Fresh Goods Friday 311

It’s Friday, people. Breath a sigh of relief. We made it.

Past Monday, when Chipps and Hannah went Cycle Speedway racing. No injuries. Past Tuesday, when James and Wil opened a locker in the changing room that has been sealed for a couple of years. No injuries, no external symptoms of anything unpleasant. Past Wednesday, when Andi did ill-advised wheelies for Wheelie Wednesday up and down the edge of the canal. A few nervous twitches, but no injuries. Through Thursday, when the ST Crew nipped down the M6, whipped round the Cycle Show press day at the NEC, and chugged exhausted back up the M6 again. A few fuzzy heads and some tired feet, but no injuries.

And then Friday. Here we are. All that remains is to get through Friday without falling over and we’ll have made it to another weekend, ready to hit the trails at full fitness. Which is important if you’re Chipps, or one of the many other riders doing the Three Peaks this weekend.

Yes, the Three Peaks. That notoriously hard drop bar off road madness of a cross race. Just as well there’s only the rest of Friday to get through.

But wait.

This is no ordinary Friday. This is Friday The Twenty Third Of September Friday. Which means that it is also Todmorden Beer Festival Friday. And being an upstanding local business, it is our civic duty to sponsor a keg. And of course being upstanding employees of an upstanding local business means we must go and patronise the beer festival and sample the keg which we have sponsored. It is number 29 in the program, which reads:

29. Vocation Brewery Ltd, Cragg Vale, West Yorkshire: LIFE AND DEATH – 6.5%.
‘A ballsy US style ale, flavours of tropical & citrus fruits, with a lingering bitterness set against a smooth malty backbone’.

By the time we’ve lubricated our backbones with 6.5% maltiness, we may not be upstanding. Indeed, by the time we bring you Fresh Goods Live we may be slightly seated. Anyone wishing to run a sweepstake on Chipps’ likely Three Peaks finish time, or just hoping to catch him en route and offer jelly babies of support, may wish to tune in and gauge how good his chances are of being at Peak Fitness after a few pints of Life and Death.

But before we head off out to be progressively less upstanding, let us all raise a cheer, for here we have cheeky little number, with a light fresh head, undertones of sparkle, and a definite beery finish… it’s Fresh Goods Friday!

Diamondback Heist 3.0+ 27.5″

• Price: £895
• From: Diamondback UK

“Everybody be cool, this is a robbery!”. You know what comes next, but we can’t write it here… Anyway, at this price, it’s hardly daylight robbery. It’s the Heist 3.0+ from Diamondback, which Wil is testing this out for the bike test in issue 109 alongside two other sub-£1000 hardtails.

The Heist is already in the Diamondback range, but this new model adds in chubby 27.5×2.8in tyres for a little more cushin’ for the pushin’ on the trail.

WTB provides both the rims and the tyres on the Heist 3.0+, and allows you to get away with some nice low pressures. Suspending duties are carried out by the RockShox Recon fork with 120mm of travel up front, which is air adjustable via the Solo Air spring.

Despite the sub-£1000 price point, Diamondback has still appointed the Heist 3.0+ with a 1x drivetrain and a narrow-wide chainring on the front. Cranks are their own house-brand item, which feature the 3mm BOOST offset to match the BOOST’d rear hub.

1×11 shifting courtesy of a Shimano Deore XT rear derailleur and a SunRace 11-42t cassette. 148x12mm thru-axle on the back. All very up-to-date indeedy!

A dropper? Yes, really, a dropper! Or a fun-popper as we like to call them (Ed. Nobody calls them that here. Stop lying). On a hardtail, at this price? Sweeeet.

Shimano AM315 hydraulic disc brakes front and rear on the Heist 3.0+ should provide smooth and reliable stopping.

All the gadgets! In addition to the dropper post remote, there’s also a remote fork lock-out for those who like to lock out the suspension at a flick of a button.

It ticks a lot of boxes on paper. But how will it ride on the trail? Will the Heist 3.0+ steal all the KOM’s?? And will Hannah find that lost peanut down the back of her couch?? Stay tuned for our review on the Heist 3.0+ in the next issue of Singletrack Magazine, where we’ll update you on how the bike fared and whether Hannah was reunited with her favourite peanut.

Bontrager Drop Line Dropper Post

• Price: £239.99
• From: Trek

A few bike manufacturers are bringing out their own brand dropper posts this year. This offering comes from Bontrager, and it’s the brand’s first attempt at a Fun-Popper (Ed. Nope, still nobody calling them that).

The Drop Line is internally routed, but thankfully it attaches the inner cable head at the base of the seatpost, which should make it a lot less fiddly than those posts that require tiny cable pinch bolts at the base of the post. You can get the Drop Line in either 100mm or 125mm travel, but it only comes in a 31.6mm diameter.

The head of the post is a twin-bolt affair, while the remote lever uses a nice and chunky paddle shape that should work well in lieu of a front shifter. However, you can mount it above the handlebars if you’re running a 2x setup.

We’ll be bouncing up and down on this dropper – we’ll drop you a line to let you know how we get on in due course…see what we did there?

Ed. Let yourself out please.

Box One 11 Speed Rear Derailleur & Shifter

• Price: $174.99/ £169.99 Derailleur, $74.99/ £69.99 Shifter
• From: boxcomponents.com / todayscyclist.co.uk

What’s in the box? The box from Box Components, which came in a box. So many boxes. No foxes or soxes though.

Unbox the box and inside there’s Box Components’ new 11 speed rear derailleur and ‘PushPush’ shifter. These are pre-production samples. Altogether now: ‘oooh!’.

Nice textured lever for extra grip.

The shifter has an unusual dual action lever – check out our Eurobike report for more details

It’s pretty hard to get a feel for what the derailleur looks like when it’s not fitted. Really, check out the Eurobike report for more details and on-the-bike images.

Really can’t be bothered to read the Eurobike report? Well here’s another picture for you. Lazy Bones.

Lonely Planet: Epic Bike Rides of the World

• Price: £24.99
• From: All good bookshops

We told you about this book earlier this week, and here is the real thing. It’s a decent sized hard back book, so more suited to the coffee table than your bike packing luggage. One for the Christmas list maybe?

Sealskinz Dragon Eye MTB Gloves

• Price: £45
• From: Sealskinz

Not to be confused with the Dragon Eye Trail summer gloves we reviewed earlier this year, these Dragon Eye MTBs are waterproof and warm, with a thermal rating of 3 out of 5. We’ve got them in for Wil, who is starting to worry about winter.

Sealskinz Highland Gloves

• Price: £55
• From: Sealskinz

For when it gets even colder, we have these, which have a thermal rating of 5 out of 5. Should see even the most cold blooded Australian through a Yorkshire winter, right?

Dakine Slayer Knee Pads

• Price: 70EUR
• From: Dakine

These are pads designed for pedalling. Super flexible but with plenty of padding, plus a handy band to keep them together when you’re off the bike. The website says ‘4-way stretch, lightweight, perforated 0.5mm AriaprenePro™ with Polygiene Odor Control Technology’. Which we think means we’ll be able to bend our knees without them getting smelly. Because no one wants smelly knees.

Torq Ale Shandy Gels

• Price: Coming Soon
• From: ZyroFisher

Beer! In a gel! We’ve no idea whether the CAMRA purists will approve or not. We might just take them down to the beer festival and find out. These are a limited edition run, the result of a partnership between Torq Energy and Adnams Brewery.

Speaking of beer, we’ve got ourselves a beer festival to get to! To help get us (and you!) in the spirit of things, we have a classic Aussie beer commercial inspired by our office Aussie Wil. Fire up the barbie, crack a frothy, and enjoy a yarn with ya mates – cheers cobbers!

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