Fresh Goods Friday 583 – The BYOB edition

We believe implicitly that it’s Friday and the goods are fresh, though it could be Saturday by the time you are reading this, and perhaps you have seen the goods before, or even bought your own. All we ask is that you complete your investigations, reading all the way to the end, before heading to the comments section. We’re sorry if you don’t like what you find, but we believed you would like them, and that all items fall within the parameters of things you might like. The dog ate our homework, the lizard lords made us do it…

Garmin Tacx Neo 2T

• Price: £1,199.99
• From: Garmin

This mood lamp from Garmin creates a disco-esque vibe whenever you wake it up. Blue means your phone/device is connected, and during a workout, it fades through varying shades of pink and purple. If, like most of us here at Singletrack, you would rather ride around the block for an hour than sit on a turbo trainer, you might be interested in some of the features this one has. ‘Road feel’ means the trainer responds to the terrain on your Zwift/Watopia/Whatever workout. Cobbled climbs can be awful outside, imagine how bad they are indoors!

But seriously, this is a very smart trainer. It connects instantly to your app, it is practically silent (depends on your drivetrain), the ERG mode is actually responsive enough to not make your intervals undershoot on power, and as yet we’ve struggled to complain about anything but the act of indoor training itself.

DexShell Waterproof Ultrathin Socks

• Price: £22
• From: Upgrade Bikes

Featuring biodegradable yarns, the DexShell Ultra Thin socks are waterproof socks for summer rain – or tight shoes. The inner layer is made with bamboo rayon and polyamide, then there’s the waterproof Porelle membrane, and then a mixed fabric outer.

It is hard to model socks in an interesting way. Hannah attempted to wear them as long dog ears. The modelling offers are rolling in.

Glen Scotia Whisky

• Price: A gift
• From: The gift that keep giving, Pete Scullion, or here.

No, the fact the Pete Scullion sends us whisky every year does not influence our choice of covers. But it does just add weight to our impression that he’s a thoroughly nice chap.

Tribord Sailing Salopettes Waterproof

• Price: £44.99
• From: decathlon.co.uk

I [Benji] have been using these for a couple of winters now. Truth be told they aren’t great but they do the job. I mainly use them for e-bike rides where I ride through an awful lot of filth and I don’t have to be exerting myself beyond this garment’s breathability capabilities.

The fabric and construction isn’t very sophisticated (satiny polyester and mesh fest inside the legs) but they are decently put together and surviving their second grim winter.

I did expect the lack of tapering leg to be an issue but in this day and age of single-ring drivetrains, there’s very little for trousers to catch on.

On a broader note, I am totally sold on the concept of dungarees for winter MTBIng. Loads better than bunchy, droopy waterproof trousers and loads more versatile and unrestrictive than a onesie.

Ridgecrest Waterproof Cycle Gilet

• Price: £44.95 inc P&P
• From: Ridgecrest’s eBay

On the face of it, a waterproof gilet makes no sense. Unless you are a mountain biker from the UK, where showers and mild temperatures are the de-facto weather of ‘choice’.

Pair this with a long-sleeve softshell underneath for cooler temperatures, or with a lighter-weight, quick-drying long-sleeve for warmer times.

PU coated, soft handling polyester made to EN343 Grade 3 (which claims to be the highest level of breathability for a waterproof fabric). Kitted elastic, rather than the typical woven, for more stretch and suppleness.

Rather than a waterproof zip, Ridgecrest has deliberately gone with a regular easy-running nylon zip with a generous baffle/flap behind. The problem with waterproof zips is that they often require two hands to operate. They are also much stiffer than a regular zip and don’t conform/adapt to different body positions as well.

Of all the whizz-bang tekkers product that comes into STW HQ, this is one of the more genuinely interesting bits of kit we’ve had of late!

Focus Thron 6.9

• Price: £3,099
• From: focus-bikes.com

Hey look, it’s one of those ‘normal’ bikes that can often confuse people/journos. Where’s the carbon? Where’s the motor? Where’s the mullet? Where’s the fitted wardrobe? Where’s the insane price tag?

The Focus Thron 6.9 is a 130mm travel 29er made out of something called aluminium. It costs around three grand. It’s going in a future bike test for the magazine.

The most outlandish thing on the Thron is that CIS stem. In our experience, it does make for a quiet cable routing but it’s not something that we’d like to have on our own bikes really. Contrary to what some may say, you aren’t stuck with this stem design. You can put any normal stem on there… once you’ve got hold of a replacement headset top-cap form Acros (Focus UK can help you out) and you will have to re-string your gears, dropper and brakes. So not ideal but far from being CIS-compulsory.

Santa Cruz Bronson CC X01 AXS RSV

• Price: £8,599
• From: santacruzbicycles.com

Ahah! So this is where all the new-fangled stuff that journos are spoiled with has been lurking. The new Bronson has almost everything we mentioned that the Focus Thron does not have. Carbon, mullet, massive price tag… no motor or fitted wardrobe, mind.

You can read everything you need to know about the new Bronson in our feature from a few weeks back.

Thread of The Week

This week’s thread of the week goes to @guandax for the Faff thread. Their contribution is minimal, but since they actually read one of our articles in order to start the thread, and linked to it, goodies go to Guandax. The rest of you, thank you for your top anti-faff tips, confessions of faffing, and teeth grinding tales of impatience.

Deuter Pulse 3 hip-pack

• Price: £50.00
• From: deutergb.co.uk

A hip-pack for our future bum-bag beanfight. Even the most enduro-a-go-go of us occasionally has to resort to carrying stuff on our person.

The Pulse 3 offers 5L of storage capacity. You can put a dinky bladder in there too as it’s got the ports/routing etc (Deuter offer the Streamer 1.5 designed exactly for that). Wide hip wings, zipped mesh pockets, big main compartment, key holder. Looks good.

Deuter Flyt 20 Bike Backpack

• Price: £150.00
• From: deutergb.co.uk

A good ol’ backpack for proper mountain adventures. 20L capacity, bladder sleeve and port, removable back protector, compartments all over the show, light weight materials, helmet holder, Deuter’s Airstripes venting on the rear.

Just need to plan some proper mountain adventures now.

DT Swiss M 1900 Spline Wheelset

• Price: £335.00
• From: freewheel.co.uk

A strikingly reasonable price tag for these nice looking wheels. Let’s see how they fair up to some Downcountry+ flavoured (ab)use over the next few months.

Something purple this way comes…

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Want to win something?

Of course you do.

Starting with next week’s Fresh Goods Friday we’re running a competition over on Instagram to win a free subscription to Singletrackworld (or some other item of merchandise if you’re already a subscriber/member).

We want to see your riding pics.

Simply tag your Instagram riding pics with #STWFGF and… that’s it.

We’ll sift through the tagged candidates at the end of next week and pick a winner. The winning Insta pic will also be proudly displayed in Fresh Goods Friday too.

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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