Fresh Goods Friday 732: The Gripping Death Edition

It’s that time of your mountain biking week again: Fresh Goods Friday! Let us all gather ’round the cyber hearth and sing digital songs of mirth and joy.

How do you like your grips?

DMR Deathgrip 2 grips

• Price: £24.00 or £27.00 (for the Race edition)
• From: Upgrade Bikes

The King is dead! Long live the King! There aren’t many (any?) grips that have a cult following quite like the DMR Deathgrip. There’s now a Deathgrip 2. But don’t worry, everything you Deathgrippers like about the Mk1 is still present and correct in the new Deathgrip 2 grip. There’s still the mushroom gill thumb-forefinger zone near the inside collar. The main body of the grip is classic knurkling in full effect. And on the froint-underside there’s the raised ridged finger box zone. The lock-on collar fits over a slightly flared out core end so that it doesn’t fall off and go under the fridge-freezer. The single lock-on collar is a little bit slimmer now. At the other end of the grip the encapsulated end has been reworked so is now hard plastic integrated into the grip. They’re tapere-core sleeved, so are best installed with a soft mallet to drive them fully home. As before there’s two diameter options: 29.8,m or 313mm. And there’s three krayton rubber compound options: Soft 20a, 25a (gum only) and Super Soft Race 15a. Available in flanged or flangeless. Plenty of colour choice too.

And it’s still Brendog’s signature grip. Buy a pair and help him get over his recent Red Bull Rampage robbery.

Fresh Goods Friday 732: D’Movie

Short films are the future.

Green Oil Massive-Brush 1.0

• Price: £47.99 (or £52.99 for the Massive-Brush 1.0 SLR – String; Leather, Recycled)
• From: Green Oil

Green Oil were one of the brands left rather high-and-dry when a UK distributor recently went bust, but it’s fighting back with some typically esoteric ecological items. Such as this massive – and massively expensive – brush. There’s not much in the way of functional reasons to buy this item (although it may mean you don’t have to bend over quite so much during cleaning your bike #middleaged). Here’s Green Oil’s argument anyway: “Cheap brushes out there look like good value. 5 in a pack. Made of plastic. £25- £35. But why not have one decent brush for the whole bike? Should we support British Manufacturing and sustainable forestry? Yes. Should we use everything made of plastic and leave bits of plastic bristle in the environment? Hell no.”

Green Oil Wet Chain Lube with Prevented Ocean Plastics Bottle

• Price: £9.99 (100ml)
• From: Green Oil

Parking the eco stuff to one side for a moment, Green Oil Wet Lube is darned good chain oil. It’s my [Benji] particular filthy conditions lube of choice (I still opt for Juice Lubes Viking Juice for all other conditions). Bringing eco stuff back into focus – which after all, is Green Oil’s entire raison d’etre – the bottle uses ‘Ocean Prevented Plastics’. Which now means the bottle is made up of 45% recycling bin plastic, 45% Prevented Ocean Plastics and 10% industrial off cut plastic.

Shimano GE7/700 Shoe

• Price: £179.99
• From: Freewheel

Enduro clippy-sneakers. Featuring Shimano’s genuinely grippy ULTREAD GE rubber compound (which hasn’t really had enough praise in our opinion). The cleat box ‘n’ slots is further back these days so you can place your foot more centred over the pedal axle (if you want to). What else? Updated pedal channel has an expanded toe-to-heel design for improved security when you’re flailing around unclipped. EVA foam midsole. Laces and a big ol’ instep strap. Asymmetric padded ankle collar and reinforced toe cap.

Shimano GE9/900

• Price: £219.99
• From: Freewheel

The next level up of enduro clippy sneakers. Same sort of Ultread sole and tread as the GE7/700 above but doing away with olde worlde laces (laces? pah!) and going with a proper BOA Fit System. BOA with a shielded L6 dial no less. Carbon-reinforced midsole. Stretchy neoprene ankle collar. Reinforced toe cap. Claimed weight of 430g for EU42 size.

Loop Mount

• Price: £54.95
• From: Loop

We hope it’s pretty self explanatory as to what this product is/does. Mount your phone on your handlebars (well, unless you have bigger than 31.8mm diameter bars that is). Stats: Bar Size – 22.2mm-31.8mm, Phone size Width – Up to 85mm with case, Phone size Depth – Up to 14.5mm with case, Grip Force – 1.5-3kg f. Offers 360° rotation.

Loop Micro Mount

• Price: £39.95
• From: Loop

A bit like the item above only smaller (and arguably better executed). Replaces your stem top cap. Very simple to install. Easy to remove, although it doesn’t look too gawky when it’s not in use to be fair. Stats: Phone size Width Up to 83mm with case, Phone size Depth Up to 12.7mm with case, Grip Force 1.5-3kg f.

Durty Brewing beers

• Price: from £25.20 for a pack of 12
• From: Durty Brewing

A beer factory from a long term magazine subscriber and STW forum lurker!

Here’s the beery bio: “As a COVID diversification project (that’s the corporate speak done, in reality it was a combination of being bored from not being able to put events on during COVID time, alongside a deep-seated-but- not-yet-problematic love of all things good beer related) we created and opened a new craft beer brewery in the Tweed Valley last year.]

“We are all bikers ourselves, and mountain-biking is in the DNA of the brewery. All our beers are named after local trails, mostly in the Tweed Valley. Examples include Angry Sheep, Gold Run, Repeat Offender, Edge of the World, Thunderstruck and Carl’s Lane (named after the great man himself). One of our brews (Narnia, a Wheat Beer) won a Silver Medal at the Scottish Beers Awards this year.

“We’re deliberately making beers that people want to drink. We’re not hugely interested in being cool, or following the latest trends. Or being stupidly strong. Just decent, interesting, high-quality, drinkable beer. After being in production for a year, we’re settling around a core range and some seasonal/one-off specials, but it’s an ever-changing line-up.”

Cheers and good luck with the venture!

The Bert Shoe

• Price: £65.00
• From: The Bert Shoe

Whether you’re bikepacking or hiking hut to hut in the mountains, you probably don’t want to be wearing the same shoes when you sit down for a beer at night. And flips flops are light to carry, but not great for sightseeing in. These Bert shoes are designed to be comfortable to walk around in, but light enough to be packable and easy to carry. They’re made to be as comfortable as a sock, but wearable as an all day shoe if needed – and are described on the website as ‘active espadrilles’. Washable if all your activity makes them pong a bit. Made in Columbia.

STW Organic Mid-weight Sweatshirt

• Price: £43.99
• From: The Singletrack Shop

Not everyone wants to hide theselves away inside a hood, but even the extraverted among us need to keep warm. This sweatshirt is made from 85% organic cotton and 15% recycled polyester. Lack of hood allows 360° view of your ego.

Winter is coming…

• Price: £0.00
• From: December

Uncanny. In every sense.