The 50th anniversary of Specialized brings us the fifteenth Stumpy: here's our early verdict on the…
This Sunday evening will be a good time to head out. The Euro kickball sportive is on as of today and Sunday evening is when Engerland’s opening lap takes place.
Enjoy the quieter roads and such. Or watch the soccertime. It’s fine. No place 4 H8 M8.
Before you do, here’s this week’s Fresh Goods for you!
Despite initially looking just like just A.N.Other air shock with a reservoir, there’s more to the Nebbia than you may think. Basically, Formula has made an air shock that has the plug-and-play CTS compression circuits. You get three CTS valve arrays in the package (green, gold and orange) that opffer differing tunes. It’s easy to swap out to a different CTS. No special tools or mechanical knowledge required really. Combined with the external low speed compresison and rebound adjust dials, means you can set the Nebbia up for a huge variety of different behaviours and bikes. There’s also a (purple) ‘climb switch’ present which switches between open, platform/pedal and firm. Oh yeah, that zigzag design on the shaft. Clearly it’s a way around falling foul of RockShox’s sag indicator patent. The peaks don’t technically refer to specific ‘this peak corresponds to this sag’ (as that would require a different frequency position for each shock length). But for this 65mm shock here, the peaks start at about 20% sag, then 25%, 30%, 35%, 40%, 45%. Kudos Formula. Anything else? Oh yeah, the shock uses Formula’s Neopos squidgy volume spacers which in theory help tune the spring a bit more into the midstroke as opposed to hard spacers that just affect the end stroke. Those hard black plastic spacers in the box/photos above are travel reducers by the way.
A nicely jazzy but not too jazzy looking carbon handlebar from PNW. Seriously though, it’s genunely very useful to have some sort of symmetrical pattern on either side of the bar to help when setting up your various cockpit clamp angles/positions. The other features are all pretty par for the course for a premium carbon bar; 800mm wide, with trim marks down to 740mm), pre-preg UD carbon with a layup that PNW have amusingly dubbed ‘CBD’ (no, we can’t find out what this acronym means). The up sweep is a fairly common 5° but the back sweep is a slightly-more-than-usual 10°.
An impressively affordable dropper considering its adjustability. The Loam dropper is travel adjustable (by 25mm) and doesn’t require any tools to do so; undo the collar (which has a handy silicone band for grippage) and rotate a plastic shim thing to the desired -mm indicator. That’s it. The post is also one of the better ones for travel-versus-insertion. This 200mm travel post only requires 290mm of seat tube insertion. Total post length is 540mm in case you’re wondering. At 576g for the 200mm option, it’s pretty much the same weight as other premium posts too. Oh, the air cartridge is adjustable so you can alter the speed of post extension if you prefer it a certain way, either gooch bruisingly fast or lazy Sunday slow.
The Range differs from PNW’s classic Loam lever in a few ways. It’s forged not forged-then-CNC’d. It has a smaller cartridge bearing. It’s cheaper £54.00 inc. clamp rather than £70.00). And, most inerestingly, it’s a few mm smaller lengthwise. So if you have a bike (probably an ebike) that has a lot of stuff going on near your lefthand grip and you can’t quite get the dropper lever exactly where you want it, the PNW Range lever may be your answer.
We’re big fans of dinky multi-tools. But you do have to make sure you find the correct dinky tool for you and your bike(s). The Pebble tool has 3/4/5/6mm Allen, T25 Torx (hidden under a Dynaplug ‘spear’). So, it won’t do 8mm pedal axles or crank bolts, or 2mm brake lever adjust screws. But it will do a bit of puncture repair duties (you’ll still need a pump/CO2 though obvs.) so is arguably a more useful combo of stuff for most riders/bikes/mechanicals. Nicely rounded shape to the tool body, which just makes it nice to use and insert/removce from your pocket. Available in black, bronze, orange and purple.
Less is more. Well, that’s the theory with these paw covers anyway. Maximum venting baby! Micro-vented, perforated palm, breathable back of hand, mesh between the fingers. Embossed neoprene cuff features small perforations too. Ideal for something called “hottest trail days” or just folk who like minimal stuff encasing their hands.
Valves is valves, right? Well, pretty much. But these are still some nice offerings from WTB. Valve core removal tool build into the caps. Knurled lockrings. Side- and top-ports to allow inflation air to breeze in without being impaired by tyre inserts. Rubber cone valve stem bed is generally the best best to gel with most rim bed designs out there. Only available in black so as to prevent naff attempts at colour matching the rest of your bike (it never works, please stop).
The TCS Tire Plug Kit uses Rocket anchors (“because they look like tiny rockets”) that stay in your tyre and hold the plug in place. Apparently you will not lose a plug. The anchor will hold it in place “like a ship at dock”. You can even reuse the anchors. The Rocket Plug Kit also features an ‘Extra Hand’ tool under the smaller cap: “the Extra Hand will temporarily plug the hole and take the pressure off while you prepare your Rockets and plugs.” This certainly looks like one of the better tubeless repair kits out there.
WTB are on our list of Sealants That Are Good. It just works. Tyres inflate. They stay inflated. The sealant stays liquid and thus reusable in new tyres when swapping rubbers. WTB also claim: “eco-friendly, ammonia-free, synthetic latex solution that cures sealant particulate within the puncture to effectively seal punctures for the long term. Since the mica particulate in the solution seals using tackifiers, rather than evaporation, it will work brilliantly in harsh conditions where other sealants have trouble clotting, swiftly and flexibly repairing 1/4” (6mm) punctures at temperatures as low as -9.4°C.”
Two different grip designs: Trail Comfort and Race Control. The Trail Comfort grips are the mushroomy ones (shot against stone background in the pics above) and are designed for “longer rides”. The Race Control grips are the dinky dimaond design (shot against balck wood background above) and are for “maximum feedback when the going gets really tough”. Both are 20a compound. Both are available in two diameters (‘Thin’ 30-32mm or ‘Thick’ 32-34mm). The cores are made from 80% recycled ocean plastics and are tapered (so make suire you tap them fully home with a soft mallet when installing). The rubber is offset from the internal core ie. there’s more rubber on top/palm than underneath (fingers). Both grip designs feature a zig-zag thumb pad and finger bar ridges. Plenty of colour options too.
This is the official word on this cake….”My Baker has a gorgeous selection of cakes for all occasions online. It’s a small team, Mark, Mel and Shane. It has its own bakery in London, but also partners with the best independent bakers up and down the country. Over 180 of them. New customers can use the code WELCOME15 for a 15% discount.”
The unofficial word is that this vegan vanilla cake was absolutely delicious. By any cake standards. The disorganised among you may wish to note that it’s usually possible to get next day emergency cake for £10. In case of emergency, send cake. Not by courier – the MyBaker bakers often delivers them themselves, so they can bring you incredible towering cakes and you can be sure you won’t find it left in a random ‘safe place’. Imagine the tragedy of finding your cake in your recycling bin…
…That would be almost as tragic as being ill on the day the cake meant to mark your leaving arrived at work, wouldn’t it? Which is exactly what happened to Amanda. But since we are so distraught that she is leaving, we comforted ourselves with cutting into and eating the cake, live on video. So if you want to see what it looked like, or live tasting notes, watch the vid above. And if you want to bid farewell to Amanda, or hello to our new magazine designer James Vincent, then read this story.
And don’t worry, we did get some cake to Amanda. Thanks to the local arm of MyBaker for getting it to us, it was outstanding!
This week’s bestest forum posting winneriser is blokeuptheroad due to this thread right… here:
The winning TOTW in FGF gets a prize. So @blokeuptheroad please email editorial@singletrackworld.com for your random prize. Don’t forget to include your postal address, as it really speeds up delivery logistics like. K thx bye!
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It’s Singletrack’s long running, weekly roundup of all of the new products that have been sent in to the magazine.
They’re sent in by bike companies and marketing agencies
They’re featured and then some are reviewed down the line in either Singletrack Magazine or in online reviews and photoshoots.
They’re usually sent back after review, or kept on long-term test bikes. But no one ever asks for shorts and shoes back. Trust us on that. Once we were asked to return some brake pads.
Nothing. Nil. Zero. Diddlysquat. Sod all. Just send all ‘next big things’ to us at – Fresh Goods Friday, Singletrack Magazine, Lockside Mill, Dale Street, Todmorden. OL14 5PX. Please note that if you require the products back after they have featured then you are responsible for arranging collection at your cost. While it is our policy to feature everything we receive in FGF if we decide your product is not suitable for publication we won’t do it. Publication is at our discretion. Whether a product goes on for publication as a review is at editorial discretion. Beer, coffee & spirits will ALWAYS be tested.