Fresh Goods Friday 493 | The Lockdown Birthday Edition

Happy Birthday to Amanda, Happy Birthday to You, Happy Birthday to Amanda, hope you know we love you!

Yes, today is Amanda’s birthday, and she is not entirely happy about it. She’s not entirely happy about anything at the moment, thanks to the local annoying geese. They’re strutting about like it’s the local night club, picking up the lady geese, having argy bargy over who stole whose girlfriend or boyfriend, who spilled whose pint… it’s stilettos at dawn out there and Amanda is sick of the endless honking. Honk. You’re one hot looking goose. Honk. Leave me alone I’m not in the mood. Honk. Get off, I’m totally in there, she’s mine. Honk Honk Honk. You can both sod off, I’m going to swim to Hebden Bridge and find myself an artist goose. Honk. Now my feelings are hurt. I’m going to cry. Honk Honk Honk Honk.

We’re really hoping that they all get laid soon, so they can go and sit quietly on their nests… ready to make lots more little geese so that next year there can be more honking… sorry Amanda. Are you sure you’re vegan? There could be a solution there. Or maybe the geese could prove handy in keeping people off the canal towpath? It’s looking alarmingly busy out there for a path that’s barely 2 metres wide…

Torq Zombie Apocalypse Survival Pack

• Price: from £7.99 for bottle with hydration sachets, to £33 for 20 flapjacks. Bulk order discounts available.
• From: Torq Fitness

It seems that Torq Fitness predicted the breakdown in society a while ago, because it had already assembled this selection pack of bars, flapjacks and hydration products, ready for any long-term zombie apocalypse spent in the Singletrack Bunker, deep under Grandma Pollard’s former world famous chip shop. Hannah’s kids can confirm that the Bakewell flapjack is delicious, and – cunningly for something so almondy – nut free! Even vegans can survive with these – most Torq products are vegan, and the snacks are also organic.

Torq / Three Peaks Coffee

• Price: nfs
• From: Torq Fitness

It is with extra relief that we received this coffee. You can wash your hands if you run out of toilet roll, but there is no substitute when it comes to coffee.

Salsa Horsethief Carbon XT

• Price: TBC
• From: Lyon Equipment

Salsa’s Horsethief has been around for a few years now, but it’s been kept fully up to 12-speed date and we jumped at a chance to test this one as part of an upcoming bike test. It features full Shimano XT components with a 10-51T cassette, XT four piston brakes, a Fox 34 and Maxxis DHF/DHR 29 x 2.5/2.4in tyres. A flip chip also lets you run 27Plus wheels and tyres if you like that kind of thing. Stay tuned for a magazine test soon.

Riese & Müller Packster 80

• Price: From £35/day with longterm lease options available (Cost new £5388.00)
• From: Manchester Bike Hire

Beate Kubitz, who paints the lovely watercolours we have in every issue’s Classic Ride is actually a transport consultant by day. With transport symposiums all cancelled and time on her hands, she has decided to start up a free community delivery service for our town, using a fab Riese and Müller electric cargo bike. Local shops and markets can take online orders and Beate has had top level transport planners make her some turn-by-turn delivery software to make sure it’s all done as efficiently as possible.

Rockshox Super Deluxe Coil Ultimate

• Price: Approx £550
• From: RockShox

This smart looking springer for your full bouncer is actually the absolute pinnacle in RockShox’ coil spring suspension units for long travel trail and enduro bikes. It’s the Super Deluxe (meaning that it has all of the options – a low speed compression adjuster, rebound, and a threshold lever to keep your bike pedalling sweet up the climbs.) and the ‘Ultimate’ tag means that it’s got the top of the shop fit and finish from RockShox, featuring smart graphics, a Boxxer red spring, and separate open and threshold pistons so that your seated climbing tune doesn’t interfere with your downhill shredding settings.

Weight is 406g without a spring.

Bike Hooks

• Price: £6.81
• From: Amazon

Amanda is trying to be productive during isolation by building herself a workshop. She has plenty of space for storing bikes but has found that she needs to sweep up regularly, so hanging them out of the way aids her OCD.

Beer52 Subscription

• Price: From £24/mo
• From: Beer52

This gift box of beer arrived for Amanda to help her cope with the geese, and her birthday, and isolation. There’s a great selection of breweries available from Beer52, although sadly no Vocation option yet. However…

Vocation Beer

• Price: £Assorted, free delivery over £40
• From: Vocation

It’s been a great time to discover that many of your favourite suppliers are still doing mail order – even if you’ve never used that service before. Chipps (and his whole street) have made use of Vocation Brewery’s delivery service and, by collating the beer orders of a whole road, made it worthwhile (free delivery over £40) getting cases of beer couriered into the neighbourhood (where they were sprayed and cleaned with the ‘other’ sort of IPA and distributed to neighbours’ doorsteps.)

We’re hoping to bring you a few, similarly alcoholic, offerings for subscribers in the next few days, so stay tuned. And talking of subscribers, your new April issue of the magazine, issue 130, should be arriving on doorsteps early next week.

Public Service Announcement

We’d like to appeal to all riders to ride responsibly during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here in the UK there are specific restrictions on leaving your home. Wherever you are in the world, it will represent the mountain bike community well if you are seen to be doing all you can to help prevent the spread of the virus between locations, and to minimise the risk of being an additional burden on your health service through injury.

Ride from home, ride with restraint, and don’t go far: No car, no gnar, not far.

Thank you, and thanks to everyone for your support. We love you!

Hannah Dobson

Managing Editor

I came to Singletrack having decided there must be more to life than meetings. I like all bikes, but especially unusual ones. More than bikes, I like what bikes do. I think that they link people and places; that cycling creates a connection between us and our environment; bikes create communities; deliver freedom; bring joy; and improve fitness. They're environmentally friendly and create friendly environments. I try to write about all these things in the hope that others might discover the joy of bikes too.

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