Hello and welcome to the end of the world week! Let us all celebrate the forthcoming weekend by scrolling on through a bunch of ridiculously expensive and very probably irrelevant bicycle products!
Is Ai basically Tolkien’s One Ring? Discuss.
Fresh Goods Friday is sponsored by…
Most riders insure bikes through home insurance.
Pedal Cover builds home insurance specifically for cyclists
Transition Spur V2 Eagle 90
- Price: £6,299
- From: Windwave
Praise be for an actually interesting acoustic mountain bike in 2026. The Spur just seems to be one of those bikes that achieves cult status. Low ‘n’ punchy. Like a welterweight Oompa Loompa. Anyways, you can read our Transition Spur V2 first ride review now.
Crud XLF Fender
- Price: £39.99
- From: Freewheel
The XLF – not to be confused with Axel F – is a mudguard that I don’t recall ever using before. It looks like it’s got some nice touches. Mainly the fact that it nicely touches your expensive suspension fork. Squidgy rubber pads and O-rings. Other nice features: no zip-ties, full coverage ‘guard, pouty little lip on the rear. ‘Thankfully’ it’s started raining again, so I can get using this straight away. Deep joy.
Crud XL Rear Fender
- Price: £24.99
- From: Freewheel
Now then. I think I have used one of these before. Some time in the late 90s. All joking aside, this iconic rear guard has seen some design tweaks over the years. It’ll be interesting to see how it compares to modern rear mudguards that attach to the seat stays as opposed to the seatpost.
Absolute Black Titanium Disc Brake Caliper Alignment Tool
- Price: £9.95
- From: Absolute Black
Sure, you can pick up similar tools like this from eBay et al for a couple of quid but are they titanium and/or a nice colour? Joking aside (again), Absolute Black’s stuff is knowingly a bit OTT. Sometimes you just want treat yourself (or someone else) to a bit of luxury and niceness. Also, I just learned about Absolute Black’s low friction caliper bolts and washers. Now they sound interesting…
Absolute Black Graphen Lube
- Price: £34.90 (50ml)
- From: Absolute Black
I am not the right person to test this lube. I, like many of you, am not that great at drivetrain maintenance. The best lube for me is one I can just keep re-applying immediately before every ride as a kind of begrudging afterthought (can an afterthought happen before something). And then, after several months I scrape off the black gum from my jockey wheels and do it all over again. Anyhoo, we’ll find someone slightly better disciplined to try this costly techo lube. Absolute Black: “World’s first hydrocarbon-based (wax) chain lubricant containing Graphene […] Up to 1800km on single application (dry conditions), 3-10W savings over other lubes.”
Lifesystems Solo Peak Tent
- Price: £229.99
- From: Freewheel
As featured in our show report from Icebike 2026. Features: 1,000g, quick-pitch aluminium frame, 20D siliconised nylon fabrics with taped seams, fly and ground sheet with 3,000mm hydrostatic head rating, breathable internal mesh and vents for improved airflow, 3 guy-line attachment points with 1.8 mm Dyneema guy-lines, vertical foot pole to maximise space, YKK anti-snag main zip. Best get some bikepacking planned then!
Stan’s OnTap
- Price: £TBA
- From: Upgrade Bikes
OMFG. A high-volume tubeless sealant dispenser. Promising: :precise measured fills, improved service margins through better tracking of sealant usage, simplified inventory control, and significantly reduced packaging waste – cutting plastic consumption by approximately 75% compared to equivalent bottled volumes.” It’s my birthday coming up. Jus’ sayin’…
Forum Thread Of The Week
This week’s winner is tthew for the Work colleagues taking the piss. thread:
The winning TOTW in FGF gets a prize. Thus, tthew please email editorial@singletrackworld.com for a random prize. Don’t forget to include your postal address.
Win Jackson Goldstone’s grips
- Price: Newsletter sign-up
- From: Singletrackworld Newsletter
Sign-up to our wonderful weekly newsletter and win signed Jackson Goldstone OneUp grips. We’ve got a signed pair to give away. All you have to do is stick your email address into this box…
Stale Goods Friday – 2016 BMC Teamelite
- Price: £3,499 (or £4,846.33 in today’s money)
- From: Fresh Goods Friday 282
Back when seat angles were slacker than head angles, we wrote: “Do you know what BMC stands for? Rather amusingly, it’s Bicycle Manufacturing Company. We like that. Carbon, fast as all getout (assuming that there’s someone appropriately fast pressing the pedals, that is…). In a similar vein to the Trek we mentioned last week, this little puppy is a soft-tail. Which, if you were born in the nineties, is essentially the art of sticking something soft in the seat stay (elastomer in this case) to take out the sting, without the irritating faff of any of those new-fangled pivot things. 15mm of compliance, it’s essentially like lower pressure in your tyre, with all the attendant traction bonuses without the pinch flats.”
Covered by the crew
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From blown suspension to cracked frames, decisions are made by cycling specialists – not general insurers.
We also keep key bike parts in-house and work directly with trusted bike workshops, helping reduce delays and get riders back on the trails sooner.
What this means for you
- Cyclist-first decisions focused on getting you back on the trails
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Fresh Goods Friday is sponsored by Pedal Cover
That Crud design seem to go to great lengths to ensure that you can still get loads of mud on your fork seals, unlike other designs. Looks specifically designed to gather mud at the seals and keep it there
Woo hoo – thread of the week! For basically bloody moaning too. Cheers. ?
The Spur is a great looking bike and I love that colour.
I’ve had one of those Crud XL guards in my commuter for a couple of years now and it seems to work well in wet weather on roads.
Not actually tried it off road yet though.
4 years into Crud XL ownership and it’s the best front mudguard I’ve ever had.
I’ve jammed a Crud XL Solid as the mud collected at the top and sides, trapped in place, and the rotation drove in more and more until it locked my front wheel solid. Yes it was very muddy, but it is a mud guard …
James
The Stan’s urn is a thing of wonder. Does it stir the sealant, and I wonder does any LBS go through enough to justify it?
Re Graphen Lube ………….
“Up to 1800km on single application (dry conditions), 3-10W savings over other lubes"
So not for UK conditions then? 🤔 🤨
The Zero Friction Cycling review suggests it could be great in UK conditions if you can stomach the application process and expense. It is ‘abolutely’ not for me though
I prefer a bolt on these days but to be fair to the Crud XL I don’t think any mudguard is immune to clogging when conditions get that bad.
Should have been transparent like a Slush Puppy machine so you could see your Stanimals grow
Does the redesigned umpteen times bracket mudguard interface on the rear crud guard still wear and start rattling about ? The original used to bolt up then I presume to save a few pennies it became clip in ???