*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.
Before we dive into this week’s Freshies, we need to discuss just who is history’s greatest monkey..?
Giant Reign Advanced E+
- Price: E+ 2 £6,499, E+ 1 £7,499, E+ 0 £9,999
- From: Giant Bicycles
I get the feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. Correct. These pics are not taken in the Pennines. Although the colour palette is actually rather similar right now. Anyway, the new Giant Reign E was announced this week. We have one on the way to us. We’re waiting until the 280Wh range extenders are ready to be shipped with them (which is how UK customers will get this bike). I really liked the outgoing Giant Reign E and this one ups the travel and drops the (on board) battery capacity to 560Wh. Both moves sounds like good ideas to me. The combined capacity of both batteries will be 840Wh maths fans.
Wolf Tooth ALT XC Clipless Pedal
- Price: £189.00
- From: Saddleback
Wolf Tooth makes some mighty fine flat pedals, and here’s (one) of its new clipless offerings. Wolf Tooth’s new clippy peggles come in three flavours: CTRL, ALT and DEL. The CTRL is the wider bodied trail pedal, the DEL is the minimalist gravel pedal and this ALT is the trad XC pedal. Also available in boring black. It uses the Shimano cleat standard. CNC alloy body, stainless steel axle, pretty thin (15mm), pretty light (295g). A neat feature is the adjustable Q factor(51, 55 or 59mm) which is adjusted by rearranging spacers and bearings.
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Acros MTB Flat Pedals
- Price: £99.99
- From: Oxford Products
We forgot to get pics of these when they were box fresh. And before I removed the central pins too. Soz. In a market of seemingly countless flat pedals it’s hard to stand out. The overall vibe of these flatties from Acros is compactness without too much compromise. They’re pretty un-wide (108.6mm) but are quite long fore-aft (144.5mm). And at 12mm thick they’re pretty thin without being totally ‘waffer theen’ to the point where bearings and concavity become iffy. I’ve installed them on a 29er ebike that I’ve guerilla-bodged into a mullet – so I need all the pedal strike avoidance assistance I can get!
e*thirteen Helix Carbon Cranks & Chainring & BB
- Price: £419.95 cranks, £65.95 chainring, £74.94 bottom bracket
- From: e*thirteen
Speaking of low bottoms, these snazzy carbon cranks are a mere 160mm in length. As such they are destined for another bike with mucho BB drop: a Pace RC629. Carbon crank arms paired with a machined aluminum 30mm spindle and an 8-lobe splined interface. With a chainring they weigh in around 415g. Come equipped with crank boots, ‘APS’ preload adjuster, captive pedal washers, and a self-extracting system. The chainring here is a 30T size.
Fox 36 Float Factory GRIP X2 160mm 29in Fork
- Price: £1,399
- From: Silverfish UK
The Final Boss of trail bike forks? Very probably. With a price tag to match. We love a 36 here at STW (yes, more than a 38) and the changes to the new 36 sound… er, sound. The new arch gives the 36 a claimed 87% of the torsional stiffness found on the 38 but is 275g lighter. The redesigned air spring decouples the stanchion from the air shaft, allowing the piston to move freer even whilst the fork is bending fore-aft. 30mm more bushing overlap in there too. Which is nice.
Fox Union All Weather Shoe
- Price: £209.99
- From: Fox Racing
Techno Wellies from the other Fox. Waterproof uppers. BOA Fit system. ‘Tuned’ midsole. Ultratac compound rubber outsole. High waterproof collar helps keep baddies out of your shoes. D3O insole with two arch support insert options (low or high).
Fox Union Canvas Mid Shoe
- Price: £119.99
- From: Fox Racing
As a fan of canvas flat pedal shoes, I will admit my favourites (the Specialized Method 2FO) do suffer from two things: first, the lack of a toe bumper has lead to several black big toenails over the years and secondly, they do seem to fill with debris to an unusual degree (they are pretty low cut). So I’m interested in seeing if these sneaks from Fox avoid such issues. I feel fairly confident in predicting that they will TBH. What is yet an unknown is the levels of traction and feel that they offer. I’ll let you know in a month or so.
OG Ride and Shine Shirt
- Price: £25.00
- From: The Singletrack Shop
Our classic Ride and Shine t-shirt is back! Amanda (remember her?) originally designed this image for our coffee, and it was so good we had to put it on a shirt. Now available in a range of colours, or you can still go for ‘Mocha’ for a true throwback to this design’s origins. This shirt is a very relaxed fit. If you want an oversized down-with-the-kids look, go for your usual size. Otherwise, please refer to the size guide in the description and be prepared to size down 1-2 sizes from usual.
Forum Thread Of The Week
This week’s winner is oldtennisshoes for the Let’s take a moment to celebrate Dolly Parton and hope she pulls through thread:
Fact: the winning TOTW in FGF gets a prize. Eyup… oldtennisshoes please email editorial@singletrackworld.com for a random prize. Don’t forget to include your postal address, as it really speeds up delivery logistics, fam.
Member Reward of the Week – 20% off Ass Saver
- Reward: 20% off Ass Saver
- From: Singletrack Member Rewards
About Ass Saver: “Since 2011, Ass Savers design and produce minimalistic mudguards and weather protection gear for cyclists out of Gothenburg, Sweden. With the ambition of doing more with less, through the smart use of mainly recycled materials, they provide simple and clever products to make life on the bike more enjoyable.”
Stale Goods Friday – 2014 Empire MX6 EVO
- Price: £2,950 complete, frame only £999 (inflation adjusted: £4,112 complete, frame only £1,392)
- From: Fresh Goods Friday 214
A decade ago we said this: “The Empire is a British designed and made slab of no-nonsense trail bike (also for out upcoming group test). The swingarm is a very impressive piece of hollow-cast engineering. It yields 150mm travel with a Rockshox Monarch. The pivot bolts are smaller versions of the ones used in motocross bikes, fact fans. There’s a 66.5 degree head angle for Maximum Enduro. Ours runs a Revelation fork with 150mm travel. Now that’s quite a stiff-looking front end. The head tube wotsit (as well as the seatmast) is actually cast too.”
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Not only was the ‘box fresh’ photo of the Acros pedal forgotten, but they’ve also been accused as having “compactness with too much compromise."
Pretty harsh, am guessing their aim was compactness without too much compromise.
I always liked the look and engineering of the Empire bikes.
Those fox techno wellies look interesting. As a flat pedal rider I’ve struggled to find any sensible proper wet winter riding shoes. Seems to be lots of options for clipless but not for flats. I remember Endura bringing something out a few years ago but as usual the sizing was interesting. Think they were overshoes. Either way with size 11 feet they were never going to fit over my shoes.
Back on topic I’ve given up looking for something suitably weatherproof and now just wear waterproof socks, but my feet still get cold.
They do, but I’m wondering about getting my feet in and out of them while stood in the rain in a muddy carpark
It’s a lot of cash just to end up with a torn neoprene sleeve a few months later (looking at you, Adidas Five Ten)
Thanks for the inflation adjusted figures Ben. £4112 probably isn’t too bad for a trail bike from a niche brand.
Here’s hoping for numbers we can get outraged about next week!
I was outraged enough at lots of the prices anyway. Just have no idea how anyone affords this stuff.
The empire bikes were pretty cool. Renishaws used to bring the later 3d printed titanium one to events quite often as a “isn’t this cool what we can do" thing, one day I managed to make it my official job to ride around a conference centre on it doing skids in a suit. It was quite a rubbish bike tbf but still cool.
While I always thought that this Empire bike was ugly as sin, but I really wanted their cast DH bike when it was released.
Bit of a shame that they did all that interesting and technical framebuilding, then hid it all away with black paint and ugly decals
The DH bike was raw metal, IIRC? Looked a lot better.