Fresh Goods Friday 589: The attraction of distraction edition

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Are you familiar with that meme of the ‘This Is Fine‘ cartoon dog calmly drinking from a mug whilst its house is burning down all around it? Anyway. Welcome to this week’s Fresh Goods!

Take a few minutes away from the The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse Forecast to stare at some shiny bits and bikes. And listen to some rare grooves.

This is the catchiest Estonian pop song we know of. So far. Research continues…

ProBar Protein Bar & Meal-On-The-Go

Packed with plant protein, chia, and flax seeds yadda yadda yadda. The big question here is: which is better… peanut butter or chocolate?

Bigger question: which is the better combo… peanut butter and chocolate or salt and vinegar or cheese and onion?

Giro Merit Spherical helmet

Modern helmets are neat aren’t they?

Released unto the great unwashed this week, the new two-lids-in-one Merit Spherical helmet from Giro packs in a whole load of hat tech. We’ve not had the opportunity to crash whilst wearing it yet (here’s hoping), but it’s impressively compact and comfy. Time will tell if it remains squeak-free whilst wearing. Read more about it here.

DigiBike Beer

Red or blue pilsner? (yes, neither are pilsner but, y’know… puns is the law ’round here)

As a welcome and wet reminde that UK cycling distributor Madison has their ‘online trade show’ DigitBike* starting this week, they sent a care package of cans to the Singletrack Team.

They know us all too well.

*the asterisk doesn’t mean anything, sorry!

RockShox Flight Attendant

  • Price: N/A
  • From: sram.com

To quote Gordon The Gekko: green is good

PiggyBattery

‘Intellligent’ self-adjusting suspension damping from RockShox. Pictured here integrated into a RockShox Zeb Ultimate and Super Deluxe Ultimate rear shock.

This launched a few months ago – read our report about RockShox Flight Attendant here – but this is the first opportunity we’ve had to have a proper, extended go on it.

How will it compare to the Fox Live Valve stuff that came out a couple of years earlier? We’ll let you know.

YT Capra Uncaged 6

A very worthy testbed for Fight Attendant

Just as the YT Izzo Core 3 leaves us fully-tested out, the YT bods deposit this Flight Attendant-ed Capra Uncaged 6 with us.

It’s certainly a Very Mountain Bike. AXS drivetrain. AXS Reverb dropper post. Flight Attendant auto-adjusting damping. Carbon frame. 170mm travel. Big ol’ Zeb fork up front. Crank Bros Synthesis wheelset.

Now then. Where to take it..?

Pink snips for zips

Have you ever cut yourself on a cut ziptie? I [Benji] can tell you, although it doesn’t hurt very much, ziptie slashes on your calves bleed. A lot.

Ceramic Speed SLT headset bearings

Not currently available for Hopey Steering Dampers

Solid bearings. There are still trad metal ball bearings hidden inside the white stuff. It’s the white stuff that is the thing here. The solid white stuff acts as both the seal and the lubrication.

You’ve probably read about these before but it seems they may be nearing actual production. We don’t expect to see them ever used in wheel hubs or in bottom brackets (principally due to them not spinning freely enough) but we reckon we’ll see them used for certain suspension frame pivots and, in our case, headsets.

This particular pair of bearings was a custom request to go in a Works Components angle-adjust headset (on Benji’s bike, natch).

Truflo Mini/Shock Pump

No batteries, no problem

Dual function: pump tyres and suspension. Switch between High Volume/High Pressure by twisting the handle. Fits Schrader valves natively, comes with separate Presta adaptor. Inflates to 100/300 psi, depending which node it’s in.

Put that Presta adapter somewhere safe!

Hannah: “[Non-digital] because I’m tired of batteries always being dead just when I want to set my bike up.”

Thread of the Week

This week’s TOTW goes to @tthew for the excellently furry fractal ‘Has anyone ever bought their dog a pet?‘ post…

This week’s #STWFGF winner

Tag us on Instagram and/or Twitter – and win stuff!

Every week we running a competition over on Instagram and Twitter to win a free subscription to Singletrackworld (or some other item of merchandise if you’re already a subscriber/member).

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

We sift through the tagged candidates at the end of each week and pick a winner. The winning #STWFGF pic gets proudly displayed in Fresh Goods Friday.

Congratulations go to @els_shreds for this winning shot. Email editorial@singletrackworld.com we’ll sort you out with your prize.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ellie Proctor (@els_shreds)

Cycle City Vancouver Crutch Cutting Service

Our Mark went on holiday to Sun Peaks in BC early this month to hone his mediocre snowboard skills. Unfortunately he was taken out by an out of control skier on day 5 leaving him with a fractured right fibula. After getting some proper forearm crutches to his wife Vic’s specification (she’s a physio) he managed to hobble around Vancouver for a few days. Turns out though that people who break legs in Vancouver are seemingly a bit taller than Mark and so he popped by a local bike shop for some help in modifying them. 5 minutes with a head tube cutter had them sized perfectly. Tip in the jar, t-shirt bought and Mark was ready for three days of crutching around the city.

Another service you don’t get from online shops. Support your LBS folks.

Singletrack Wisecracker Headset Spacer Bottle Opener

  • Price: £17.99 / £15.99 for Members
  • From: STW Shop
Maybe we should have used as Voodoo as the studio bike?

See what legendary mountainbike designer Joe Murray says about our nifty headset spacer beer bottle tool…

Hüvasti!

Orange Switch 6er. Stif Squatcher. Schwalbe Magic Mary Purple Addix front. Maxxis DHR II 3C MaxxTerra rear. Coil fan. Ebikes are not evil. I have been a writer for nigh on 20 years, a photographer for 25 years and a mountain biker for 30 years. I have written countless magazine and website features and route guides for the UK mountain bike press, most notably for the esteemed and highly regarded Singletrackworld. Although I am a Lancastrian, I freely admit that West Yorkshire is my favourite place to ride. Rarely a week goes by without me riding and exploring the South Pennines.

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Home Forums Fresh Goods Friday 589: The attraction of distraction edition

Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)
  • Fresh Goods Friday 589: The attraction of distraction edition
  • pmurden
    Full Member

    That dual purpose pump is a stroke (forgive the pun) of genius.

    mick_r
    Full Member

    You surely want flush cutting jaws for smooth / non-lacerating zip ties? Those aren’t flush cutting jaws…..

    kimbers
    Full Member

    capra with bottle access preferentially for southpaws?

    lister
    Full Member

    Nail clippers make a nice rounded off ziptie end.

    IHN
    Full Member

    No batteries, no problem

    Hannah: “[Non-digital] because I’m tired of batteries always being dead just when I want to set my bike up.”

    I’s confuzzled, what do batteries, or the lack thereof, have to do with shockpumps/trackpumps?

    boco
    Full Member

    Yes I have cut myself on a zip tie and yes I still have the scar!

    desperatebicycle
    Full Member

    what do batteries…etc

    Do digital pumps have a lickle battery to power the display? Hannah’s must do.

    Unlucky Mark, getting a busted leg on his hols all the way in Canadian Canada. 🙁

    hopkinsgm
    Full Member

    I’s confuzzled, what do batteries, or the lack thereof, have to do with shockpumps/trackpumps?

    Pros and cons of digital pressure gauges vs analogue pressure gauges?

    IHN
    Full Member

    Pros and cons of digital pressure gauges vs analogue pressure gauges?

    Ah, of course, duh. I’ve only ever had analogue, hence my confuzzlement

    roger_mellie
    Full Member

    Those Pro bars remind me of Tribe bars by their packaging…

    robo89
    Free Member

    I’m off to patent a solar powered digital shock pump and a headset spacer cup/bottle holder.😀

    thepurist
    Full Member

    I’m off to patent a dynamo powered digital shock pump

    A couple of pumps should give enough charge to read the pressure gauge – what could be simpler and more reliable than that? (except a dial, obvs).

    jimthesaint
    Full Member

    Solid bearings, it’s something to do with sausages isn’t it?

    dessie72
    Full Member

    Liking the bird of prey in the top left corner of the pic of Mark getting airborne on his crutches 🙂

    gazzab1955
    Full Member

    @dessie72 it’s Vancouver so that’ll be a Seagull of some kind, just saying …..

    dessie72
    Full Member

    every days a school day………..

    oceandweller
    Full Member

    Stopp, Seisku Aeg is very pretty but the melody seemed immediately familiar. I’ve just now remembered – it’s Clannad’s Passing Time (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGO-HT5-p8k to make your own comparison) from 40 years ago. Nice to know someone still remembers the Brennan kids! (Their sister, Enya, is rather better known.)

Viewing 17 posts - 1 through 17 (of 17 total)

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