Forget Love, This is Where The Hot Stuff Is | FGF 487

Chipps is back from holiday, Andi is on holiday, and Hannah is about to go on holiday. We are like ships in the night. Or underpaid shift workers sharing a small bedsit in London. Or celestial bodies that occasionally come in to line creating some incredible visual spectacle that can be viewed by the careful arrangement of sheets, cereal boxes, and cutlery.

Today, as the planets align to create especially strong love vibes around the world, with an additional intense ley line of stress on garage forecourts at 8.30pm GMT, we bring you the regular confluence of freshness, goodness, and Fridayishness, to bring you Fresh Goods Friday 487.

Put on your love socks, iron your best underwear, dab your abs with cologne, and get a bit hot and sweaty with today’s hot new product.

Troy Lee D4 Carbon

• Price: £500 carbon, £375 composite.
• From: Saddleback

As we showed you on Wednesday, Troy Lee Designs has upgraded the venerable Troy Lee D3 helmet after 11 years to the new D4. It weighs in at a scant kilo, give or take a Cadbury’s Flake and offers full downhill and BMX-worthy world cup performance protection while still venting well. There are several colour options – and this is probably the most divisive one, depending on whether you’ve got Rockshox and SRAM on your bike. It’s also the full-on Textreme carbon version with the ‘How much?’ price tag…

Shimano Ultegra Groupset

• Price: £we didn’t ask
• From: Freewheel

Dear oh dear. What’s going on here? It seems that Chipps caught some kind of contagious ‘Roadie’ bug while on holiday in Spain last week and he’s decided that his precious Rock Lobster road bike (that is only allowed out on sunny, dry days – so twice a year round here) needs a refresh, so he’s gone shopping for more gurning-gears of a full Shimano Ultegra style for the bike’s next distant appointment with the sun.

e*thirteen TRS Plus Cassette, Race Carbon Chainguide

• Price: £259.00 cassette, £99.95 £64.97 chainguide
• From: e*thirteen

David the destroyer Hayward managed to break some e*thirteen bits in a series of unfortunate events. Luckily for him, they’ve sent him a whole bunch of replacement and additional stuff.

e*thirteen Tire Plasma, Tubeless Tape

• Price: £ Tire Plasma, £tbc Tubeless tape
• From: e*thirteen

You should go tubeless. Here’s a way to do it. Tire Plasma is ‘acrylic polymer emulsion’ which is non toxic and water soluble. This is supposed to be kinder to your tyres, and if you mistake it for your soya milk, it probably won’t kill you. Don’t try it though.

e*thirteen Stems

• Price: £tbc
• From: e*thirteen

Launched last year, us lot being bike journos we’re always swapping bits about. David is a proper tester that keeps a spreadsheet of such things. He’ll be adding 40mm and 50mm stems to his list – as that’s what these are. One is polished, and one isn’t – though that isn’t likely to affect performance. Hopefully the knee friendly rounded bolts will help keep any further unfortunate events to a minimum.

e*thirteen Handlebars

• Price: £tbc
• From: e*thirteen

Alloy or carbon – take your pick. The Race bars are carbon, the ‘Plus’ are alloy. We have both in 800mm wide, 20mm rise.

Crafty AF Beer

• Price: £17.99 a month
• From: Crafty AF

It looks like #drinkbeeratyourdeskfriday may never be the same again. If your alcohol-free beverage experience has been clouded by Kaliber and its ilk, then you’d be surprised that there are over 60 different AF beers available at the click of a mouse.

Crafty AF (Alcohol Free) is a beer subscription service with a difference. For £17.99 a month, including postage, you’ll get six assorted alcohol-free beers and lagers in the post. They do taster packs too – “Light AF”, “Heavy AF”, “Hoppy AF” and “Fruity AF” and they’re offering 10% off taster packs (though not subs) to Singletrack folks. Just put ‘SINGLE10’ into the Promo code box at checkout and you’ll get some cash off.

Shand Velo Sock

• Price: £75.00
• From: Shand Cycles

This is for when you’ve got a mucky bike that you don’t want to put on your carpet, or in your office. You should read the instructions on how to fit it onto your bike, especially if you’re planning on using it outside your city centre office after a canal towpath ride in. Because you wouldn’t want to look silly, would you, Amanda?

By request (@athy62):

Mountain Biking Adventures

• Price: £14.95
• From: Singletrack

Charlie says… In this 256 day book we have 20 multiday bikepacking routes, covering Scotland and Northern England. Most of the routes are 4 days long, with handy daily details including mileage, proportion that is off-road, and climbing/descending… and real OS maps. You won’t need to wild camp, as the routes appear to overnight near civilisation and cosy accommodation. That’s the next 80 days / 20 long weekends of cycling adventure sorted then.

FGF Podcast!

There’s a veritable multimedia feast for FGF this week, as we’re bringing you our first Fresh Goods Friday Podcast. You can listen to Hannah and Mark talking about the week’s events and news here. It’s all scripted, planned, and very slick. Obviously. Like everything we do.

Dji Mavic Mini

• Price: £459.95
• From: Apple

So this is the result of getting to the airport early and indulging in a few beers. Andi was after a DJI Mavic Mini since they were released, but never got around to buying one. Thanks to a few glasses of Estrella though, one has turned up on his doorstep.

Andi has gone for the Mavic Mini with the Fly More Bundle. So as well as the ultra lightweight drone, DJI also packs in 3 batteries, a charger, loads of spares and even a set of rotor cages for learning how to fly.

According to the DJI website, and many reviews, each battery should give the tiny drone around 20-25min of flight time which is very very good.

The drone itself has a camera fitted to a gimbal for super-smooth video footage. It’s capable of still photos or filming in up to 2.7k. The really interesting thing is the weight. Drone rules state that anything that weighs over 250g must be registered, the Mini ways in at 249g with a battery.

And with our eyes on the weekend, it’s time to drink a non-alcoholic beer and look forward to riding bikes in the sunshine and the, oh, wait… We seem to have another orange rainfall warning. And Ross, who’s off skiing, it looking forward to 18C weather.

Whatever you get up to, we hope it’s fun and weather enhanced. Here are local up and comers, Working Men’s Club with their new single.

Amanda Wishart

Art Director

Amanda is our resident pedaller, who loves the climbs as much as the descents. No genre of biking is turned down, though she is happiest when at the top of a mountain with a wild descent ahead of her. If you ever want a chat about concussion recovery, dealing with a Womb of Doom or how best to fuel an endurance XC race, she's the one to email.

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