It’s Friday o’clock once more and time to fire up the coffee pot and have a look at our round-up of coolness from the previous seven days in MTB.

>>> Dirty Deals: free £50 bike repair, cheap 140mm RockShox, tilting bike racks and more!

PMBA Enduro (and EWS Qualifier) is happening on September 5-6th

7 stages of enduro racing in the grounds of the Graythwaite estate near Windermere in the Lake District. It’s not for the faint-hearted or newbie to enduro; this is a full-on enduro experience. Expect steep stuff, both up and down, and very probably some arduous pushing sections. It will be fully socially distanced. Spectating is strongly discouraged. The venue atmosphere may not be the same as a result of these precautions, but the acing will be racing. And that’s what counts. Entries are now live.

The Nevis range is open

The gondola is up and running again, from Wednesday to Sunday. As this POV video shows, the ‘Red’ is actually Black graded (the Red name comes from an earlier incarnation and just stuck!)

New lightweight full-facer from Smith

It’s called the Smith Mainline and its claimed weight for a Medium is 770g. It features Smith’s Koroyd technology and is fully MIPS equipped. A total of 21 vents, five of which are in the chinbar and there are also internal channels for air intake cooling. Different sized cheek pads included for fine-tuning the fit. £274.99 SRP.

Titanium tubeless valves

Some mountain bikers are addicted to carbon fibre but perhaps the longest-standing material addiction in mountain biking is titanium. If you know someone who has titanium bottle bolts or rotor bolts, then they need to know about these titanium tubeless valves from Lindarets. You won’t even have to mention the price ($39.95), as they will aready be adding them to their basket before you begin saying the sentence.

Nico Vink riding scorched earth

Filmmaker Ryan Gibb: “Everything was shot in a controlled setting on private land during the winter in a recently scorched wildfire area. The crew was under the supervision of forestry professionals to ensure everything was executed safely. There wasn’t a single live tree touched throughout our entire production.”

SixSixOne Radia goggles

With a minimalist MTB-specific frame design and 40mm strap, these new Radia goggles from SixSixOne look like they’ll stay in place during the roughest of rides. Wide-view lens window, anti-fog and anti-scratch coatings. Available in a few colourways: Dazzle Yellow, Dazzle Red, Script Black and Script Blue. SRP £39.99.

Kona Honzo ESD

While the new Kona Process X gets most folks attention (and quite right too), we also spotted this hardtail brute in Kona’s 2021 line-up. The original Honzo came out at the same sort of time as the iconic pre-Downcountry Process 111 ‘short travel aggro geometry 29er’. But things have moved on and this 2021 bike features a 63.5° head angle, 77.5° seat angle and a reach on the XL of a whoping 525mm. SRP £2699.

BMC Twostroke

Coming in from the other end of the hardtail spectrum, this is the new BMC Twostroke. It’s not as woah rad-i-cal in geometry as the Kona Honzo ESD above but it’s certainly much more trail-friendly than previous BMC hardtails. 67° head angle, 75° seat angle, 465mm reach on a Large. After all, it is still a 100mm travel flat-handlebar XC-ish weapon. Two other things of note: the rubber protector to deal with reduced offset (44mm) fork crown damaging the down tube, and the seat tube which takes a special D-profile rigid seatpost or a regular dropper post (with a supplied shim). SRPs from $1599 (alloy) up to $4299 (carbon).

Solace feat. Braydon Bringhurst

Inspired by the late Kobe Bryant and this year’s Covid calamities, this edit featuring Canyon’s Braydon Bringhurst celebrates the value of riding solo. Which is something we can all no doubt relate to in 2020.

Where skis meet the trails

As oneof the tp commenters on YouTube states: “You know climate change is real, when ski companies start making mountain bikes.” This nicely put together video features plenty of ferns and also a mountain bike with Rossignol written on it. Yes, that’s right, the people who makes skis. Anyone remember when K2 purchased Proflex?