Fresh Goods Friday 741: The (G)Loveless Edition

Good afternoon gang! Can you hear us at the back? Then we shall crack on with regaling y’all with the stuff that has arrived at Singletrack Towers this past seven days.

Amflow PL Carbon Pro

• Price: £8,999
• From: Amflow Bikes

It’s That BIke again. This time we’ve got it for longer than a day. What more is there to add as of right now about this powerful shiny black beastlet that we didn’t cover in our initial Amflow PL Caron Pro first ride review? Er. Not a lot. I can confirm that the two-bolt stem does accept higher rise (more bend) bars just fine; I’ve stuck a pair of 40mm rise bars through just to see. And I’ll also see what – if any – longer travel dropper post I can squeeze into that kinky seat tube. The spec one is a 180mm Fox Transfer. I’ll be fiddling with a longer travel OneUp dropper to see if I can eek out another 20mm or so. Oh, and yeah, I’d forgotten how lovely the own-brand grips are. It’s the little things, y’know…

SRAM AXS Pod Rocker Paddle Upgrade

• Price: £20.00
• From: ZyroFisher

As a pretty reasonably large fan oif SRAM AXS drivetrains, I [Benji] have ever quite got on with the two-button AXS Pod controller design. Seems I’m not alone in this. So SRAM have had the decency to design a replacement ‘rocker’ style option. Easy to fit. Not loads of money. Immeasurably nicer to use. You can even use your forefinger to actuate the shifter via that little arm nub thingy. Loads better when out of the saddle and shifting. Nice. Got AXS? Get one.

Schwalbe Magic Mary Radial

• Price: £79.99
• From: Schwalbe

Be still my my beating heart. Could this be magic? Well, it is Magic, a Magic Mary to be precise. One of the greatest all-condition UK front tyres of all time. And here it is in the flavour we’ve been waiting for: Radial construction, Ultra Soft compound and Trail Pro casing. Will it be even better than the previous Schwalbe Magic Mary? We shall see. The promiuse of more traction at higher PSI is intriguing. Yes, like most premium rubbers these days, it costs a million pounds. The good news? It means you can find the previous non-Radial Magic Mary being sold off at good discounts at the moment. Get Googleing!

Zefal Pulse S2 L & R

• Price: £18.99
• From: Chicken Cyclekit

A side-entry bottle cage from Zefal: “Designed for bicycles with small frames, such as full-suspension MTBs and e-MTBs, or Gravels equipped with bikepacking bags. Its exclusive design combined with a carbon construction makes it a product that combines strength and flexibility for use in any conditions. Large adjustment range of 52mm up or down. Compatible with bottles with a diameter of 72 to 76 mm, supplied with two fixing screws in AL 7075 T6. Weight 28 g., dimensions (L x W x H) 76 x 85 x 151 mm.” Often with side-entry cages you either don’t get a choice of handedness (is that word?), or you do get the option via repositioning/flipping a stopper etc. This Zefal one isn’t adjustable but it does come in either Left or Right handed flavours. That’s what the L and R suffix denotes. As a deeply sinister person, Benji will be testing the left-handed version on his Calibre Bossnut long-term upgrade project (more about that next week).

Nank Runner Diver 2 Pro Headphones

• Price: £162.10 (currently on offer at £129.68)
• From: Nanka

These NANK Runner Diver 2 Pro headphones can be worn for activities where you want to be able to hear the world around you as well as your music, or in noise cancelling mode for when you want to block the world out. They’re waterproof – although it recommends swimming for no more than 40 minutes so as not to damage the charging port – and have 32GB of built in memory so you can leave your phone at home but still have tunes on hand. Especially handy for swim training, or perhaps holiday sunbathing? Or, connect to your phone and conduct your business meetings while you pedal? Included in the box are a selection of ear plugs and different sizes of sound enhancing plugs.

Habit Breaker Glove AKA Enduro Thimbles

• Price: £9.95 (er, for one)
• From: Amazon

I like 100% Briskers. They are about as much material as I like to withstand on my hands when riding (I usually ride gloveless because I am one on those nobbers). Anyhoo, the Achilles heel (ha) of Briskers is the thumb. When riding your thumb is always in the wind chill. Briskers insulate everything else wind chilled apart from your thumb. So I had a brainwave, did a bit of Googleing, and found these things. Designed to help people stop sucking their thumb and other sort of behavioural ticks. Yes, I expected there to be two gloves in the packet. Oops. So I’ll be doing an accidental ‘control’ test of these.

O’Keefe’s Working Hands Hand Cream

• Price: £9.00
• From: O’Keefe’s

Speaking of hands, this stuff is still the best for repairing rough fingers and palms. It should be standard issue in every bike workshop.

Hausprofi Tea Infuser

• Price: £8.99
• From: Amazon

Tea is nice and everything but it usually doesn’t have the ritual of making coffee. The invention of the tea bag was probably by Evil Musk Sr in a bid to get people back to their workstations quicker. Free yourself! Make brewing a tea take longer than ever before with a nice metal infuser. Honestly, this thing takes a good ten minutes of not-at-desktime to execute. But does it taste better than a tea bag brew? Who cares. The taste of freedom has no compare, comrades.

Singletrack Natural Mud Long Sleeve Tee

• Price: £30.00
• From: The Singletrack Shop

Super soft and as sustainable as we can make it. Just the one colour – Natural. This t-shirt is natural cotton – no dyes, just the colour of actual cotton. Super soft with a Singletrack ‘muddy’ logo to match the natural colour of the fabric. Again, 100% organic ring spun combed cotton.

Featured Member Reward of the Week

• From: Singletrack Members Rewards
• Reward: 20% off Casio

Get yourself that Casio MTP you didn’t get for Christmas. About Casio: “Founded by the four Kashio brothers, Casio was established in 1957 with the invention of the world’s first compact all-electric calculator. Ever since, innovation has been the mainstay of Casio’s business and has led to a raft of inventions that have improved daily life for generations of customers.”

Forum Thread of the Week

This week’s winner is mrsheen for this lovely thread right here:

As ever, the winning TOTW in FGF gets a prize. So mrsheen please email editorial@singletrackworld.com for your random prize (possibly a mini cowbell). Don’t forget to include your postal address, as it really speeds up delivery logistics like. Word.

Stale Goods Friday – 2011 Orange ST4

• Price: £1,524.99 for frame, £2919.99 for Pro model shown here
• From: Fresh Goods Friday 84

Digging through the photo archive, we stumbled across this genuine Cult Classic bicycle from early 2011. 26in wheels! Front mech! Rear QR! A seatpost that doesn’t go up and down without an Allen key! Geometry that looks like it’s been run into a wall at 80mph! It’s a beauty…

Singletrackjon: “We’ve just got the latest incarnation of the Orange ST4 Pro in for the next bike grouptest. The new ST4 has got a revised back end with the same 110mm of travel now controlled via the swing link system seen on the Orange Blood. The angles remain the same which should mean the same great handling we liked so much from the old ST4 but now in a stiffer package.”

Singletrack Magazine MTB Podcast Season ’25, Episode 3

Also available as pure audio perfection via your Podcast service of choice (Acast, Spotify, Apple etc…)