FGF 566 – Happy Days, Sad Days

We start this Fresh Goods Friday with sad/happy news. Sad for us, and you, but happy for Lauren. She’s been head hunted by a marketing company and lured away from her Newshound work by the promise of office slippers (we kid you not) and the chance to write things like ‘It’s time to find your flow and push your envelope. This latest race whippet will have your back while you discover techy climbs. Between the tape or party laps, this bike puts baby in the corner’.

We jest, and we can see the attraction in having some real life work colleagues, a coffee machine to gather round, and a new creative challenge, so we wish her all the best. We’ve loved having Lauren here and we hope you’ve enjoyed reading all her words. You’ve got a week left before she goes if you want to show her your appreciation.

No music to start this week, instead we bring you this rather wonderful analysis of office slides, by our own David Hayward. Lauren, if there’s a slide or ball pool in your new office, we want video.

Restrap Patch

• Price: £3.99
• From: Restrap

Charlie says… This turned up at the Singlespeed UK Champs, I found it in my pocket on Sunday morning. It really rather amused me. This patch does not have iron-on backing, so you will need to get the old needle and thread out, or ask your mum nicely.

Singletrack Elliot Brown Watch

• Price: £475
• From: Elliot Brown

Charlie says… We had a bunch of requests from Singletrackers who missed the pre-order window for the Limited Edition Singletrack watch. So we have made the order book open to everyone, so you can now order your personalised Elliot Brown watch.

There was also some confusion regarding the personalisation. You don’t have to have your username engraved on it. You can pretty much anything you like, up to 25 characters. You don’t have to go with that somewhat dated username that was such a good idea when you were 20 years younger. Tick followed tock. Good things come to those who wait… but don’t wait too long.

Magicshine Allty 1500 and mounts

• Price: £83.99 (light), £11.99 (helmet mount), £17.99 (bar mount)
• From: Magicshine

One the Allty range of compact front lights that comes in a range of brightnesses right up to 2000 lumens, this is the 1500 lumen option. Weighing 133g, you can have it ‘on’ or in a range of flashing modes. With a claimed 2 hours on full brightness it should be enough for many a night ride. We’ve got two here so we can put one on our bars and the other on our helmet. A bar mount is included, but we’ve also got an out front mount and helmet mount here for added flexibility.

Magicshine Seemee 20 and Seemee 200

• Price: £17.99 (Seeme 20), £38.99 (Seeme 200)
• From: Magicshine

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You want to be seen from the back too, even on a mountain bike ride. Whether it’s to help your friends you’ve left far behind you figure out which way you went, or to be seen by drivers on that final road climb home, you need a rear light. The Seeme 20 has one constant and two flash modes, with three brightness settings – so you don’t have to blind your fellow riders with a blinky light on the trails. The Seeme 200 might just blind them on the max setting, which it claims can be seen two miles away. Perhaps choose one of the lower brightness modes to remain on the right side of your friends – three brightness modes and four flash modes gives you options. There’s also a three second 200 lumen brake light option, which you can switch off to save battery.

Topeak Ninja Master Cages

• Price: TBC
• From: Extra

The Topeak Ninja Master cage is designed to not only keep your drink bottle nice and secure but also allow you to easily attach tools and C02 inflator kits to it! The nifty two in one design is available either as a standard cage, or in either a lefty or righty design to suit your preference and bike design.

Topeak Joe Blow Tubi 2stage

• Price: £109.99
• From: Extra

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This workshop standard track pump is made from steel and aluminium for durability but is also packed with neat features to make tubeless set-up a breeze. The new Tubi-Head is engineered to allow the removal of the valve core for better airflow without pressure loss or sealant leaks. The pump also features a 2 stage design to quickly inflate the tyre, then get it to an accurate pressure that can be read from the analogue gauge.

Topeak Tubi 11 Combo

• Price: £35.99
• From: Extra

The Tubi 11 is a neat trail tool with 11 useful features plus a tubeless plug box for tyre repairs. This 83g tool has the most common Hex wrench sizes found on a bike plus a T25 Torx wrench, tyre lever and a stainless steel tubeless reamer and plug insertion tool. The kit comes in a neoprene storage bag to keep it all safe and sound.

Topeak Tubi 18

• Price: £39.99
• From: Extra

As you would expect, the Tubi 18 is another trail tool option but this time in a larger package that packs 18 useful features. Again all popular Hex keys are covered and you have tools for repairing punctures, but there is also a screwdriver and a small blade for trim repair plugs.

Topeak Tubi Master

• Price: £54.99
• From: Extra

Another Topeak Tubi tool to add to your arsenal of tubeless repair aids. The Tubi-Master is a complete tyre repair and C02 inflation kit consisting of repair tools, tyre plugs and a C02 inflator all neatly contained in a machined pod.

Orange Seal

• Price: From £6.99
• From: Extra

Before you even get a puncture you might want to try and prevent it in the first place with some Orange Seal sealant. We’ve used this sealant quite a lot ourselves and it’s really effective on large holes and tears. The formula is also good for cold winter riding and retains its sealing properties at -11.

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Ah, the routine of life is returning. Trips to the office are back on, the kids are back at school, and the cabinet is being reshuffled. Emergency trips to Asda to buy school shoes and shirts that fit have been done, though you’re probably still squeezing your kids into last year’s PE uniform, because who wants to try and navigate the school’s online shop set up? Tears have been shed as you wave the little darlings off for their first days, then rapidly dried as you discover you’ve now got hours of free time during the day to go and ride your bike (at this point a Garmin that lets you know when the boss is emailing seems like a really good idea…).

It’s the window between summer holiday madness and winter gloom. Get out there and smell the fungi, grab the golden rays of autumn, and make the most of this slice of normal(ish).

Now, some slide guitar…see what we did there?

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