F-A-B Virgil, Festive Fresh Goods Friday is Go!

By now there is every chance that you just don’t care anymore and we could write anything we liked here. Ethical tortoises are hard to find because so many of them value price more than they do the working conditions of factory workers. We were all weaned on houmous. Or is it hummus? Or humus? Why are sprouts on stalks more expensive than ones that have already been picked for you? Can a human survive on mince pies alone? What is the best Disney song? Is the best Disney song the one that gets stuck in your head until you take a drill to your brain, or is the best Disney song the one you haven’t heard? Does anyone actually enjoy doing the Festive 500?

If you’ve made it this far and can still read sentences then you’ve clearly got responsible attitude to work. Except you’re not working, you’re reading this. So not that responsible. And maybe you’re just scanning and waiting to get to the pictures. So let us dilly dally no longer, and proceed to Festive Fresh Goods Friday!

Specialized Enduro Elite 650B

• Price: £4,250
• From: Specialized

Pink! PINK! Hot pink. Flamingo Pink! This bike has attracted plenty of attention since we published our First Look earlier this week. This is the 27.5in model for 2018 and has 170mm of travel front and rear.

Beer

• Price: £nfs
• From: Fusion Media

We’ve a few Christmas packages in the house this week. First up, Chipps was sent this six pack of beer from the PR Company behind brands such as Strava, Red Bull Foxhunt and a whole host of cycling brands. Happy Christmas folks!

Scott MTB Heater Gore-Tex Shoes

• Price: £199.99
• From: Scott Sports

Waterproof winter boots with a warm lining to keep you warm. Under the zippered top flap, there’s a speed lace, and the soles have good sized treads on them. These have a stiffness index of 7 (10 is the highest Scott makes, and 6 the lowest we’ve spotted in their range).

Polaris Ventura Stash Tube

• Price: £15.99
• From: Polaris

A little stash tube so you can carry your kit in a bottle cage. Carries about 750ml of stuff, which w reckon equates to about 4 mince pies.

Polaris Ventura Seatpack Max

• Price: £84.99
• From: Polaris

A waterproof seat pack with 9 litre carrying capacity. This is part of the Ventura range of luggage that includes frame packs, bar bags and even phone cases. 9 litres…about six boxes of mince pies perhaps?

Polaris Fixie Fastening Straps

• Price: £9.99
• From: Polaris

Straps for attaching things to things – anything you like really. Hook and loop (that’s Velcro to most of us) straps that should prove handier that duct tape in many situations. Mince pie carrying potential: one.

Shimano Deore XT Pedals

• Price: £89
• From: Shimano

Anything with ‘Prototype’ typed on it is pretty exciting, and that’s what these are. Flat pedals from Shimano, in large and smaller sized platforms. Hop on over here for the full details.

Shimano Saint PD-M828 Pedals

• Price: £129
• From: Shimano

Another pair of prototype pedals, this time with a huge platform and thin profile. Again, hop on over here for the full details.

Shimano Saint PD-M820 SPD Pedal

• Price: £109
• From: Shimano

This is Shimano’s new aggressive SPD platform pedal for trail and downhill, again these are the prototypes that we understand are close to production versions. Those holes will contain pins, with a choice of two lengths.

Fabric Christmas Saddle

• Price: £nfs
• From: Fabric

Every year we receive a novelty Christmas saddle from Fabric. This year’s is a very practical wipe clean finish tree patterned affair.

Gravel Cycling

• Price: £21.95
• From: Velopress

This book mixes up routes guides and race profiles around the world with some how to guidance on topics such as loading and carrying your gear. There’s a bit of back story to the emergence of the gravel scene, and if you’re not feeling like grinding around outside, this book will probably while away a few hours indoors and have you making more adventurous plans.

Fat Tire Flyer T-shirts

• Price: £27
• From: Fat Tire Flyer UK & Europe / Random Adventure

Dan from Random Adventure popped in to see us at ST Towers this week and brought us these t-shirts to celebrate the fact that he is now the distributor for Fat Tire Flyer products in the UK. As well as these he brought us this…

It’s a super trendy American magazine called ‘Maker Quarterly’ of the ‘put it on your coffee table to show you are a creative and cool being’ variety. Inside (you have to pull a rip strip to get into it but it’s all so pretty we’re struggling to bring ourselves to do that), there’s a Fat Tire Flyer special issue zine with all kinds of nice retro images and a bunch of words from the likes of Charlie Kelly.

Duck Smart Cleaners

• Price: Earth Mover and Mud Slider £6.99 for 1 litre. 4 elf bells for the Black Stuff and 5 reindeer noses for the kit clean.
• From: Moore Large

A range of products to keep bikes clean – or restore them to cleanliness. The Earth Mover is a foaming cleaner for your bike, Black Stuff is a chain degreaser, and Mud Slider is a protective coating that helps stop the mud attaching to your bike in the first place, making it easier to clean. The Kit Clean is for your kit, and its foaming action should come in handy on things like helmet straps that are awkward to wash, as well as helping shift stubborn dirt from your finest white lycra. And yes, we made some of the prices up because we couldn’t find the real ones 🙂

Specialized Women’s Deflect Gloves

• Price: £35
• From: Specialized

Wind resistant soft shell gloves with plenty of dexterity. Our Amanda has had a broken finger for ages, and it hurts when it gets cold, so she’s hoping these are going to be the answer when she’s out riding, or working in our studio.

Specialized Deflect H20 Gloves

• Price: £60
• From: Specialized

Breaking out the big guns in the war on weather, it’s Chipps with these waterproof gloves. There’s touchscreen compatibility so you don’t need to take your gloves off, fiddle with your phone, and then struggle to get your wet hands back into the gloves. Yay! Chipps does not have a broken finger, but he is Older Than Any Of Us, and it’s important that old people take extra care in winter to stay warm, so he’s going to be testing these gloves.

Workshop Elf

• Price: will work for cheese, cured sausage, and craft beer
• From: The place where the sun shines

Right, that’s it! The weekend officially starts here, so if you haven’t already put your ‘out of office’ on, do that now. Perhaps schedule a couple of emails to be sent over the next week or so, to make it look like you’re putting in a bit of extra effort and working while everyone else is thinking up a third way to use up the turkey leftovers. Whether you’re going to throw yourself into silly hats and festive frivolity, or going to make the most of the few days of quiet trails and roads to get some quality riding in, have a good one. Peace, love, and good will to all.

 

---