Fresh Goods Friday 273

Welcome one and all to the first Fresh Goods Friday of the year 2016!

And the first thing to note about this brand spanking new year? It’s obvious that we live in a world where a story containing nothing but a video of kittens, on a mountain biking website, gets over 3,500 reads. Kittens.

Good work, people. I like this place.

Anyhow! Without further ado, here’s some stuff you can spend your hard-scrounged Christmas cash on… it’s Fresh Goods Friday!

Rockshox Bluto RL Solo Air Forks

Price: £574.99
From: Fisheroutdoor.co.uk

KASK Rex Helmet

Ah, the happy* return of Glowering Victorian Man, who has been lovingly poured into the new KASK Rex helmet from – er – KASK. They’re the people who make hats for Team Sky, folks. This MTB lid has a whopping 20 vents, a multiple adjustment visor…

…integrated goggle clip and a nifty adjustment thing to ensure the helmet is more comforting than a velvet smoking jacket in front of a roaring log fire, all wrapped up in your mum’s Macaroni Cheese.

*well, glowering. What did you expect?

Halo Vapour 35mm wheelset and Schwalbe Nobby Nics

Chubby is as chubby does. Which is one of those aphorisms which means absolutely nothing, at the same time as being deeply profoundly empty. But anyway. These wheels are 35mm (external – they’re 30mm internal) wide, and so will cope with a wide range of tyres from the mostly normal to the impressive chubster.They’re shod with a fine pair of 3.0in (gotta love the inch measurements in tyres and the mm measurements of rims, eh?) wide Nobby Nics, which are festooned with TrailStar and Snake Skin tech. and about 10psi. And knobbles. Don’t forget the knobbles.

Hope Tech Enduro Pro 4 wheelset

Oh yes oh yes oh yes. We’ve been sent a spanking set of Hope Enduro rims (23mm internal, folks) which are laced to Hopes new Pro4 hubs. More clicky! Bigger flanges! (ooer)

You can get them in loads of different colours, but these ones are (and I may be stating the obvious here) black.
These are 29er rims. Wide, but not too wide (23mm internal, like wot I sed). Looking forward to giving these puppies some stick. You’ll be able to hear me coming… Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz

SQ Lab 611 Hans Rey signature Saddle

Price: €159.95

From: One Way DistributionLiving Legend In His Own Lunchtime And Everyone Elses Hans Rey popped in just before Christmas, to ride, to steer Mr Snowman and to talk about his bike. He also dropped off some of his signature kit, which included this lovely SQlab 611 signature saddle. instead of a cutaway, 611s have a scoop and a slightly dropped nose to prevent pressure in *ahem* uncomfortable places.
They also have interchangeable foam rubbery spring bits so you can tailor it to your heart’s content. And your arse’s proclivities. They’re available in 150, 140 and 130mm widths, too.

SQ lab Hans Rey signature grips

Price €24.95

From: One Way DistributionAnd here are Hans’ matching grips. Ergonomic, comfy-looking and available in an understated blue and yellow. ‘Hans Rey certified’, by the way means he approves of the product. Not that he has been. Although watch that Mr Snowman video again…

Edit: Chipps has just pointed me to this slice of extremely ripe cheese.

Oh, my.

It’s utterly delicious (especially now I’m a nicely pickled vegetable):

LED Lenser XEO19R

The catchily named Lenser XEO19R is tailored to your inner child – it looks (and reads) like something out of Terminator, or possibly StarWars. It’s got a bike mount, a helmet mount, a GoPro mount, a tripod mount AND a kitchen sink mount (not really), it’s got a claimed run time of 4 hours at max 2000 lumens, and a whopping 400 hours in emergency mode. Which presumably should be enough to get you home, if you crash in Wales. And live in Swindon. And drag yourself home with your lips.

Orange Seal Tubeless Sealant

From: Extra

Tyre sealant, oh yes it is. Eco friendly, and seals holes up to 1/4″ bit with  what they call “nanites” – although we don’t think they’re as scary as Feynman’s proper/hypothetical ones. There’s a video involving a nail gun, too…

Wiggle Energy Gel

Price: £5.00 for a pack of 9

From: WiggleAvailable in a wide variety of flavours, each sachet delivers up to 22.6g of carbohydrate with a fruity hit! (apart from the Mocha one). The Mocha and Citrus ones have 30mg of caffeine in them, too, for the proper gofastertalkquickly experience.

Simple Bicycle Repair Book by Rob Van Der Plas

Price: £8.95

From: Bookshops everywhereFirst published in 2004, this one has a larger format, more pages, more photos and tips on all the latest tech, including ebikes. Perfect if you’re starting out, or if you’re unsure what a flange headed fillip rivetter does.

Juice Lubes Scrub and Buff Pack

Price: £36.99

From: VeloBrands
A veritable cornucopia of stuff to clean your bike with, and keep it looking and working ORSUM. Citrus degreaser and cleaner, polish and protection spray,  Viking Juice wet and dry chain lube (we’ve liked this one in the past) and the magnificently named Dirty Little Scrubber chain cleaner.

That’s it for this week! We hope you’ve managed to keep your sanity in the first week back. We’ll be trying to get some riding done in between the inevitable deluges (they say there might be snow next week up here!) so have a good one – and we’ll see you on the flipside! Toodlepip!

ST out

Barney Marsh

Barney Marsh takes the word ‘career’ literally, veering wildly across the road of his life, as thoroughly in control as a goldfish on the dashboard of a motorhome. He’s been, with varying degrees of success, a scientist, teacher, shop assistant, binman and, for one memorable day, a hospital laundry worker. These days, he’s a dad, husband, guitarist, and writer, also with varying degrees of success. He sometimes takes photographs. Some of them are acceptable. Occasionally he rides bikes to cast the rest of his life into sharp relief. Or just to ride through puddles. Sometimes he writes about them. Bikes, not puddles. He is a writer of rongs, a stealer of souls and a polisher of turds. He isn’t nearly as clever or as funny as he thinks he is.

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