Wales Mountain Biking – Beicio Mynydd Cymru is a collection of 20 classic Welsh mountain bike rides, between 12 and 50 kilometres in length. Split into three sections, South Wales, Mid Wales and North Wales,…
It’s a quiet old day in Singletrack (Virtual) Towers today as several staff are off on well-earned days off and the rest of us are head-down and working towards the weekend and that well-earned beer at the finish line. With the last lot of winter out of the way for the moment, the daffs are coming up, the crocuses are already out on the road to Hebden Bridge and, while there’s no warmth in the air just yet, there’s at least the thought that we’re on the up and up. Springtime, here we come!
While all we want to do is have a ride in shorts and short sleeves that finished at a cafe or beer garden, for now we’re making do with planning for that summer to come, so it’s been a frenzy of shed clearing, bike building and fork servicing here at Singletrack.
Where’s the place that you’re looking forward to visiting the most, once we can move around again? Answers in the comments. For me, in my head, I’m starting with a mountain bike road trip around North Wales and Southern Scotland, followed by some West Country gravel. And then I need to remember where I’ve hidden my passport (no, really) so that I can do some foreign visiting…
Yeti ARC T-Series Frame
- Price: £1399, frame only
- From: Silverfish
The first hint of spring and we’re already thinking about dry trails and light-weight hardtails (well, some of us are…) Fortunately, Chipps has just finished building up this rather splendid Yeti ARC frame, using a journo-spec build of things he robbed off his other test bikes in order to get this one rolling before the first warm day of spring. The Yeti ARC is Yeti’s ‘downcountry’ hardtail, intended to be an all-round, light weight, fast and fun bike. Normally there are ‘T Series’ and C Series’ frames in the Yeti range, but here, Yeti only makes the one model, so the complete bikes from Silverfish all use the ‘Turq’ quality frame as a base. Complete bikes start at £4099 for the C2 build, and rise to £5199 for the T2 build.
The 445mm reach (Med) and 67°/76° numbers had Ross and Andi’s eyebrows raised with their apparent retro-ness, but Chipps doesn’t seem concerned as he was after a light, flickable 29er hardtail. He’s even paid money for it!
Nukeproof Cub Scout 26 Race
- Price: £999.99
- From: Nukeproof
If you want a hefty dose of the warm fuzzies, surprise your kid with a new bike. Hannah is still basking in the glow of the hug that came after her youngest squealed ‘it’s got suspension!’. Indeed it does – 120mm of travel on the Manitou Markhor air fork. 26×2.5in Maxxis Minion tyres look just right, and there’s child specific hydraulic brakes from Tektro. A proper mountain bike, for proper mountain biking. Here we come!
Gaye Bykers On Acid at the 100 Club.
- Price: £22
- From: Ent24
Charlie says… Still living in a primitive state of erotic irresponsibility. Another cancelled gig has been resuscitated. Gaye Bykers On Acid. Straight out of LA (Leicester Area) the world’s greatest surf bastard skate psychedelic dance acid thrash band from the 80’s are back. The front man, Mary Byker, once told me he didn’t mountain bike so much now because there had been about four bike murders in his old neighbourhood in Rio in a month! Four people killed for their bikes… bloody hell! Mary has worn a Bikemonger shirt when with Pop Will Eat Itself, and I have sported a Bykers shirt whilst winning the hell out of the start of a Belgique cross race. Tickets are still available. Git down and shake your thang. (Other styles of music, and tights, are available)
Hackney GT ‘Love Wins’ Arm Warmers
- Price: £20
- From: HackneyGT
HackneyGT produces all sorts of bright, urban-inspired gear that isn’t for the shy. These ‘Love wins’ Thermodress arm warmers are ideal for those ‘Will it warm up later?’ rides we’re just on the cusp of looking forward to. They’re fleecy and windproof too, so paired with a similarly rugged short sleeve top, they should be all you need for those spring miles. Assuming you remember riding outdoors…
Öhlins Suspension Service Kits
- Price: Various
- From: Öhlins
Öhlins have launched a range of service kits so you can keep top end suspension running like top end suspension. We’ve been sent everything need to service an RXF 36 M.2 and TTX2AIR that we recently tested (read the review here).
The service kits cover everything you need for your fork and shock and are available in pre-set packs specific for the individual fork or shock along with tools for making the job simpler. These range from simple seal replacement packs to air shaft clamps.
To keep our fork and shock running tip top we’ve been sent the following:
- SKF RXF36 chassis service which includes 4x bump rubbers, 2x foam rings, 2x wiper seals and a new O-ring SAG indicator) – 41.06 EUR
- 36mm Seal Press – 40.23 EUR
- TTX 18 Muti Clamp – 81.22 EUR
- Öhlins Renep CGLP 220 Air Spring oil 0,6 L – 18.47 EUR
- Öhlins Renep CGLP 68 Fork Lower leg oil 1L – 28.70EUR
- Öhlins Renolit SI 410 M Dynamic Grease 225g – 21.97 EUR
- RXF 36 100 hour Air Spring Service Kit – 26.98 EUR
- TTX AIR Air Srping Service Kit – 46.92 EUR
- TTX AIR 8mm Clamp – 81.22 EUR
Brand X Ascend Seatpost – Kids
- Price: £139.99
- From: Chainreaction
Hannah bought the Nukeproof Cub Scout for her youngest’s Christmas present and some courier shenanigans meant that it took until now to arrive. As if the excitement of a new bike wasn’t enough, the team at Nukeproof sent a package of upgrades to set Hannah on a path to some very expensive future parenting. But Kid2 is extremely excited so everyone is happy. First up, we have a child specific dropper post! For riders aged 10-14 years old and weighing no more than 40kg. It has 70mm of drop, a nice cable actuated thumb paddle, and fits a 27.2 seat tube.
Nukeproof Urchin Youth Handlebars
- Price: £39.99
- From: Nukeproof
Alloy 700x25x31.8mm bars with cool skull decals and available in a range of colours to match the rest of your upgrades.
Nukeproof Urchin Flat Pedals
- Price: £59.99
- From: Nukeproof
Super cute child-foot-sized (94×76.5x17mm) alloy pedals with proper replaceable pins and all the features you’d look for in your own grown up flats. There is much excitement about these in Hannah’s household.
Nukeproof Urchin Youth Grips
- Price: £19.99
- From: Nukeproof
Completing the blue matchy matchy look, it’s lock on grips with a flange for comfort and hand protection in child size: 115mm long and 30.8mm outer diameter.
Cotic BFE Max
- Price: £549
- From: Cotic
Andi has just got his hands on the new Cotic BFE Max frameset. It takes the original burly hardtail and brings it into the 29er generation running slender steel tubing and Cotic’s signature ‘Longshot’ geometry. This medium example has a reach of 461mm and a seat tube length of just 425mm, just the numbers to make for a playful do-it-all, rag anywhere kind of bike. Andi plans to build this up with a bunch of current test components including some rather exciting top-secret stuff! Watch this space!
Peaty’s Loam Foam
- Price: £9.99
- From: Silverfish
Peaty’s foaming bike cleaner is a favourite of Andi’s because of the thick white foam, cleaning power and the minty fresh scent it leaves after use. In addition, Loam Foam is biodegradable and doesn’t contain any nasty toxic stuff.
Peaty’s Foaming Degreaser
- Price: £9.99
- From: Silverfish
For keeping your drivetrain in tip top condition, Peaty’s foaming degreaser makes an easy job of removing dirt, grease and oil. It’s a non-solvent formula too so is safe to use where more powerful degreasers aren’t.
Silverfish Tea Towel and Sock Guy Socks
- Price: Priceless
- From: Silverfish
Surprise merch from the team at Silverfish. What we have here are a couple of tea towels, one with the usual Silverfish artwork and the other with all the brands available from the distributor along with a pair Silverfish branded Sock Guy socks.
And with that, we’re off to dry the washing up with a tea towel (Hmm… wonder where that idea came from?) and look forlornly at that brand new bike with one eye while the other eyeball works its way through the long list of to-do items.
Happy Friday everyone!
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Just a simple ride out of Weymouth and up into the Purbecks. Haven’t been ‘home’ for a year now.
The kid friendly dropper is a great idea.
yeti looks very cool, nicely done. Happy about the service kits from Ohlins as well…Off to check that I can get stuff for my coil fork and TTX
The Nukeproof Urchin kids stuff looks great!
Urchin… Good name too!
is the guy pointing at charlie in the photo amazed at his fashion sense or the school bell?
There are some cracking bikes this week. I’m looking forward to seeing that BFe built up.
@durwyn I think he got eliminated in an earlier round, and was surprised to see me leading out the start of the final, as I was also eliminated, but had the racing knowhow to simply join in the final anyway.
Built my BfeMax up last weekend, ridden it twice now, it’s a bit of a beast!
Looking forward to hearing the verdict on the Cub Scout + dropper combo. If I can actually find something to buy my son could do with something bigger and beefier than his Isla Bikes Beinn.
Gaye Byker Charlie photo is awesumz 😀
ANYWHERE outside my county
Wow GBOA & Crazy head local bands to me. Grown up with them knocking around. Thems were the good ol days
Looking forward to getting back to the Tweed Valley. I’m in the Borders but haven’t been since November. Also, Dunkeld.
As for riding – getting back to Wales – Llandegla, Marin and a few other places.
Which kids bike has a 27.2 seat-tube and the routing for an internal dropper?
Personally I think they’d sell pallet loads of them if they were externally routed.
Good choice there Chipps. Love my previous generation ArcC. It does everything I want really well from fast xc rides to BPW reds, to the Tuscany Trail. Not everyone needs long slack bikes for the riding they do!
What Jim said up there. We’re on our umpty-billionth small person sized bike, none of which had internal routing, and I’d want to move a dropper like that from bike to bike, so I’d hesitate before drilling a hole in a bike that’s unlikely to be sold to an enthusiast – I can imagine some of the pearl-clutching that’d go on if we listed one of the Udderlets’ past Islabikes with a dirty gert hole in the frame.
I’ve just bought a Vitus 24” HT for the eldest (bday next week.) No dropper but it does have holes / routing for an internal dropper. When he gets a bit taller and the seat is up higher I’ll probably get one of those brand x jobs. Got an adults version on my HT and it is a great bit of kit for the price.
I saw Gaye Bykers on Acid at Warwick uni back in the day. Got an ep somewhere. Can’t even remember any tunes to be honest.
That Cotic is a beauty.
Gaye Bykers on Acid have the best tribute band ever – Lesbian Dopeheads on Mopeds.
Lake disrict for me. Christmas visit was cancelled, Easter visit was cancelled. I love it in winter as I can get away from the mud we get around here.