Erm. Well. Sorry. Wil promised you last week that this week would be a bumper edition of Fresh Goods Friday on the grounds that there were very few courier deliveries last week due to the snow, so all the goodies would be turning up this week. Except it turns out we’re not done with winter, and there’s been more snow. And Wil is away somewhere secret so he’s not at his desk placing orders for shiny things. So consider this an advance warning – an yellow warning if you like – that your Fresh Goods Friday skive will be a little shorter than you may have anticipated. But, y’know, we’ll do our best to string it out. And the jokes will be BRILLIANT. Maybe.
It’s traditional to start with a bike, but we don’t have a bike. We do however have a frame. Two in fact.
Chipps’ Bike
- Price: You can’t buy skill.
- From: Downland Cycles
Chipps has been away on holiday all week, building this. It will take a 29inx130mm fork, and a 27.5in wheel out back. It’s been a bit easier than his TIG welding experience. You can follow his progress day by day in these videos: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 – since he hasn’t had time to shave, you can also observe how he been growing some facial hair that we can’t help notice is a little, well, Hitler-esque.
Beate’s ‘Clover’ Bike
- Price: You can’t buy talent.
- From: Downland Cycles
Beate still has a few more bits to finish on her frame, which is called ‘Clover’. It has ears, like its namesake Clover the poodle (now sadly deceased).
Clover the poodle was a very entertaining dog, but not a very practical one – certainly no use at fetching sticks, much to the bemusement of Hannah’s youngest child (surely all dogs fetch sticks, is this actually a dog?). Clover the bike is of a more practical ilk: it can open bottles.
Right, we said we’d string it out, so here we go, let’s have a gif.
Mavic XD Freewheel Body
- Price: £54
- From: Mavic
If you’ve got a Shimano set up on you Mavic wheels, you’ll need this to swap over to SRAM. We’re assuming Wil has a need for this, but we can’t check because he’s somewhere else:
Crankbrothers Klic Floor Pump and Burst Tank
- Price: £209.99
- From: Crankbrothers
This will appeal to the Lego builders of the world, and those who love the way everything has its place on an airplane meal tray. This is actually two separate products, which fit together neatly. We’ve shown it here all joined together as a tubeless tyres inflator – the Burst Tank fits on to the Klic Pump.
Once you’ve loaded the tank with air, you flip the lever and pop-pop-ping, your tyre should be seated.
This big round digital gauge is joined to the pump. When you’re not inflating the Burst Tank, you can use it as a standard track pump. And even better, when you’re not using the pump, this round gauge fits into the big round O you can see in the handle, with the hose slotting inside the body of the pump. Everything in its place, nice and neat. Just how Wil likes it. Look at what he has to do before he goes for a ride:
Giro Empire VR70 Knit MTB Shoe
- Price: £219.99
- From: ZyroFisher
If knitting your own shoes and weaving your own yoghurt is too much effort, you might like to buy your shoes ready made. The TPU exoskeleton gives you support, while the knitted outer provides protection from grit, and the DWR coating keeps splashes at bay. At least that’s the idea – it will be very interesting to see what these are like in use, they’re certainly very different from anything else we’ve seen.
In the spirit of stringing this out further, here’s Andi’s crash from another angle – click the gif to play if it’s not already doing so.
Finish Line Multi Seal Sealant
- Price: £39.99 (1 litre)
- From: Madison
This is sealant which Finish Lines promises will last the life of the tyre – so no drying out and no faffing around topping things up. There’s also no latex or ammonia in it – especially handy if you have a latex allergy, extra-especially handy if you have a latex allergy and are prone to tubeless inflation explosions. This is a huge 1 litre bottle, but you can also get a 8oz (£14.99) or 4oz (£9.99) bottle – which might be sensible, if it does indeed last for the life of your tyre. It’s expected that a 4oz bottle will typically do one mountain bike tyre or two road tyres, or a medium 8oz bottle will do two mountain bike tyres or four road tyres. You can do the maths on how many this bottle will do.
Which neatly (Finish Line – geddit) brings us to the finish of Fresh Goods Friday. Is it too early time for #DrinkBeerAtYourDeskFriday? Or possibly #DrinkBeerAtYourUrinalFriday:
Beer. Mmm. And maybe a lie down.
Happy weekend, people.
Comments (15)
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Well, that’s one pair of minging Giro shoes it’ll be dead easy to boycott! 🙂
Shoe styling’s gone a bit pear-shaped this year. Shimano’s are gopping.
I wonder if any drunk person will confuse the tap room with the urinals?
“I wonder if any drunk person will confuse the tap room with the urinals?”
Perhaps it’s just indicative of what the beer’s like?
“Price: You can’t buy skill.”
Is that Chipps’ appraisal of the course? 😉
bobbins 😉
Crank Brothers and high pressure? I think I’ll pass on that.
I like those shoes. Even if they are made out of bullets and napalm or something.
Oh I see so you are happy to accept free Giro stuff for yourselves, just not happy for your readers to buy from them!
I am surprised that you are promoting Giro (or any of the “boycott” brands when the issue is still so raw and ST made such a deal of publicising the boycott issue in a way that really suggested it was the “right thing”.
“Oh I see so you are happy to accept free Giro stuff for yourselves, just not happy for your readers to buy from them!”
“I am surprised that you are promoting Giro (or any of the “boycott” brands when the issue is still so raw and ST made such a deal of publicising the boycott issue in a way that really suggested it was the “right thing”.”
Did I miss STW proffering an opinion on the Vista boycott? Because if they’ve only reported it as something that’s taken place, surely that’s called journalism.
Well, yes, reporting on it impartially of course is fair. I thought about this and I’d suggest a couple of things.
The way ST reported it wasn’t just “here’s some news”. It was more in the vein of publicising the boycott to raise awareness, or so it seemed.
Secondly, and this is the thing for me, ST isn’t What Mountain Bike, or BikeBiz. I think many people – me included – expect ST to not just report bike news and publish reviews, more editorial content and opinion and advocacy is expected. Maybe holding ST to a higher standard than other mtb outlets is unfair, but historically I don’t think ST has been afraid to do that and I thought having subscribers helped to support this approach. So yes, surprised to see Giro featured in a promotional way so soon. Anyway, plenty on the forum on this.
Where’s the bar?
Re; Chipps’ facial hair.
Less Hitler-esque, more Mr Bronson from Grange Hill.
Ironically, the bloke that played him also had a very brief appearance in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade…as Hitler.
£200 + for a track pump? No, No, No.