black and gold numbers (that dates me, doesn’t it?). Enhanced Caliper Technology and lots of cool stuff can be yours for..
Price: £179 per end; rotors from £29.95
From: Silverfish
*We’ll be weighing the full brake systems as part of the test – levers, calipers, hoses, rotors, pads AND fittings – as well as using the same rotor sizes across all the brakes we’re testing for consistency’s sake. No word yet on whether Barney’s managed to build us a DIY dyno for in-house testing though, so the science bit may be limited to a drag race down the longest hill we can find. He was working on a supercollider which would propel members of the office towards each other at near lightspeeds, but he had to call a halt to it. Turns out that most of Todmorden was in the process of collapsing under the weight. Spoilsports.
Selle Italia Saddles
We’ve had a load of saddle-flavoured stuff through from Selle Italia, which should help to cosset and nurture our tender arses.They’ve got ID match, which is their size thingy to prescribe different saddles for different arses. Here’s arse-nurturter #1:
Selle Italia SLR X-Cross Flow
A big hole for ventilation, and the X Cross is also ribbed for sir’s comfort with anti-slip panels.
Price: 114.99
Selle Italia SLR Titanium Black
Full grain leather, fast-looking pointy things at the back, and Ti rails. Nice.
Price: £149.99
Selle Italia Nepal Ti L
More comfort ribbage in an off-road saddle where “your best ally provides the control and stability that make all the difference”. Crikey.
Price: £99.99
Selle Italia Flite
The old classic, updated. Now with funky-looking ‘F’ on the back. Looks like an ice-skate upside down, too!
Price: £99.99
Selle Italia Novus Flow S
Fibra-tech saddle, pre-shaped (thank goodness). Ti rails, too.
Price: £105.99
All from Chicken Cyclekit
Cables
A huge pile of cables has also landed from Chicken Cyclekit, so we should be right for shifting, and cable braking, for a good while yet…
Mudlovers Gear Cable Set
Sideways chap on the picture looks happy.
Price: 22.99
Mudlovers Brake Cable set
Love this packaging. Nice work, mudlovers-design people!
Price: £22.99
Flying Snake Brake Cable
I first read this as Flying Snak 9. But there’s a handy pronunciation guide on the box.
Price: £26.99
Flying Snake Gear Cable Set
And I misread this one as Flying Snak 3 – and there’s no pronunciation guide! So now I’m hungry. Gah!
Price: £26.99
Black Snake Gear and Brake cable sets
There actually 2 boxes here, but one’s cunningly hidden behind the other.
Price: £22.99 each
All from Chicken Cyclekit
Over 35 Alloy Riser 750
750mm of alloy fat handlebar.
Price: £57.99
Border 90 stem
90mm stemmage for 31.8mm bars
Price: £57.99
All from Chicken Cyclekit
THE FUTURE
Chipps has a new 2016 wall planner, and is already planning his world domination. He’s also giving everyone little sticky stars, mostly because he’s incredibly high on marker-pen fumes.
Kane
Here’s our newest minion! Kane is our new apprentice, and will be busy doing all the jobs the rest of us won’t – like clearing up after Chipps’ many marker-pen fugues.
Price: less
From: Oldham
Ritchey Bullmoose Barstem
Kickin’ it OLD SKOOL! The Bullmoose is a carbon bar and stem witha forged steerer clamp. 70mm stem with 720mm wide bars keep it real. Longet stems (up to 110) get wider bars, init (up to 740mm)
Price: £250
From Paligap
Fibretec Washy Waterproofy things
Which do pretty much what they say on the tin…. and…
This one, which can apprently render things a bit more waterproof, or embiggen the repellancy of things that already *are* waterproof.
Here are prices:
- Green Guard RT Wash-In 250ml £12.99
- Pro Wash 100ml £3.99
- Blue Guard Textile 200ml £11.99
- Smart Wash 100ml £3.99
- Down Wash 100ml £3.99
All from Madison
….aaaand that’s it! We’re off to ride bikes! Some of us are at Mountain Mayhem this weekend, some of us are off to Spain (press trip and holiday respectively) and others will just be riding bikes a lot!
Did you get the answer to the riddle at the beginning?
Open the can of pop in a delectable fashion as the Weekend flies past, causing the driver to screech to a thirsty halt. Then catch him with the fishing net, and use the kazoo to bend him to your will with its noisy awfulness. Simple!
Does anyone even get this far…?
Toodleoo..
Comments (7)
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That Cube Stereo is one of the ugliest bikes I’ve seen in a long time.
Hang on, why do longer stems get wider bars on that bullmoose?
longer stems for bigger dudes, dude.
The Cube is uglier than a knife fight at a Klingon wedding.
Every bad guy ever has been called Kane. Be careful.
http://singletrackworld.com/2015/03/srams-new-guide-ultimate-brakes/ Cough… four pot… cough
Nice to meet Chipps, Jen and Clover at Mayhem, keep up the good work.