Fresh Goods Friday 721: The Stitching Up Edition

Good day to you all and welcome to this week’s edition of Fresh Goods Friday. The end is nigh. By ‘end’ we mean end of the year.

Well, it’s not that nigh really. Unless you work in publishing or retail where, like us, you’re already being forced to prep for various end-of-2024 shenanigans. Night riding, mud tyres, awards, Editors Choice, winners, losers, the C word…

Yet we will go out this weekend and the ferns won’t even have turned copper and the nettles and bloody balsam will still be present.

As you were then. Here’s FGF!

Voodoo Canzo Pro

• Price: £1,800
• From: Halfords

The new Canzo from Voodoo. As it replaces the very long in the tooth outgoing Canzo, it is unsurprisingly quite a different beastie. While it remains an aluminium 4-bar full suspension bike with a 140mm travel fork up front, the geometry chart reveals some big numerical changes, as well as a 10mm bump up in rear travel to 140mm. The seat tube is shorter. The head angle is slacker. The reach is way longer. Taking a Large as our example, the seat tube is now 460 instead of 508mm. The head angle is 65° instead of 67°. The reach is around 480mm instead of around 450mm. The claimed effective seat angle is a smidge steeper also (75.5° instead of 74°). Spec-wise we see big names like RockShox, Shimano and Maxxis. And there’s a dropper supplied too. We really like Voodoo’s lock-on grips by the by. Nice paintjob.

Fresh Goods Firday 721: D’Movie

Wave goodbye, say hello

Shimano Shift Inner Cable x 100

• Price: N/A
• From: Madison

Courtesy of our Official Workshop Sponsor (Madison/Park Tool). This is by far the best delivery we’ve had this year. Well, in my [Benji]] opinion anyway. Despite nominally being ‘shift’ cable, we very rarely actually need cabling for drivetrains. Partly because drivetrain cabling just seems to last for ages these days (certainly longer than even the longest of test periods), but partly because we are spoilt bike journo brats who all swan about on wireless gruppos. Well, some of us do anyway. Some of us hate batteries more than we hate rummaging through our pile of different flavoured USB cables. Anyway. The vast majority of these inner cables will be used for dropper seatpost surgery.

Bluetti AC50B Portable Power Station

• Price: £399.00 (see below for exclusive discount codes)
• From: Bluetti

A mahoosive power bank. With loads of outputs and a couple of inputs. Inputs: mains or solar panels (available separately). Outputs: 3-pin plug, cigarette lighter 12V, 2 x USB-C, 1 x USB-A. Has a jazzy colourful LCD display with all the salient info you need. Warning: you will become obsessed with how much wattage various appliances draw! 448Wh capacity. 700W continuous power output but can also manage 1,000W for briefer periods (boiling a kettle, for example). Monitor and manage via Bluetti smartphone app. Weight: 6.7kg.

• 5% Discount on AC180, AC240, AC200L, AC300, AC500, EP800, and EP900 single items and combos (use code AFF5%).
• 3% Discount on AC2A, EB3A, AC50B, and AC70 single items and combos (use code AFF3%).

Parkside 12V Cordless Hedge Trimmer

• Price: £19.99 (bare unit)
• From: Middle of Lidl

First off, the £19.99 price does not include battery or charger. These are approximately £20 each on top and form part of a series of power tool things from Lidl’s Parktool own-brand range. Benji has acquired this trimmer. He does not have any hedges. Nor do any of his adjoining neighbours. What Benji does have is an overgrowth problem. Overgrown trails. Brambles, nettles, those blob-covered sticky things you lob at your sibling’s/parent’s/partner’s back and hope they don’t notice they’ve adhered whilst you chuckle away to yourself. Those are the sort of growths that he’s coming for. Watch out world!

Quecha NH100 Mid Waterproof Walking Boots

• Price: £39.99
• From: Decathlon

“For walking on soft (e.g. forest paths) and stony (e.g. coastal paths) hiking trails. When used on roads, this can lead to the premature wear of your boots and cause discomfort. They are not suitable for mountain walking.” And that’s okay by me (Benji) as I mainly want them for walking the dog in autumn-winter. I’ve had similar hi-tops from Decathlon/Quecha before and found them to be extremely comfortable and impressive light. “Waterproof, breathable membrane, tested during a 2-hour walk in the rain” – yep, sounds like what I’ll de using them for.

Secret Bicycle

• Price: £Decent
• From: Next Week

All will be revealed next week at some point. It’s not an ebike. It’s not an enduro bike. It’s not a downhill bike. It’s not a gravel bike. It’s not even a trail bike. Hmm…

Featured Member Reward of the Week

• Reward: Free Case of Wine
• From: Singletrack Members Rewards

“Claim your free case of 3 wines from Wine52 and 50% off your second case. You’ll receive the Castilla-La Mancha case featuring 3 stunning wines from the iconic Spanish region. You can choose a red, white or a mixture of wines and also included are two snacks and a copy of Glug magazine. Simply cover just £9.95 for postage.”

Instagram Readers Ride of the Week

• Price: using #stwreadersrides hashtag
• From: Instagram

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A post shared by jon cobb (@jon_j_cobb)

Whether you’ve got a special new bike or just a bike that’s special to you, this is how you get to tell everyone about it! You can either tag the bike pic with #stwreadersrides on Instagram or you can send us your submissions via this form.

Ross’ Stiches

• Price: N/A
• From: NHS

Yes, here’s the reason for the title of this week’s FGF (and the choice of YouTube Musics within). Ross: “Had a lump on my head from a crash a while ago, a trauma lipoma that was decided needed to go and I (naively!) thought would be a quick in and out and sorted. Anyway, was slightly more like real surgery, cutting, chopping skull scraping etc.” So it’s no riding for Ross until he fits his helmets again.

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