Fresh Goods Friday 647: Bank Holiday Bonanza!

Spring arrived earlier this week, and what a treat it has been. How have you chosen to use all that extra daylight? I have spent it taking a longer way into work, baking trail treats, going lamb spotting, counting goose eggs and avoiding llamas.

So back to the trail snacks. This recipe has been posted previously (for members only), but having recently fed my local Tuesday Night Ride a batch, I feel it needs re-sharing. It’s easy, you can do whatever you want with the flavours by swapping the last two ingredients to whatever you fancy, and it doesn’t make a mess as a trail snack. The structural integrity of biscotti is excellent.

Orange, Apricot & Almond Biscotti

• Prep: 10 minutes
• Bake: 1 hour
• Kcal: 96, Carbohydrates: 16g, Protein: 1.8g

• 125g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 65g golden caster sugar
• Zest 1 orange
• Tablespoon coconut oil
• 40ml milk (I used soya, you can use any)
• Splash of vanilla essence
• 30g dried apricots
• 30g almond flakes

Preheat oven to 150°C.
Add flour, baking powder, caster sugar, pinch of salt and orange zest in one bowl. Set aside.
Melt coconut oil and add vanilla essence and milk, then whisk.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients to form a dough. Add your fruit and nut of choice. If it’s sticky, chuck some more flour in. Dry, more milk. Just wing it, I swear you can’t get this wrong – the key to biscotti is the oven temperature…
Bake for around 30 minutes, until the outside feels hardened but not solid. Take out the oven and cool for 20 minutes.
Slice the log up, put the pieces on their sides and return to the oven for another 20 minutes. If you want rock hard biscotti, leave it slightly longer (or softer, slightly less).

Top Tip! Can’t afford to leave your oven on for so long? No bother, just make it less tooth-breaky.

That’s enough of that, let’s take a look at what has arrived at STW this week! It’s been a quiet half term with not many of the team in, but the posties haven’t taken any time off.

Haibike Nduro 6 eMTB

• Price: £4,899.00
• From: Haibike
• Weight: 27.07kg

Nduro – ‘Enduro’ Geddit? According to HSE guidelines, we can’t legally lift this bike alone while we are at work, so you’ll need a friend with you at all times incase of an incident. There’s no error in that weight (And it’s without pedals so we are expecting it to just squeeze past the 60lbs mark once Benji sticks his favourite shin hammers on it) but then this is a full fat, 180mm travel enduro monster of a bike powered by a Yamaha motor – Yamaha developed the motor for all Giant e-MTBs that Mark got to play with a few months ago in Utah.

Magura 4 Pot brakes are on this beast and we imagine they will be very much needed to stop this thing. Benji will be reporting back with the results of testing in the coming weeks.

Trek Pro Caliber 9.6

• Price: £2,550.00
• From: Trek
• Weight: 11.74kg

This 29er race spec XC hardtail from Trek is in for test as part of the ‘you don’t need to remortgage to have a decent bike’ test. It’s carbon with IsoSpeed frame tech that provides vibration damping by decoupling the seat tube from the frame, creating a smoother ride that in theory should help fatigue. The build spec has been financially balanced to keep the bike sub-£3k despite, and I think this is the perfect Midweek Madness bike, so maybe Benji should enter Lee Quarry and really put it to the test?

Charlie’s Birthday Merch Deal

• Price: From £14.99
• From: Singletrack Merch Store

Charlie says… It’s my birthday this week, so let’s do you a killer deal on your favourite natural chamois cream. Grease your crease and save 25%. Also works as lip balm, but don’t double dip. You may also want to know that it is gentle and “fanny friendly”. No discount code required, just make sure you are logged in to see the best price.

Singletrack World Magazine Issue 148

• Price: Use code HELLO54 to join as a digital member for only £12.50 for the first year!
• From: Here

It’s not too late to read issue 148 – Sign up as a digital member and gain access to all back issues today.

• Full access to members’ content, digital back issues & new app issues
• Ad free website
• Merch discounts
• Downloads, GPX, PDFs, iBooks

New Members Discount Zone

Charlie has worked on hard on this one and we can now show you our new addition to the long list of reasons to be a Singletrack Member. We’ve teamed up with Endurance Zone VIP Discounts to build in a massive list of members benefits exclusively available to our Full Members. Just click below to go and browse the massive list of deals (Butyou need to be a full member).

Specialized Gambit Helmet

• Price: £295.00
• From: Specialized

The Specialized Gambit is a DH certified, well ventilated helmet available in four colours. Featuring a carbon fibre shell, MIPS, adjustable Integrated Fit System and adjustable cheek pads.

7Mesh Spring 2023 Gear

• Price: Slab Shorts – £120, Roam Jersey – £58.33, Northwoods Windshell £130. Horse is extra
• From: 7Mesh

Our top model here performs his signature ‘Brown Steel’ look for us in some of 7Mesh’s spring/summer 2023 gear. Earth tones are in this year and the lightweight summer jersey features a Strava heatmap from 7Mesh’s hometown of Squamish, Canada. The shorts, meanewhile are an updated version of the popular Slab shorts. A no-frills summer baggy, the Slab features a thigh phone pocket and barely anything else apart from a light weight, taped construction. New for 2023 is a more secure belt cinch and a popper and zip fly replaces the ‘elastic and cinch’ of before. The Northwoods Windshell, meanwhile, is a tiny, packable jacket ideal for keeping with you at all times (and wearing half of those times…)

Crono Shoes CX1

• Price: €259
• From: Crono Shoes Italy

These Crono CX1 shoes are the Italian brand’s top gravel/CX and mountain bike race shoes. The double BOA system snugs your foot back into the heel-cup – and the six layer carbon sole ensures no power is wasted. The BOA Li2 system allows micro-adjustments too, so you can precisely dial in the amount of suffering you’re after. Not heard of Crono shoes? They’re made it Italy by a family firm that is just celebrating its 50th birthday. So now you know.

Limar Air Atlas Helmet

• Price: €259
• From: Limar

More gravel-leaning gear suitable for grit.cx here. The Limar Air Atlas is an aero helmet for those flat-out gravel rides. Apparently at 40km/h it’ll save you 0.7Watts… The internals are sculpted for great ventilation as well as having aero wing sections for better airflow over your bonce, there’s a Fidlock buckle, a multi-way adjustable head cradle and a full shell for better helmet protection. As tested by Nibali and the Astana team, road fans!

TOTW

This week, we are awarding the er.. award to SMcDU for this very cheeky but also quite funny thread about our Man in France, Chipps. Particular giggles caused by the reply from the muffin-man. But he doesn’t win this week’s prize. That goes to the OP.

Chipps Papped

And finally – Easter Eggs TV

Before you rush off to play in the sun this Easter weekend here’s a sample of one of the weirdest but loveliest bands out there, The Lovely Eggs – A band I’ve (Mark) seen numerous times (Twice in Hebden’s Trades Club) and are never not bonkers. This is one of their greatest hits (No really – Video shot entirely in Morecambe).

And if that’s not enough bonkers, they’ve just launched a TV programme on Youtube, which takes them to a whole new level.

Have a great long weekend everyone.

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