Fresh Goods Friday 343

Yee-ha! The trails are dry! Watch us fly, swoop, clatter and chatter. See us sit in the pub after a ride with nary a damp foot between us, bums dry, a coating of dust about our ears. Feel the glow of our early season sunburned necks. And watch us claw at the bites. Argh, the bites. For not only has the earth now warmed enough to allow the growing of green shoots and the flowering of flowers, but it’s awoken the flying beasts. Judging by some of the legs in the office, they’ve been distilling their poison all winter and are now emerging with super strength biting juice. Holy moly do they itch. And the swelling! In the gap between her socks and her knee pads Hannah looks like some kind of grotesque alien lifeform has taken hold, has possibly even laid eggs under her skin. She is going to have to add the application of DEET to her (admittedly not terribly extensive) morning beauty regime.

While Hannah resists the urge to take a pen knife to her legs – we might have to cable tie her to her keyboard to make sure – let the rest of us proceed with Friday. For once again, after yet another four day week (the 1970s might have been on to something) it is Friday. Bring on the goods of freshness…

Rocky Mountain Altitude 50

• Price: £3,999
• From: Greenover Sports

Ooh, this is a very rare species in the UK, hot off the ship. It might even be the only one so far, and it’s ours (well, Andi’s) to play with! This model has a carbon front end and alloy rear triangle. 160mm front travel, 150mm rear travel, and 27.5in wheels.

This one doesn’t feature the intriguingly secretly smudged out shock from the press releases, but it does has some future proofing frame features. We look forward to finding out what the little holes are for.

For more information on the Altitude check out our story here, or watch Andi talking through this test bike on Facebook Live here.

Specialized Enduro Elite Carbon 29/6 Fattie

• Price: £4,200
• From: Specialized

This carbon front end, alloy rear 29er from Specialized has 160mm travel front and rear. Our Tom Hill is going to be getting all enduro riding this over Big Stuff. That’ll be big climbs as well as big downs, as Specialized claims it’s a great climber as well as a descender.

The RockShox Lyrik RC fork should make for a lovely buttery ride. Mmm…butter…toast…crumpets…

The bike features SWAT tool storage in the down tube, internal routing for the dropper, and a threaded BB. There’s a ton more features – check in soon for our first look feature for all the details.

Ember Coffee

• Price: £4.95
• From: Pannier.cc

This was at one of the feed stations on the Dirty Reiver, and Hannah was sad to have missed it (her husband being impatient to get back on the bike). But hurrah, Hannah is sad no more, as we’ve been sent a packet to try ourselves. Roasted in Sheffield, this comes in 150g packs which should be just the right amount for a 2-3 day cycle adventure. Or possibly a weekend at home with a stack of housework and gardening to get through.

Break Fluid Coffee

• Price: Coffee from £7.50, Mugs from £15, Subscriptions from £7.50 per month.
• From: Break Fluid

More coffee, and coffee receptacles. Three different coffees – a blend and two single origin coffees – all ground for filter, but also available ground for cafetiere or as wholebean. One thing is for sure, there’s no danger of anyone falling asleep at their desk today.

This subscription coffee company boasts Sam Needham and Tom Hill as ambassadors, though as far as we know drinking this coffee does not guarantee that you’ll be able to take amazing photos. But we’ll drink some anyway, to be sure.

Carbon Works Bottle Cage

• Price: 59,80EUR
• From: Carbonworks 

Thinner than legs of a spider and weighing in at a claimed 5g, although our scales say 8g, which might be the dust in the workshop, or a draught. But it is light. Definitely one for the weight weenies.

Dakine Drafter 18L Pack

• Price: £105
• From: Dakine (stockists only, not online!)

This is the standard Drafter in an 18L volume, although a women’s specific model plus 10L and 14L options are also available. Featuring a 3L lumbar reservoir, the pack is compatible with the ‘DK Impact’ spine protector and has an air suspension back panel to keep you cool. There are tons of pockets so you can separate out your tools from your snacks from your first aid kit and so on. Or in Wil’s case, you can fill it with digital gauges to measure everything in sight. If you want this bag, you’re going to need to seek out a local Dakine stockist – it won’t be available online.

Clif Bloks

• Price: £2.69
• From: Extra UK/ Clif Bar

There’s a new flavour in town: Margarita. Handy for late Friday rides maybe? Some flavours contain caffeine, while others do not. They’re pretty tasty, and Hannah was happy to have some of these to hand while tackling the Dirty Reiver the other week as they’re nice and easy to get out of the wrapper and into your mouth in bite sized chunks.

As part of the promotional pack form Clif Bar, we’ve got these lights which attach onto your shoes. They’re not just for being seen by – apparently they’ll light the path in front of you to a distance of 15m. Someone might have to take up running and see if it works. Any takers? Where’s everyone in the office gone?

Soreen Maltbread Mega Mix

We had visitors this week – some of our Lifetime Subscribers came to ride our trails and drink our coffee. And one of them works in the Soreen factory! Yes! We know! We’re all looking at their recruitment pages now! Just look how happy Mark is.

We’re all very regular after a week of troughing this. It’s amazing just how much malt bread it is possible to eat in a week, and how many applications there are for its use: breakfast, morning snack, second breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, tea, dinner, supper, midnight snack, cheeky snack, ride snack, just a little nibble…Those banana bars were particularly easy to gobble down one after another. It’s almost not worth individually wrapping them.

Badabing, badaboom, that’s your lot this week. We’re off to drinks lots of coffee, type lotsofstuffreallyfast, and generally while away the rest of the afternoon as productively as a Friday will allow. Have a shiny happy weekend people. Grab it by the ankles and get out there and have fun.

 

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