Have you made the switch to soup yet? Or are you still bringing a sandwich in your packed lunch? Maybe you’re one of the enlightened who bring soup AND a sandwich in their piece?

On the topic of taking things with you, it’s now the time of year where you find yourself either having too much stuff with you on rides, or not having enough. We’re talking about clothing and hydration mainly.

Personally speaking [Benji], I’m currently something of a backpack hold-out. And as such I often find myself resembling a cricket umpire at various points on a ride, with varying layers of full-length sleeve layers are hanging around my midriff. As regards hydration, I’m mostly drinking grit. Whether that’s tyre-flung puddle-grit, or grit from around the nozzle of a water bottle, is something of a moot point. It’s all good (bad).

We’ve got this in for an upcoming ‘Bikes For Getting Through Winter’ test. Single-pivot equals fewer bearings. Water bottle bosses being under the downtube we can live with because we tend to carry backpacks once the clocks change. And fundamentally, Oranges are ideal machines for slithering around Pennine slopes.

160mm fork. 145mm rear travel. Mixed wheelsize. Frame is handbuilt in Britain. Monocoque 6061-T6 aluminium. Five year frame warranty with Limited Lifetime Crash Replacement. 64° head angle. 76° seat angle.

Every year at the Surly Dirt Dash events we have a cheese competition, where riders bikepack a cheese into camp for a mass tasting and judgement.  Last weekend we were in Dunoon Scotland, and were presented with some amazing cheeses.

Rams cheese (how do you milk a ram?), Cheeses of Nazareth, and a cave aged cheese with remarkable provenance… “handmade in the McArthur Glen Shopping Centre”. All excellent cheeses and highly recommended. Andrew from  Armour Cycles won a pint for his services to cheese.

Short cranks from Hope. Why? Hope Tech: “We started making shorter cranks for E-bikes a few years ago, initially driven to increase clearance when pedaling through technical features, after using these and getting feedback from customers it was clear there are more advantages to using a shorter crank. Over the last year we have experimented with shorter cranks on all bikes, both ourselves and with athletes competing at the highest level, including several World Cup DH riders. After testing lengths down to 140mm we think we’ve found the sweet spot and are now making a 155mm version of our EVO crank available.” 

The jaw, trigger and handle are made from 100% recycled polypropylene from trawl nets and lines, which is the most common form of ghost gear found on the coastline. “We designed the parts with sufficient thickness to be rugged and strong, enabling us to utilise the degraded and less pristine fishing nets that we find on mass. Unlike for our sunglasses, we don’t have to be fussy with which nets we recycle in order to deliver a great product.”

ANother bike for the aforementioned ‘Bikes For Getting Through Winter’ test (the third and final bike is that fully rigid Sonder Frontier from FGF 619 by the way).

We did a First Ride Review of the Whyte E-160 RSX when it launched back in July. The launch is where the first photo of the bike (above) dates back to. This is because this test bike arrived last Friday and er, Benji forgot to get pics of it before stealing it away and riding it pretty much every day since. And swapping out a couple of parts (softer grips and more mud-friendly tyres, smiley midguard basically) and slapping in a Fidlock bottle system.

More Push-On grips to feed Benji’s latest and greatest rubber obsession/addiction (see last week’s FGF). The grey versions are ‘Soft’ compound. The black ones are ‘Ultra Tacky’ compound. And believe you me, they are sticky AF. Almost unpleasantly so, as various members of staff who touched them can testify. Ideal if you like to feel you’ve just handled a pre-chewed Fruit Pastille. They do eventually lose a bit of this ick-stick actually and some people won’t ride any other grip. Anyhoo, it’s the Grey grips that are of most interest for the moment (for Benji at least).

“WTF are Clean Covers?” you may ask. Those of you who fervently watch World Cup DH racing will already know the answer. You see these covers on various racers grips up at the start hut queue. They’re essentially to keep wet and muck off your grips before race time. They also have another market: riders who frequent uplifts in Wales.

Grip Glue is what it says. This is the newer version of grip glue from Renthal (they do another less-techy, more-trad brown-y glue as well). “A fast acting liquid adhesive, chemically engineered to bond Renthal grips to all handlebars in a matter of minutes. Specially formulated to allow users to apply glue to bar and grip, fit the grip and position into the best position before creating a safe and secure bond between the grips and handlebar.”

Here’s the palm-sized, smooth new multitool from PNW, the Pebble. It features ‘essential Allen keys’ – namely 3mm, 4mm, 5mm, 6mm – and a Dynaplug tyre plug dispenser/stabber. It also comes with a nifty hidden T25 key under the Dynaplug. The tool ships with one Dynaplug fitted, or there’s a ‘bundle’ kit that includes five more, for the serial puncturer.

The Schwalbe G-One Overland is a 45mm wide gravel tyre that’s intended for a 50/50 road and gravel mix of riding. Think those long rides where you link up your favourite bits of Dales gravel with some singletrack back roads. Or those road rides where you wander down random tracks to see ‘if they’ll go’. Schwalbe even recommends them for e-gravellers.

AKA the yin to FGF’s yang. We started a new thing this week. Cheap Things Tuesday it’s called. The idea is that is may provoke the same classic outburst as Fresh Goods Friday – “HOW MUCH?!” – but this time in a delighted rather than disgusted way. Anyway, please check it out. You might save yourself some money on an item you need to buy anyway.

Congratulations this week go to IHN for this anti calamity posting…

Every week the winning TOTW in FGF gets a prize. And it’s now the fabulous majestic Singletrack x Granite Designs RockBand Strap that is to be awarded.

So.. yo IHN! Please email editorial@singletrackworld.com. Please include your postal address, as it’ll really speed up despatch.

Please do us the honour of following us on Instagram please. It’s a nice feed. Honest.

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I’d be very interested to know how Benji is getting on with the Whyte? I like the look of these, spec and pricing looks ok as it can be compared to the competition – always fancied a Whyte but got a little put off with people banging on about the weight of this. Still want to demo one though, extra few pounds might not mean that much in real world when it comes to emtbs already heavy weight.

The Kevlar version is the best Renthal push on for grip/longevity but you may not like the colour.

I really like the look of the PNW Pebble tool, the problem is by the time they’ve added in taxes and delivery it’ll cost you just shy of £100.

Boom, TOTW, go me! That’ll be my second one, not that I’m showing off or nuffink 🙂

@yoshimi the weight doesn’t bother me when riding. When not riding, it can be an issue (moving it around/over/into things!)

I assumed these were the invention of the marketing types so they got exposure when sponsored bikes were filmed in the pits. I didnt realise there was supposed to be a practical element to them

Renthal need to rethink their packaging… plastic as far as the eye can see! Unless its all made into a litter picker?!

Isn’t it en masse and not on mass?

The Water Haul litter picker.

The folding one is too short for us of grand stature, the non folding one only comes in fives. As in you need to order five of them. I’ve emailed and Facebook messaged them, no reply.

Great idea, nice ethos, shite customer service.

I like the look of the PNW Pebble, but for £35 you can get an EDC lite which comes with the tool and the bit that fits in the steerer

Orange are 6061 sheet folding origami experts but can’t figure out how to make a bottle fit in the front ruddy triangle. Have other companies not thought of designing a bottle to fit into tight awkward spaces ( OH Matron.) rather than putting big ugly kinks in downtubes, seems extreme to me, its like cutting the horns of an animal rather than the wooden fence it got stuck in.

Grip Glue? Whatever happened to Hairspray?

Ah so those grip cover things could protect grips from uplift straps? That’s actually pretty good!

Grip Glue? Whatever happened to Hairspray?

Lockwire FTW, those grips even have the grooves just waiting

how do you milk a ram?

Manually? And I’m not eating cheese with that in it.

@BigBlackShed – there’s 2 sizes of the folding litter pickers on the website (compact 26″ and full length 32″) – was going to measure my litter pickers to see how long they were as I think it’s a good idea

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