Fresh Goods Friday 772: The Warld Chomps Edition

Up above the streets and houses, rainbows flying high. The streets and houses of Valais, Switzerland anyway.

It’s World Champs time folks! The one-off all-or-nothing single chance to get yourself in the record books and earn some rainbow stripes on your clobber for eternity.

Before we head off to the BBC iPlayer to spend hours trying to find just where and when any broadcast footage is scheduled for, here’s this week’s Fresh Goods!

Pace RC629 frame

• Price: £799.00
• From: Pace Cycles

There’s a school of thought out there that a Modern XC or DownCountry full-suspension bike is the only bike you really need. Whilst such bikes are nice ‘n’ all, my theory is that a well put together hardtail with the right geometry can do more. Maybe not as fast, or comfy, but almost certainly can deal with extreme gradients better. So the plan for this piece of Pace metal is to build it up to the same sort of weight (or lighter) as a full-sus XC bike and see what it can do. Why the RC629? As the new replacement for the outgoing RC529, it’s one of the few hardtails out there that can run mixed wheel size. And it’s one of the even fewer that can be run with not-overly-short chainstays (up 445mm on my tape measure via the adjustable dropouts). The seat tube length is short (440mm on this Large). The seat angle is steep (77°), and the bend still allows for big dropper insertion*. The reach is decent (497mm). And it doesn’t hurt that it looks beautiful in Ice blue.

(*especially if you run a shimmed 30.9mm post in the 31.6mm seat tube for a teensy bit more leeway; this Large frame swallows a 200mm RockShox Reverb AXS with ease btw)

Castelli Alpha 150 Jacket

• Price: £290.00
• From: Saddleback

A rather fancy jersey – sorry, jacket – from Castelli. I’m partial to a close-fitting softshell during autumn/winter, for use a midlayer with a thin shell or gillet over the top. The dropbar aero gang may wish to just wear this Alpha 150 as an outer layer. Made entirely from windproof, water-repellent and highly breathable Polartec Air Core softshell material. What’s to like about this garment, aside from the Deep Bordeaux colour? Big collar. Draft excluder cuffs. Rear pockets. Very handle key/multitool pocket on front-left. The inner ‘waistcoat’ is made from super cute ‘n’ cosy Polartec Alpha. It’s PFC-free, has high recycled content and is made in Europe, for those who care about such things. What’s not to like? It’s basically three hundred quid. Still, will probably outlast and outperform multiple so-called waterproof jackets that we all keep wasting money on.

Madison DTE 4 Season DWR Bib Trousers

• Price: £149.99
• From: Madison

All-year round dungarees? Someone at Madison must think it rains during every season in the UK. And they’d be right. This is something of a niche garment – you’d have to be pretty bold to rock the Beverly Hillbillies-tastic look of just wearing a shirt under this – but we’re all about the niche here at STW. Anyways, deets y’all: waterproof arse panel, stretchy windproof for the rest, articulated fit, chest pocket, hip pocket, long side-access zip. And in the Black option (not these Airforce Grey ones) there is a choice of three different leg lengths.

Madison DTE Dirty Secret Kit Bag

• Price: £29.99
• From: Madison

For those of you who are simply too la-di-da for the ‘Ikea-bag-and-a-carpet-tile’ system when it comes to stripping off in a forestry car park, Madison have designed the Dirty Secret Kit Bag. 60 litres capacity. Roll top. Shoulder strap. Wipe clean. Sealed seams (IP5X rated). Contains a removable padded floor mat for standing on as you get changed, shivering, somewhere in Wales probably.

FiveTen Freerider Pro BOA

• Price: £150.00
• From: Adidas

Freerider Pros with BOA lacing? Paired with waterproof socks, these could be the ultimate winter flat pedal shoe. It may all depend on just how much cold and/or wet is allowed in via those pesky perforations above the toebox doesn’t it? I suppose you could always stick some Gorilla Tape over the area but that will rather detract from the styling, no? Unless it’s executed super cleanly (which is unlikely with us, let’s face it). Anyone have any better solutions for filling in such holes?

Classic Pogies

• Price: £34.99
• From: Hotpog

I’m currently of the opinion that there are no winter gloves that absolutely truly function for mountain biking. I am your classic multiple spare pairs of 100% Briskers kinda guy. And lo, here are some pogies. Kinda inspired by my summer use of the similarly ‘aesthetically challenging’ hand guards, I’m prepared to exchange whatever style points I may have (current balance: 0.00) for having warm hands that can still operate a mountain bike with a sufficient fine degree of control in the depths of autumn/winter. Even if they don’t quite work mountain biking (who knows?) they’re going to be flipping amazing for commuting aren’t they? Made in Nottingham by nice people.

Kenda Alluvium Pro and Crusher gravel tyres

• Price: £60.00 (Alluvium) and £60.00 (Crusher)
• From: Kenda

Top pic is the Alluvium Pro – a micro-knobblied gravel tyre “as capable on pavement as well as hard condition single-track trails. Do endless miles of dirt road call to you? Are you looking for a boost to your speed in the next gravel grinder? Look no further than the Alluvium Pro, designed with speed in mind for dirt and gravel road riding.” In other words, an all rounder for dry stuff. The Alluvium Pro comes in a modest range of ‘proper gravel’ sizes, too – from a 650Bx45 to 700×35, 40 and 45mm.

Below, we have the Kenda Crusher. It’s so stealth, with its black on black sidewalls, that it doesn’t yet feature on Kenda’s website. Intended to be the fastest gravel tyre possible, it’s completely slick in the centre, with micro-square knobs on the mid-tread and Hail Mary-size tiny cornering knobs. Looks super speedy in a 700x40C and we look forward to seeing if it goes round corners or not!

Kenda Rush XC 29×2.4in tyre

• Price: £60.00
• From: Kenda

The Rush XC, as the name suggests, is Kenda’s XC race tyre, coming in at a claimed 700g (ours is 738g including header card and zip tie) which is half the weight of some chunkier enduro treads. The Rush XC features a dual layer tread compound and nylon-reinforced sidewalls and lots of small, but sharp-edged knobs that are meant to roll fast on the smooth stuff, but still bite when needed.

STW Spinelines T-shirt

• Price: £25.00
• From: The Singletrack Shop

Spinelines. Those out of context statements on the spine of every mag. A selection of sometimes dumb, sometimes inappropriate, but always hilarious comments made in Singletrack Towers. Nowadays we keep them in a Google Doc, but the original whiteboard still takes pride of place in the office and we wanted to honour that before someone accidentally wipes it off.

Member Reward of the Week – 12% off Bang & Olufsen

• Reward: 12% off Bang & Olufsen
• From: Singletrack Member Rewards

About Bang & Olufsen: “Bang & Olufsen, founded in 1925 in Struer, Denmark, is a luxury audio brand renowned for combining beautiful sound, timeless design, and expert craftsmanship.“

Forum Thread of the Week

The lucky winner this weeks if IHN for this extremely childish thread:

As before, the winning TOTW in FGF gets a prize. Therefore IHN please email editorial@singletrackworld.com for a random prize. Don’t forget to include your postal address, as it really speeds up delivery logistics, M8.

Stale Goods Friday – 2015 Liteville 301 Mk 12

• Price: €5,775
• From: Fresh Goods Friday 257

Four score and seven years ago minus 37 we wrote: “Crikey. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the 301 from Liteville, a company who are not afraid of doing things differently. The first thing you might notice is that the wheels are different sizes; 29in at the front and 27.5in at the back … The Variospin head tube lets you tweak the headset angle by up to 1.5degrees. A basic reckoning on this one, involving a thumb, a slide rule, a tape measure and a log book, resulted in us checking the clinometer on an iPhone. We got somewhere in the region of 66 degrees … Here’s the meat and potatoes of the Liteville philosophy – the unique rocker bisected by the top tube. Although it looks a bit ‘guillotine-y’, there’s little chance of slicing your carrot (so to speak) while riding – it’s actually pretty out of the way.”

And because…