Fresh Goods Friday 787: The Blanketing Pigs Edition

No doubt for some of y’all this is your last day before The Big Day. For others, today simply marks the moment where clockwatching, finger-drumming and/or thumb-twiddling can begin in earnest within the workplace.

And as a fundamental part of such wasteful frittering… here’s Fresh Goods Friday!

Sponsored by Yellow Jersey.

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*Discount is subject to T&C’s, which can be found at yellowjersey.co.uk/terms. Coverage is subject to T&C’s. Please refer to the policy wording for full details.

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Pasties!

• Price: N/A
• From: Silverfish UK

Continuing the great tradition of pasties-by-post, UK bikey distributors Silverfish (Fox, Yeti, RaceFace etc) have once again kept us fed in the run-up to Christmas.

Metal and pies!

• Price: N/A
• From: Hope Technology

After your savoury you must have your sweet. You cannot go back to savoury once you’ve had your sweet. Bringing the sweetness this is Hope Technology. Alongside a quartet of delicious mince pies we have received a nice greetings card and a laser cut Christmas tree.

Absolute Black Oval Boost Chainring

• Price: £63.90
• From: Absolute Black

It’s not Easter but here is an egg. More accurately, we have an oval chainring. Now then, despite being an off-road bicyclist for nigh on 35 year, I don’t *think* I’ve ever ridden a non-round chainring. This one from bling merchants Absolute Black appears to be very oval indeed. In for a penny, in for a pound and all that. Designed in the UK and manufactured in Poland. The packaging is a lovely green colour with a sort-of-Xmassy gridded window on it. Which doesn’t really matter but is nice all the same.

Absolute Black Premium Silicone Dual Density Enduro Grips

• Price: £23.90
• From: Absolute Black

Silicone grips are something that I have used before. These are apparently a little bit more techno than previous sili grips I’ve tried, in that they are dual density silicone. And they have a series of channels in them, which are closer together at the thumb-forefinger area and wider spaced toward the outer end of things. Available in red, green, blue or black. 35g per grip. Supplied complete with fancy la-di-da aluminium bar plugs.

Absolute Black Hydraulic Brake Piston Press

• Price: £29.95
• From: Absolute Black

Continuing the theme of conspicuous-but-incredibly-pleasing over-the-top design and materials, here is a super little gadget. The body of this tool is carbon-fiber–reinforced polymer, the bolt is titanium, and the wedge is piston-friendly aluminium wedge. Sure, you can just use a tyre lever to push your brake caliper pistons back into their burrows, but if you want a specific tool for a specific job, this is a nice item. There is actually a functional argument for a tool like this too; it pushes the pistons back at an even rate to each other, thus avoiding any potential issues caused by the ‘tyre lever method’ (namely, the opposite piston coming out too far and everything in your life goes wrong).

Shimano GRX RX717 Di2

• Price: £379.99 mech, £219.99 RH brifter, £179.99 LH brake
• From: Freewheel

A quick little note about the new gravel gruppo announced this week: Shimano GRX RX717. Di2 electronic shifting. Comprised of a new right-side Dual Control ‘brifter’, and two left-side brake-only lever options (one GRX-branded, the other SHIMANO-branded), and new GRX RX717 rear mech features a wide link structure, aluminium skid-plate design, Automatic Impact Recovery function, which allows the rear derailleur to instantly return to its original position after an impact, plus a protected battery housing that’s tucked out of harm’s way.

Cast Protagonist

• Price: £79.00
• From: Cast MTB

We featured the Antagonist (rear) tyre in a recent FGF, this rubbery hoop is the Protagonist – the front specific sibling. The compound and compound (and manufacturing, presumably) are courtesy of Pirelli but the tread pattern is Cast’s own design. Playing the compulsory ‘comparing it to existing Maxxis tyres’ game, we are going to compare the Cast Antagonist to a Maxxis Minion DHF x Assegai lovechild. Possibly with a soupçon of DHR II..? Thoughts?

Tubolito 32in

• Price: £TBC
• From: Tubolito

32 inchers are A Thing for 2026. And that’s fine. It looks like they’re going to be fairly and squarely aimed at the lankier XC racer brigade. Perhaps this will offset the advantage that smaller (lighter) riders have over taller (heavier) riders. Who knows? Perhaps it will result in mixed-wheels finally hitting the XC scene, with 32in front paired to 29in rear? Anyways… techno tubers Tubolito are ready for it.

Last minute Gift Subscription

• Price: £49.00
• From: The Singletrack Shop

This Subscription is designed to be a gift for someone else. In the gift subscription package is a gift card with a unique voucher code and full instructions on how to redeem this code. The recipient enters the code into our Subscription Voucher web page which activates the subscription. They choose where the printed copies of the magazine are delivered to when they redeem their subscription voucher code.

Forum Thread of the Week

The winner this week is munrobiker for the 2025 – A Year in the Mountains thread:

The winning TOTW in FGF gets a prize. So Munrobiker Please email editorial@singletrackworld.com for a random prize. Don’t forget to include your postal address. Cheers!

Stale Goods Friday – 2011 Kinesis Decade Virsa Prestige & Cotic BFe

• Price: £349.00 Kinesis frame (inflation adjusted = £520.66), £375.00 Cotic frame (inflation adjusted = £559.44)
• From: Fresh Goods Friday 81

Way back in the mists of time – January 2011 to be exact – we wrote: “The Kinesis Decade Virsa Prestige. Double butted Tange Prestige cromo tubing on a frame than can be run geared or singlespeed with the SwopOut dropout system, capable of running 100 to 130mm of travel up front, depending on whether you see yourself doing all day epics or just ragging about in the woods. The bling is as high as you’d expect with, carbon fibre Reynolds clincher rims, sparkly white Marzocchi Corsa SL forks and a SRAM 2×10 groupset.

“We’ve also got this lovely baby blue Cotic BFe. The BFe, like the name suggests, it a burly ferrous hardtail, using a mix of Reynold 853 and the magic, air hardening Reynolds 631 tubing in a compact frame that can take up to 160mm forks on the front. We’ve kept it a bit more relaxed than that with 150mm travel Fox 32 forks.”