Here’s what we’re excited about this month: Slayers, big bums, Greg’s pants and more…

>>> Dirty Deals: cosy jackets, bum bags, sticky grips and much more!

Rocky Mountain Slayer C90, £7,999.99

With 180mm travel damped by a coil shock, the new Rocky Mountain Slayer is just about the most aggressive bike you can buy today. Pop a 200mm dual crown fork on the front and you’d pretty much have a downhill bike, something Rocky actually anticipated certain riders might want to by cunningly making the new frame dual-crown ready.

That frame has been completely redesigned for 2020, ditching the full carbon layup in favour of an alloy front triangle and alloy back end. Rocky Mountain says this is for “resistance against trail abuse, shuttle rub, and chairlift dings.” That makes sense on a park bike, and helps increase stiffness and save money on carbon moulds too.

The Slayer joins a select group of bikes at the top of the travel tree, with only the Whyte G170 sporting this much travel and coil to boot. The Slayer isn’t necessarily an enduro race bike like the G170 though, it began life two decades ago as a freeride bike and it’s still freeride ready today, Rocky says. In short it’s a bike built for strength and durability rather than weight saving — the front triangle is now reinforced between the downtube and top tube, that back end is alloy and there are Race Face ARC 30 alloy rims on this top end C90 bike rather than carbon, something you’d usually find at this pricepoint.

Underfoot armour

Ride Concepts Transition, £154.95

Ride Concepts’ Transition clipless shoe uses D30 in the insole, and around your ankle for impact protection, a gusseted tongue to keep out loam and a moulded nylon shank for stiffness. Comes in black, red or this eye-melting yellow.

Tank traipse

IRC Tanken, £55

The IRC Tanken is one meaty enduro tyre, its tread pattern is designed to work best on loose surfaces and put a lot of rubber and air volume between you and impacts. It comes 2.8, 2.6 and 2.3in as 27.5in; or 2.3 and 2.6in in 29er.

Greg-air-ious

Cube Action Team shorts, £129.99

You too can look like Greg Callaghan with this fun Cube Action Team short, made from air-permeable fabric it’s long enough to cover pads, has a preformed knee and seat area, three pockets, and an embroidered action team logo, natch!

Kneed for speed

100% Ridecamp kneepads, £52.99

With its slip on, neoprene sleeve design and minimal padding, the 100% Ridecamp kneepads are for light duties rather than uplift days. Features an anti-abrasion outer layer, silicone webbing to hold them in place and two colour options.

Safari shirt

Nukeproof Outland Short sleeve Tech Tee, £30

Nukeproof is killing it with its clothing right now, the latest is the Outland Short Sleeve Tech Tee, made from polyester and elastane it’s wicking, quick drying and really stretchy for comfort. Crew neck, raglan sleeve and a dropped hem at back.

Vital statistics

Myzone MZ-20 Home Scale, £59.99

The Myzone MZ-20 Home Scale uses low intensity electrical signals to measures body metric data — like visceral fat, metabolic rate, bone mass and loads more — before sending it all to an app on your phone. Why? We don’t know.

Green cleaner

Shiny Sauce 1L, £8.99

Shiny Sauce bike cleaner is biodegradable, pH-neutral and water based, for minimal environmental impact. It’s UK made, the bottle is recyclable and Shiny says you can clean gear and even goggles with it too. Don’t take it in the shower though.

Course grind

Vitamina CL, £20

Vitamina CL is a sealant additive from Swiss brand Effectto Mariposa, add it to their Caffélatex gunk and it’s designed to boost reparable puncture sizes from 4mm up to 8mm, with shorter repairing time and lower pressure loss too.

Big bum

Evoc Hip Pack Capture 7L, €100

With a whopping seven litres of storage Evoc’s Hip Pack Capture 7l swallows up everything you need for a day’s trailside photography. There’s enough internal space for a compact camera body plus additional lenses and zipped pockets for SD cards galore.

Hope Fortus Wheelset, £435

Hope is clearly comfortable building components from carbon, it makes its road and cyclocross wheels from the dark matter, and the new HB130 trail bike sports a frame made from 1k weave. The brand’s real heritage is with aluminium though, a material it still chooses to make its mountain bike rims from, including the new Fortus here.

The new range includes four different wheelsets, they’re all built around the excellent Pro 4 hubs but have different riding applications: Fortus 23 is for XC, Fortus 26 is a trail wheel, Fortus 30 for enduro or DH and Fortus 35 is for enduro or trail use, and the numerals refer to the rim’s internal width. And Fortus? Fortis is latin for strong, so you can see where Hope was going with it.

You can get the Fortus range in all three wheel sizes, even 26in, although you’re limited to 23 and 26 for the old standard. The rim profile depth varies from 17-23mm depending on the size you go for, and it fits 100m or 110mm Boost on the front, and 135, 142mm, 148mm Boost and 150mm on the rear. Of course, it’ll fit SRAM and Shimano drivers.

Hope’s old wheelset range was called Tech, that’s been replaced by these new wheels. Hope says Fortus is stiffer both vertically and laterally than the old range. The old Hope Tech Enduro wheelset wowed us in the past with its blend of performance feel, weight and value. Look out for a test soon to see if Fortus can deliver the same results.