Welcome to this week’s Fresh Goods. It’s been a good week; our tenth anniversary issue of the magazine (Issue 64) has been sent to the printers, we’ve had our first proper spring day in our little corner of valley and as ever, we’ve got loads of shiny bike related things to get out and test.
GT Distortion 2.0
First up we’ve got in the genre bending GT Distortion 2.0. Jon first rode it at the GT Press Launch in Les Deux Alpes (also see HERE and HERE) and although the UK importers weren’t sure about bringing it to the UK, it was so well received by everyone there that they decided to change their minds. Designed as a short travel freeride bike, there’s 112mm of rear wheel travel via the Independent Drivetrain system, a 12mm Maxle rear axle and it runs tapered 140mm Rock Shox Sektors up front. Best of all, it’s got a 66.5 degree head angle, which should mean it’s calm and confident on the technical stuff. We look forward to testing it…
Price: £2,250
From: CSG
X-Fusion dropper post as standard. We’ve just finished testing uppy-downy posts in Issue 64 and this one stood out…
The Independent Drivetrain setup up close –Â a floating BB connected to the frame via the ‘dog bone’ link.
Good looking little bike…
Tapered headtube moves on to the gusseted monocoque frame.
The dropouts are nicely future proof too – these ones are running the 135x12mm Maxle…
Sun Ringle Charger Pro wheelset
More wheels now, with the Sun Ringle Charger Pro wheelset. Weighing in at a claimed 1,699g, they’re designed as an all-mountain wheelset, using 24 straight pull Wheelsmith spokes per wheel onto the rather funky looking sealed cartridge hubs. The rims are 28mm wide and use the Stan’s tubeless rimstrip system to provide tubeless capability. All of the all mountain standards are available, with 135 QR, 12×135, 12x142mm rears and your pick of QR, 15QR or 20mm fronts with adaptors.
Price: £449.95
From: Hotlines UK
Groovy…
White spokes indicate where the valve is for speedy changes – and look sweet.
You get the adaptors, skewers and some wheel milk included…
The Mountain Bike Skills Manual: Fitness and Skills For Every Rider
Bike skills coach and racer Clive Forth has been around for as long as anyone dares remember and he’s decided to pass on his knowledge with this book, The Mountain Bike Skills Manual: Fitness and Skills For Every Rider. The 208 page tome is filled with the history of mountain biking, as well as being packed with information for all abilities on bike choice, setup, training, core fitness, skills and loads of pictures. Jon was mesmerised by the flick-book corner too….
Price: £16.99
From: All good bookshops
Truvativ Noir Team seatpost
The Truvativ Noir Team seatpost uses a filament wound graphite (or carbon fibre to the layman) post and unidirectional finish along with added reinforcement to keep itself strong and light. The head is a twin bolt, micro adjust design and they’re available in a load of different lengths, widths and laybacks too.
Price: £119.99
From: Fisher Outdoor
Charge Oven gloves
Nick Larsen dropped off these Charge Oven gloves when he dropped by to show us his new 29er, the Cooker, the other week. They’ve got a perforated leather backing, a padding and stitching-free clarino palm for maximum comfort and grip, plus a bit of terry towelling for snot wiping duties.
Price: £29.99
From: Charge Bikes
Combined with the Giro Surface helmets from last week, we’ve almost got the motorcycle cop from the Village People look down.
Surface socks
SOCKS! The Surface socks are set to blow your eyeballs out the back of your head with stripy radness. Long, stretchy and perfect for playing dinosaurs with as well as keeping your feet warm.
Price: £8.99
From: Surface
Ooh, I like those Charge gloves.
Since you have that Distortion to hand – what’s the BB height? It was supposed to be “super low” but GT’s website quotes a towering 13.8″! What is it really?
Looking forward to the GT test.
Charge gloves look like retro overpriced tat. Is it just me that seems to think most Charge stuff is form first, function second?
GT on the other hand… liked the look of that when it was first aired. Seems decent VFM (if you can call over £2k decent value for a push bike).
Mmm, quite fancy that Distortion, I had an Idrive 5 but it was a heavy 5 inch XC bike… Good to see they’ve caught up with head angles.
mttm: I just measured the Distortion at 13.0in
The GT could be very suited to UK trail riding
meh. under par selection of toys.
Ooh nice shiny black seatpost.
Socks win it for me. What are they made out of then?
Gloves would be good if they were white with red and blue bits a la Evel Kinevil.
Charge bikes: Feel free to adopt this “colourway” and send me a pair FOC as my consultation fee.
🙂
Thanks for measuring that, I thought it didn’t look anything like the quoted figure. That should be a really good fun bike.
“GT on the other hand… liked the look of that when it was first aired. Seems decent VFM (if you can call over £2k decent value for a push bike)”
I think the fact you called it a push bike pretty much discounts your opinion 😉
Funnily enough I was stood in a gig last night mildly bored, idly pondering what my ideal bike would be if I could design one and I came up with, well, the distortion. Any chance of frame only?
That Distortion is a sexy bike
Rickos, I thought the socks would have grabbed your attention
Those gloves look like something Rob Halford used to wear in Judas Priest..
…and look how many chick he had 🙂
He had absolutely none, sexy gloves or not…! 😉
Very nice bike that GT, and most of the Pedro’s tools look good. Not sure about that chainwhip replacement though… maybe if you’ve got ABSOLUTELY NOTHING else to do with £57.99…?
vise whip is great!
having used and broken many chainwhips over the years in bikeshops these are a massive improvement…
you can use it to set up rim brakes too like a 3rd hand tool (but its adjustable)
Oh an you can get them for half the quoted price online