Richard Manville
Adam rounce
Stephen Popple
Elisabet Fogerty
Douglas Seath
Jack Ford
Averil Fairey
Leeann Marston
Cheryl Wibberley
Christopher cumpsty
Daren Steevens
Warren Bates

Well done to all of you, Wheelies will be in contact to arrange postage and enjoy the new helmets!

Original post:

Wheelies are giving you the chance to win one of 12 fantastic Giro Rift Mountain Bike Helmets (in ‘Matt Titanium Trees’) right here on Bike Magic.

The Rift helmet has all the high-end features you need for your ride including 20 air vents plus additional rear exhaust vents that help pull air through the helmet even when riding uphill and at slower speeds.  The universal shell features an Acu-Dial fit system that allows one handed micro adjustment whilst on the move, ensuring a perfect custom fit for every rider and an advanced strap management feature, further allowing fine tuning for a comfortable, safe and secure fit.

To be in with a chance to win one of these fantastic prizes from Wheelies, answer the question below:

[competition_19]

TERMS & CONDITIONS: By entering you are agreeing to receive details of future offers and promotions from Factory Media and related third parties. This competition will close on March 18th, 2013.

PERSONAL STATEMENT: By entering I also confirm I have read and accept the terms & conditions of the prize draw, competition rules and privacy policy.

Full Beam Fusion SpeedLED

Full Beam SpeedLED Fusion with speed sensor. The business end is three high-output LEDs

This new 3000-lumen, £416 single-lump headlamp has a twist: a sensor that directly reads speed off your wheel and adjusts the light output accordingly.

The idea is similar to Exposure’s Reflex light (which we currently have on test) but where Exposure has come up with some technical wizardry to determine speed from air flow over the light, Full Beam has gone for the direct approach: run a wire down to the wheel and use a sensor like a bike computer’s to measure speed.

Full Beam claims 4-5 hours of typical run time, depending on how fast you ride and how much you stop.

It passes the office “Ow, my eyes, point that thing somewhere else” test, and we especially like the very tidy quick release mount. Look out for a full test shortly.

More information: Full Beam Fusion SpeedLED

Grip Grab Raptor winter gloves

Grip Grab Raptor gloves

A new name to the UK, Grip Grab hails from Denmark and is being sold in the UK exclusively through Wiggle.

These £44.95 Raptor gloves are Grip-Grab’s all-purpose winter handwarmers, with a softshell fabric back and synthetic leather palm. The palm also has a rubber pattern for handlebar grip and a pad of gel – Grip Grab calls it Doctor Gel – to protect against vibration.

They know a think or two about cold weather in Denmark, and the Raptors look thick enough for temperatures down to a couple degrees above freezing. The range includes summer gloves too, plus shoe covers, helmet liners and beanies.

More information: Grip Grab Raptor gloves
UK supplier: Wiggle

New helmet colours from Giro

New colours from Giro and Bell: £99.99 men’€™s Giro Athlon, £69.99 Women’s Giro Phase, £79.99 men’€™s Giro Hex, £99.99 women’€™s Giro Xara and £99.99 men’€™s Bell Sweep.

Sister company helmet makers Giro and Bell have sent us a load of new styles and colours from their 2013 ranges. Pictured here are the £99.99 men’s Giro Athlon, £69.99 Women’s Giro Phase, £79.99 men’s Giro Hex, £99.99 women’s Giro Xara and £99.99 men’s Bell Sweep.

The women’s lids have gone down especially well at Bikemagic HQ thanks to their refreshing lack of pink.

Check out the gallery for bigger pics of each lid.

More information: Giro helmets; Bell helmets
UK importer: Madison Cycles

Specialized Tactic II helmet

Specialized Tactic II helmet in very very green

Speaking of new lids, here’s Specialized’s new Tactic II, in 2013’s hottest colour, which Specialized call Moto Green. Specialized says the Tactic II is aimed at all-mountain riders, though it seems to us that slicing helmets up by mountain biking micro-niche is even more daft that coming up with a new marketing term for every 17.3mm of suspension travel.

What the Tactic II really is, is a thoroughly modern helmet at a very sensible price: just £54.99. It boasts features that were once only found on spendy lids, like a micro-adjust dial , in-mould outer shell and deep internal airflow channels.

First impressions: it’s snug, comfy and the shape extends well down the back of your head so that you’re protected against falling backeard as well as forward.

More information: Specialized Tactic II helmet

Showers Pass Double Century EX jacket

Showers Pass Double Century EX jacket

Portland, Oregon jacket maker Showers Pass deserves to be better known in the UK, in our humble opinion. Portland’s temperate, damp climate is similar to the UK’s and so Showers Pass’s answers to the problem of keeping warm and dry on a bike work as well here as they do over on the US west coast. (And Oregon had the good sense to vote for Obama last night, so that’s another point in the state’s favour.)

The £119.00 Showers Pass Double Century EX jacket is made from Cocona Xcelerator, a fabric that has activated charcoal particles in the waterproof membrane to increase breathability, it’s claimed.

That makes for quite a thin fabric, so the Double Century EX can be rolled up fairly small. It’ll cram into a jersey pocket if you’re find of roadie garb, or not take up to much space in your pack. There’s a big vent out back to let hot air out, big pit zips and plenty of reflective. There’s a chest pocket with a wire port for your MP3 player, drawcords to snug it round your bum andVelcro for the cuffs.

More information: Showers Pass Double Century EX jacket
UK supplier: nrg4

Airwave Blast track pump

Airwave Blast track pump featuring lots of cast auminium.

With this hefty £44.95 lump of a workshop inflator, Airwave seem to have taken the idea that you can’t make a track pump too beefy and run right down the field with it. The body and foot are forged alumiium, and so it the housing for the top-mounted gauge.

That’s a welcome touch. Putting the gauge up top where you can see it seems like a good idea, till you consider what happens if the pump falls over on a hard floor. That’s the end of most pumps with top gauges.

it’s belt and braces here as the base is heavy enough you have knock the Airwave Blast quite hard to get it to topple.

More information: Airwave Blast track pump

Transition Klunker

And finally… We haven’t been sent one of these, but we wish we had. Transition Bikes has just announced this modern update on the classic singlespeed klunkers of the seventies.

Those were the bikes that mutated into mountain bikes thanks to the mad scientist bike creation skills of folks like Gary Fisher, Tom Ritchey, Charlie Kelly, Alan Bonds, Russ Mahon and a host of other Marin County pioneers.

Transition Bikes Klunker

Transition Bikes calls this machine “a giant step backwards” with its single gear, coaster brake and 31-inch wide moto bars. “The Klunker features absolutely no technology and is in no way optimized,” says Transition. Sounds like the Bikemagic crew on a Friday night.

Transition and Shotgun Energy Drink are sponsoring Klunking superstar Tony Jonsson, as you can learn in this behind-the-scenes video:

More information: Transition Bikes Klunker blog

fi’zi:k gets dirty

The fizik M1 mountain bike shoes are the off-road equivalent of fizik’s high-zoot R1 road shoes. The mesh and kangaroo leather upper is attached to a carbon fibre sole. It’s fizik’s first foray into road shoes, but it looks promising.

fi’zi:k entered the shoe market last year with some gorgeously made road shoes. This year they’ve added mountain bike shoes to the line, in the form of these M1 and M5 shoes, which means you should start to see fi’zi:k shoes in more shops because retailers like to stock a broad offering if they’re going to get into a new shoe line.

The £299.99 M1 shoes are, it has to be admitted, a bit pricy. For your money you get a carbon fiber sole, mesh and kangaroo leather upper and a sole with replaceable lugs so you can swap them out if they get damaged.

The sole is made from high-friction rubber and the the toe and sides are covered in anti-scuff leather for extra protection. The straps are made from low-stretch sail cloth, a feature shared with the R1 road shoes, and the insole is a heat-mouldable Sidas unit that really helps make the shoes comfy.

As well as a pair of Velcro straps, there’s a micro-adjust buckle with offset catches that provide finer adjustment that a standard ratchet strap. Three hundred quid is a lot for a pair of shoes, but fi’zi:k have piled a lot of features and quality into the R1.

If your budget doesn’t stretch that far, the new R5 is the ‘budget’ option at £159.99. The upper is mesh and microtex synthetic leather and the sole is carbon-reinforced nylon with fixed lugs. An aluminium buckle provides closure.

There’s also a women’s version of the R5, the R5 Donna.

fi’zi:k’s website

Giro flats out

The Giro Chamber is casually styled, but intended for serious riding.

At the other end of the shoe scale, Giro has a brace of new models, the Chamber and Jacket, for less frantically fast applications. The SPD-compatible chamber is intended for use with platform clipless pedals, while the Jacket has no cleat slot, for pure flat pedal use.

Top downhiller Aaron Gwin was heavily involved with the development of both pedals, which tells you where Giro’s coming from here, but we can see lots of other uses like relaxed trail riding, street and going down the pub.

Both shoes have grippy Vibram soles, and neat details such as a sleeved tongue to keep out stones and dust.

If are getting seriously gnarly, both shoes have a deeply cushioned heel so you can bail mid-air and have a slightly less hard landing – assuming, that is, you manage to land on your feet.

Giro’s website

Lezyne brightens up

The Lezyne MegaDrive puts a pair of LEDs out front for a whopping 1000 lumens output, enough to make this Lezyne’s first serious contender for a serious night-riding lamp.

Lezyne has expanded its range of lights for 2013 and the most notable addition to the selection is the Mega Drive, a 1000-lumen, single-unit light with a replaceable battery.

The Mega Drive has four levels of light, enduro (500 lumen), blast (1000lm), economy (200 lumen), and flash. A long button press engages Race mode, after which only blast and enduro are available so you don’t have to switch between flash and economy modes in steady unlit riding.

This is Lezyne’s first serious off-road light, and it looks promising for the £164.99 asking price. For £199.99 you can get a ‘fully loaded’ kit with a second battery and an aluminium handlebar mount.

If you don’t need quite that much light, the single LED Super Drive XL puts out 500 lumens but has much the same features. It’s beefier than the previous Super Drive because there’s more aluminium in the body. Like the Mega Drive’s finned shell, this serves as a heat sink to allow the LED to be driven harder for more light output.

Out back, Lezyne has more rear lights for 2013, including the USB-rechargeable Micro Drive Rear, which has a super-bright daylight flash mode for getting the attention of drivers who are distracted by talking on the phone, texting, reading billboards and passing members of the opposite sex.

Lezyne’s website