Saddle up and pack your pony because it’s time for this week’s majestic Fresh Goods Friday!
Benji is still dealing with the aftermath of racing surviving last weekend’s Naughty Northumbrian Enduro event. You’ll be able to read – and watch – all about his (mis)adventures very shortly, suffice to say it was caps lock STEEP and WET up there. His bike and kit are just about finally clean again. His mind, body and soul still require quite a bit more work.
On with FGF!
Cotic FlareMAX
- Price: Complete bikes from £3799
- From: Cotic
Amanda: “We had a turquoise Cotic FlareMAX Gen 5 in for test a couple of months ago, and I took it out for a ride simply as an excuse to nip out for an hour. I had no intention of buying myself a bike… but here I am, the proud owner of the Limestone version, which is by far the better colour. As far as buying bikes goes, I think the Cotic Framebuilder is excellent and the customer service is faultless. I took this straight to Shackwrap for frame protection, and somehow they made me love it even more with a matte/silk finish wrap that I can’t even locate the edges of.”
bloK pod MTB Fork Mount
- Price: £35.99
- From: bloK pod
This machined and anodised fork mount is a genius solution for bike transportation, particularly for those building custom van storage like me (Amanda). The red inserts are 15mm x 100mm for my turbo trainer that I want to build a custom block for, however when it comes to putting the bloK pod in the van, additional inserts are £10.99/pair, and you can get any size possible, from QR road axles up to fat bikes.
Wera 073593 HexPlus 9 Piece Ball End Allen Key Set 1.5-10mm
- Price: £29.99
- From: Chicken Cyclekit
Charlie says: “After around a decade of loyal service, much of it in a bike shop working 6 days a week, I retired my last set of Wera allen keys because I could not find the tiny 1.5mm and the 5mm had started to show wear. They really do last very well (especially if you don’t lose them and put them back in their handy holster thingy).
“The colour coding is super handy and gives you a fighting chance of picking up the right size first time. Check out the ball ends. These allow you go in a jaunty angles which is just mega when bike designers put the rear brake mounts inside the rear triangle.
“And if all that is not enough, how about a little complimentary anarchy? The box tells me “You are a tool rebel“. I sort of knew that already, as that has been said to me before… but without the rebel bit”.
Northwave Overland Plus
- Price: £159.99
- From: Raleigh
These shoes feature Vibram’s ‘Fort Augustus” clipless-friendly sole. There’s an EVA midsole in the mix to “reduce weight and improve shock absorbing”. The BOA – sorry, SLW3 rotor – tightens the shoes from mid instep to toes, while the Velcro – sorry, hook-and-loop – strap deal with the upper arch area. TPU insert in the toe box, Ripstop reinforced shoes upper. The heel cup is designed to “adapt to your heel avoiding slippage and delivering a precision fit at all time.”
Northwave Tailwhip Eco Evo
- Price: £99.00
- From: Raleigh
The flattie shoes are all about the eco. The Tailwhip Eco Evo is Northwave’s first cycling shoe with a 53.34% “responsible impact”. Upper, lining, tongue, laces and insole top sheet are made of 100% RePET, recycled post-consumer polyester. Insole footbed partially made of 86% ReFOAM, recycled polyurethane foam. Sole partially made of 26% ReRubber, recycled pre-consumer rubber chips. We’ll let you know how they perform as cycling shoes. They’re a nice blue.
Northwave Good Times Great Lines Socks
- Price: N/A
- From: Raleigh
Some freebie socks to go with the Northwave shoes above. The big question is: will these feature in our end-of-year Best Socks feature? Surely, the most important feature of the year, if not the whole history of Singletrack World. What socks do you lot rate? Let us know in the comments!
Feedback Sports Bike Holding Stuff
Chipps says: I’ve been revamping my home workshop this summer and decided that I needed some drastic measures to keep my unruly heap of bikes tidy, so out went the mishmash of bikes leaning on bikes and the shelves that never had anything on them because there were bikes in the way. In their place is going a Feedback Sports A-frame bike stand with some Rakk XL stands for frequently used bikes. I also took the opportunity to upgrade my decade-old (at least!) Feedback Ultralight workstand with the big heavy duty Pro Mechanic HD stand for working on e-bikes, and for the fantastic quick release clamp.
Feedback Sports A-Frame
- Price: £399
- From: Saddleback (in the UK)
Yes, you could build the same thing from scaffold poles, but it wouldn’t assemble and disassemble as rapidly. The A-frame holds up to eight bikes (totalling 90kg) by their saddles and it’ll disassemble in a couple of minutes and it all zips into a Cordura bag. Great for 24 hour race pits and home use alike.
Feedback Pro Mechanic HD workstand
- Price: £549
- From: Saddleback
The Feedback Pro Mechanic HD is probably the chunkiest portable bike stand you can buy. It’ll hold bikes up to 45kg(!) and so will handle ebikes, tandems or downhill bikes and yet is delicate enough for road bike servicing. There’s a quick close clamp, with hand-cranked fine tuner, which quick releases on the tap of a button. Three oblong section legs keep everything stable and it’ll all fold up in a matter of seconds to chuck in the back of the car.
Rakk XL Bike Stand
- Price: £65
- From: Saddleback
Instead of stacking bikes against each other in the utility room or garage, the Rakk XL stand holds bikes upright by their tyres, and unlike older racks (like we have in the STW offices) it accepts that tyres are now wider than two inches. The Rakk XL will take tyre widths of 2.5in and up, so plenty of room for those enduro treads. You can even bolt several together, though expect your partner to ask why the garage is resembling a bike shop – and that surely you don’t need that many bikes, eh?
Decking
- Price: £0.00
- From: Facebook Marketplace
Some freebie decking planks to sort out Benji’s bust back area. How long do you think these will remain untouched laying on top of this bench acting as a ‘temporary’ drying rail for soggy cycling gear?
Casio FX-85GTCW Scientific Calculator
- Price: £12.00
- From: Asda
Monday sees the resumption of schooling. Hurray! Some kids will be moving up from Little School to Big School. And they will need scientific calculators like this one. 5318008, 71077345 etc. Ah, memories. Good luck gang!
Shimano GRX RX820
- Price: £complicated
- From: Freewheel
This Shimano launched its new GRX gravel groupset – Shimano GRX RX820. You can read about it here. If you want hear some scorching hot Op. Ed. copy courtesy of Chipps (which you do) you need to subscribe our newsletter, ‘cos it’ll be in there 👇
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Singletrack World Awards Nominations Open!
- Price: £0.00
- From: More details here
Send in your nominations via the tickbox stuff below (if you don’t see a form below it will most likely be that you are not logged in).
Remember that it’s up to you to persuade us why your nomination should become a finalist. Tell us what a difference you’ve seen them make, or what their work means to you, and why you’re nominating them.
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Thread Of The Week
blah binners blah
The winning TOTW in FGF gets a prize. So @binners please email editorial@singletrackworld.com for your random prize. Don’t forget to include your postal address, as it really speeds up delivery logistics like. Ta!
It’s Singletrack’s long running, weekly roundup of all of the new products that have been sent in to the magazine.
They’re sent in by bike companies and marketing agencies
They’re featured and then some are reviewed down the line in either Singletrack Magazine or in online reviews and photoshoots.
They’re usually sent back after review, or kept on long-term test bikes. But no one ever asks for shorts and shoes back. Trust us on that. Once we were asked to return some brake pads.
Nothing. Nil. Zero. Diddlysquat. Sod all. Just send all ‘next big things’ to us at – Fresh Goods Friday, Singletrack Magazine, Lockside Mill, Dale Street, Todmorden. OL14 5PX. Please note that if you require the products back after they have featured then you are responsible for arranging collection at your cost. While it is our policy to feature everything we receive in FGF if we decide your product is not suitable for publication we won’t do it. Publication is at our discretion. Whether a product goes on for publication as a review is at editorial discretion. Beer, coffee & spirits will ALWAYS be tested.
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