What’s New In The Office This Week? Check out Fresh Goods Friday 382

We have been reliably informed (by Ben Page who spent three years riding round the world) that all we need to have a proper adventure is three months off work. Maybe six at the most. But three will do. If we don’t mind a bit of making it up as we go along, we don’t need much of a plan – just a bike, legs that pedal, and a bit of imaginative mechanic-ing skills. If we don’t mind sleeping in a tent every night and living off rice, beans and porridge, we only need £3 a day to get by (though Ben did have coffee filtered through his own dirty sock at one point, which might be more hardship than some of us can contemplate). Three months, three pounds a day…that’s less than £300. Plus maybe a cheap plane ticket and a new tent.

That doesn’t sound out of the realms of possibility, does it? Three months… with a bit of careful engineering of notice periods and new job start dates, you could probably wrangle that. Let’s start dreaming. Where shall we go? Somewhere sunny? Somewhere with interesting food? Somewhere without any killer creatures, or somewhere with lots of them?

Sigh. One day. Maybe we should all start an adventure jar of spare change so that when the timing is right we can smash it open and head for whatever landscape takes our fancy?

For now, we’ll just have to carry on resisting the cookie jar, keeping our pedalling legs ticking over for the day when we can put them to use having our three month adventure.

Sigh.

Let us dream some more – because we’re all dreamers – and gaze longingly at this week’s Fresh Goods Friday. And if you’re tempted to buy any of them, just make sure you don’t raid the adventure jar, because one day we’re going to need it. One day. We will.

Scott Genius 900 Tuned

• Price: £6,999
• From: Scott Sports

150mm travel front and rear, carbon fibre framed 29er with 2.6in tyres – this is built to take you up and down everything your nerves can imagine. Fox 36 fork, Fox Transfer Dropper and Fox Nude Evol shock, all with Kashima coating, make this look one pretty bike. Although, to be picky the orange on the forks isn’t quite the same as the frame, is it? Which makes us itch a little. Once we’ve covered it in mud we’ll never notice.

FSA Flowtron Adjustable Seatpost

• Price: $299
• From: Full Speed Ahead

Named after a trail outside Seattle and not a robot, here we have the new 150mm travel dropper from FSA. There have been a number of changes from previous FSA droppers, such as a cartridge change that drops 100g off the weight, the shifter has an adjustable actuator spring, so you can change how light the actuation is, and the remote is now a shifter style. Available in 125 and 150mm drops in bother 30.9 and 31.6 diameters.

Veloforte Bars

• Price: £6.99 for a mixed pack of 3
• From: Veloforte

These are snack bars for on the go that look like they belong in an artisan coffee shop. There are three flacour options: Classico is a fruity nut and spice mix, Ciocco is date, almond and cocoa, and Di Bosco is red berries, nuts and – unexpectedly – rosemary. The bars are dairy free, egg free, preservative free, and the Ciocco is gluten free, though thanks to the inclusion of honey they’re not vegan. Luckily, Hannah is not veagn, so is free to trough these down.

MTB Strap On

• Price: from £7.50 depending on colours
• From: MTB Strap On

Stop sniggering at the back. This strap is designed to hold your gubbins onto your frame so that you can ride enduro style without a pack, should you so choose. Made in Cornwall, ours has matching webbing and Velcro, and there’s a whole pile of choice available if you want to match your bike just so. The inside of the strap is treated with a sticky rubbery finish to stop the strap slipping round your frame.

Bontrager Flatline Mountain Shoe

• Price: £119.99
• From: Trek

Flat pedal shoes in a choice of contrasting red and black panels (there’s a women’s option in black with pink laces too). The Vibram sole has an interesting square tile pattern on it, with contrasting tread at the heel and toe designed to give you a bit of extra grip. The uppers are synthetic leather, and there’s a shock absorbing midsole.

Scott Sports/Syncros Gift Box

• Price: XR 1.0SLCarbon Saddle £199.99, Bottle £9.99 (available only in packs of 6), Matchbox Tailor Cage HV £65.99, Syncros Lighter 8 Multi-Tool £34.99
• From: Scott Sports

We had a visit from Nick Craig this week and he left us this gift box – which you can’t buy as it’s a spoiled-media-only presentation pack, but you can buy the contents separately. The Lighter 8 is a mini ratchet set, while the Tailor Cage holds your bottle and pump, and tucked away inside it is a multitool and chain tool. Neat! We’re hoping that the floaty light carbon saddle might make us as swift as Nick Craig. We can dream.

Scott Tune Sunglasses

• Price: £52.99
• From: Scott Sports

A casual style pair of sun glasses suitable for riding or chilling. Available in a variety of colours and tints, these are grey with a blue mirror tint. There are non slip nose pads to keep the large coverage glasses in place and protecting your eyes.

Syncros Hixon Bar

• Price: £299.99
• From: Scott Sports

One for the weight weenie racing fans, this is the new one piece carbon bar and stem from Syncros. The claimed weight is 290g. Almost a perfect 1:1 Hairsine Ratio? It’s 760mm wide, has a 9deg back sweep and 40mm diameter. It’s also available in 50mm and 60mm lengths.

Henty Enduro Backpack

• Price: £85 – available in March
• From: Henty

Called a backpack, but it’s a bit like a bum bag with a vest attached. The bag area is quite padded, offering a bit of protection for your kidneys and lower back. Open up the flap and there’s a ton of pouches and pockets to put all kinds of Enduro Essentials™ in, and it’ll take any standard 3L bladder. This will be coming to the UK in March. Interested? Contact melissa@henty.cc for details on any UK availability queries.

Henty Sports 26L Backpack

• Price: £120
• From: Henty

This is a bag with hidden depths. Designed to carry a whole pile of stuff inside it, you can also use its roll-up closure to wrap tricky to carry items such as a yoga mat (or maybe more appropriate to STW, a particularly fine hardwood log?). Like the other Henty products it’s made of nice burly canvas fabric and all the clips and closures have a quality feel to them.

Henty Co Pilot Messenger

• Price: $279
• From: Henty

While we might be slumming it at work in flip flops and shorts, hoodies and jeans, or mud spattered whatevers, some of you need to look smart at work. We previously reviewed the Wingman – a solution to the ride to work with a suit problem – but this one is a bit bigger. It’s a proper suit bag that you can hang up in your city hotel or office, or roll up into a messenger bag to transport through airports etc. Whereas the Wingman holds just a day’s worth of clothes, you can fit a bit more in this for a couple of days away. There’s a separate waterproof sausage shaped bag you can stuff the whole thing into if the weather is really bad. If you’re in the UK you’ll have to source this messenger from abroad, but there is a backpack version in black at £195.

Seven iDP M4 Helmet

• Price: £49.99
• From: Seven iDP

With plenty of ventilation including four big vents at the back, this helmet comes in four colours and two sizes.

Seven iDP M2 Helmet

• Price: £64.99
• From: Seven iDP

A step or two up the range brings you Conehead™ technology utilises dual density foam to dissipate impacts, in a choice of seven colours and three sizes.

Seven iDP Transition Kneepad

• Price: £59.99
• From: Seven iDP

Kneepads that will flex as you pedal thanks to the heat moulding foam. These are a lightweight pull on sleeve style kneepad offering lightweight protection.

Seven iDP Flex Knee Shin

• Price: £89.99
• From: Seven iDP

For those looking for a bit more protection, these pads have a hard cap and foam layers, plus plenty of straps to keep the pads in place. There’s also a shin protection piece, which is removable for less gnar days.

Seven iDP Flex Suit

• Price: £109.99
• From: Seven iDP

A jersey with built in shoulder pads, chest protection and spine protection. There are oodles of pockets on the back so you can stuff it with snacks and spare tubes or whatever. If you want you can swap the spine protector out for a bladder. We’re going to be passing all this protective kit on to our Amanda, who is scaring all us oldies in the office with her hill hurtling exploits.

Fabric Accubar Pressure Gauge

• Price: £34.99
• From: CSG

An accurate low pressure gauge for use with Presta or Schrader valves. Hook it up to your existing pump for an accurate measure of the air you’re putting in to your tyres.

Right! The weekend calls! Let’s leave you with the product of someone else’s two weeks off work. The maker of this video took two weeks holiday to make a fan video, and the band liked it so much that they made it the official video. Time off work can be very well spent. Let’s book that three months.

 

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