Fresh Goods Friday 571 – The ‘Quick! It’s briefly sunny outside’ issue

It’s all got a bit ping-tastic up here, so some of us are diving outside and enjoying a bike ride while we can, others have their fingers crossed for half term holiday plans, and others are gazing longingly out the window at the forbidden world. It’s lovely out there, between the slop. Golden leaves, bright fungi, and the nettles are finally starting to flop. If you’re allowed out, or can get out, go out and grab the moment now. The internet will still be here later.

Still here? OK. Well, here are some fresh things for you to behold, it’s Fresh Goods Friday 571…

Yeti 160E T1

• Price: £11,895
• From: Yeticycles.com

How much?

Feel free to cut and paste this handy phrase into the comments below, saving you valuable seconds.

Five years it’s taken for Yeti to develop this bike – at least that’s what they tell us. They didn’t want to rush out an eMTB, they wanted to get it right, apparently. It is a lovely bike and we are told it’s been designed as an eMTB for actual racing! Yes.. on a bike with a motor. It’s a thing.

It’s a carbon framed, 630Wh capacity, Shimano EP8 powered 29r. This one is top spec and so comes with Fox Kashima 38 fork and Float X2 shock. There’s an AXS wireless dropper and XT shifting. The suspension system Yeti have called Sixfinity and is a variation on the Yeti Switch Infinity six bar suspension system from their natural range of bikes (Not ‘acoustic’. Pretty sure I’ll get a turd through my letter box if I use that term anymore).

We’ve got this for a couple of weeks so I’m (Mark) riding this as much as I can so I can bring you my thoughts and opinions on this electric whopper.

POC Rouse Shirt

• Price: £130.00
• From: POC Sports

A relaxed, casual style shirt (but in Rhys’ case, now the smartest shirt he owns) with technical features that mean you’re always ready to ride. The split hem allows for movement, the glasses holder keeps your sunglasses secure when you realise the 4 hours of UK daylight are over, and the poppers make it easy to put on with cold hands.

Singletrack Birthday Deals.

• Price: amazing
• From: Singletrack Merch Store

This year is Singletrack’s 20^th year of professionally messing about with bikes… and you will no doubt remember we had a special birthday magazine cover, and also made a bunch of cool merch to celebrate. Well, the birthday party is drawing to an end, beer is running low, the cheesy Wotsits are stale, and someone has fallen into the garden pond. So we are doing a few killer deals on: Slicy Fenders, Jigsaws, Tea Towels, and Art prints.  Go on, get a bit of Xmas shopping out the way early.

POC Consort MTB Dungarees

• Price: £450.00
• From: POC Sports

These are waterproof mountain biking dungarees! Hannah can barely believe her luck. And yes, that’s not a typo up there in the price section. For your money, you get unisex waterproof dungarees designed to be worn with knee pads. You zip yourself into them at the sides for a neat fit, there’s a zippered fly for easy wees if you have the anatomy for it, and there are big thigh zips for venting if you get too warm. The knees are slightly reinforced, and there are large pockets on the thighs, a teeny bank card sized one at the back, and a pouch on the front. Elasticated and stiffened cuffs stop any flapping around the ankles, and a band at the back of the waist to cinch things up snugly. Look out puddles, Hannah is going full toddler mode in her onesie, and coming to get you.

Ride Concepts Vice Women’s Shoes

• Price: £89.95
• From: Silverfish

A fairly soft shoe with D30 protection built into the sole, designed for those who want to feel their pedals when they ride, and who don’t want to hurt their heels when things go wrong – like dirt jumpers and BMX riders. There’s also toe protection built in, but it’s all packaged up in this distinctly normal looking shoe with suede uppers. Hannah is thinking maybe it’s about time she dug out her BMX and hit the foam pit again. It’s been a while.

New… Favourite Forum Thread Friday

• Price: Free
• From: Singletrack Forum

The Singletrack Forum, both the “Chat” and “Bike” variations, are really remarkable bits of the interweb. Here you will find over 523,000 topics, with 8,670,000 replies covering everything from removing Sudocrem from a cat to “what tyres for not riding much?”.

We will be picking our favourite thread of the week, and sending the Singletrack member who posted the thread a small parcel of cool Singletrack merch. If it is a reply that made the thread our favourite, we will also send the replier some merch love too.

And, the first ever “Favourite Forum Thread Friday” goes to… Johnnymarone for starting a conversation about the ethics of eating plants, and it swiftly becoming very informative, but also super weird. Check the Singletrack Forum out. Start a new thread and maybe win cool things.

ZIPP/SRAM XPLR AM 101 MOTO Gravel Wheels

• Price: £780/£866
• From: SRAM dealers. sram.com

These wheels are the final piece of the SRAM XPLR puzzle. XPLR is SRAM’s gravel-specific groupset and Chipps was very impressed when he got to ride a pre-launch set – however, due to… you know… things, not every bit was available to test at the time, namely the ZIPP wheels. These use ZIPP’s single layer carbon design, that is said to ‘ankle’ (ie flex sideways, like an ankle on rough terrain) which helps with the wheel’s compliance on the rougher stuff. The rims are tubeless taped, 27mm internal and 28 hole, laced three cross, with ZIPP’s own XDR compatible hubs. We’ll be giving these a go in the next couple of months. We’ve fitted them with a set of ZIPP’s G40 XPLR gravel tyres, that we’ve also been very impressed with. Let’s see…

Continental Der Baron Projekt 29×2.4

• Price: £64.95
• From: Continental

Patches the rabbit may be small, but he is fierce. And like many other rabbits, there’s nothing he likes more than shredding the local enduro trails on his 29er. Continental’s Der Baron Projekts should ensure he remains rubber side down – Conti’s black chili compound is the swishest one they make, and this particular tyre is endorsed by the Atherton siblings – so you have to assume it’s capable of much more gnar than even the most adrenaline-fuelled bunny can muster. As well as Black Chili, then, the tyres sport all sorts of tech, such as ProTection Apex cut and puncture – er – protection, and they’re tubeless ready and apparently fit ebikes as well as normal (acoustic, old-skool, unplugged, motor-deficient, meat-powered, genuine, proper, sweat, non-e – I think that covers all the bases) bikes too. Also, handmade in Germany, which immediately means that Patches is scurrying off to peruse his extensive Kraftwerk and Rammstein collection.

Singletrack + Hackney GT Colab’ Riding Shirt

• Price: £55
• From: Singletrack Merch Store

Hackney GT have always made neat jerseys, so it is extra cool to buddy up with them on this new long sleeve colab’ jersey. It has a wicked retro perforated front panel, and a dirty rainbow across your chest. We really like the pre-dirtied print… what’s the point in clean mountain biking clothes?

The sizes run from small to XXL. Russ will be making the shirts in a single batch in mid November, so I suggest you avoid all dilly’ing, and negate any dally’ing, and get your order in now.

CORE Body Temperature Monitor

• Price: £201
• From: Core Body Temp, corebodytemp.com

Human core body temperature has always been a tough one to measure (you normally either have to swallow an expensive transmitter pill or get a probe up your bum…) so, understandably, there’s a lot of interest in this ‘external use only’ new device from Swiss company, CORE. It fits on to a heart monitor strap and (if we understood the briefing correctly) works using a sensor that measures the rate of change in your skin temperature to accurately work out your core temperature. This then allows riders (and their coaches) to train for hotter races. Just as Tom Pidcock trained for Tokyo in a homemade ‘hot box’ in his spare room, you can now do the same kind of training. We’ll be getting into the Singletrack Sauna with the indoor trainer to give this one a try.

Gore Endure Jacket

• Price: £229
• From: Gorewear.com

It’s a super lightweight Goretex jacket with a stuff pocket inside and two hand pockets on the outside. Oversized hood with cinch tab for heads and helmets and the ubiquitous velcro cuffs. Nice casual fit means it looks good off the bike too. This one is going in to a grouptest of lightweight winter capable jackets that Mark is working on. Hopefully the blue skies and sun will bugger off for that – not that it’s a worry that it won’t.

The best bluebird skies days are on a Thursday as that means we can all rush outside to get these FGF shots and pretend we live anywhere else in the world other than the UK.

And now, it’s time to put this remix on VERY LOUD and zone out until Friday playtime. See you on the other side, folks!

Mark Alker

Singletrack Owner/Publisher

What Mark doesn’t know about social media isn’t worth knowing and his ability to balance “The Stack” is bested only by his agility on a snowboard. Graphs are what gets his engine revving, at least they would if his car wasn’t electric, and data is what you’ll find him poring over in the office. Mark enjoys good whisky, sci-fi and the latest Apple gadget, he is also the best boss in the world (Yes, he is paying me to write this).

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