We have cycling accessories galore in this week’s edition of Five Cool Things – from a £12 chain ring wear checker to Kask’s new £320 aero helmet. Oakley sunglasses, the latest Coros Pace 3 smartwatch and wrapper-less snacks also make the cut of the coolest bits to have arrived at the road.cc HQ for testing recently…
Oakley Sphaera sunglasses (£191)
The Oakley Sphaeras are multi-sport sunnies which, according to the brand, have a wide field of view and optimised retention and comfort. Oakley highlights that the frame is compatible with hats and helmets, and that the glasses feature front vents to improve airflow.
The nose pads and moulded-in earsocks are also promised to provide no-slip grip. Steve Williams will be letting us know how they perform shortly… No that’s not a typo and he didn’t just win the Tour of Britain…
Coros Pace 3 (£219)
> Best smart watches for cycling
The Coros Pace 3 is a GPS sports watch designed for multi-sport athletes, and as well as offering an array of features, it’s also lightweight at 39g.
Coros promises that the Pace 3 offers improved battery life over its predecessor, with up to 38 hours of GPS operation and 15 days of regular use. It also provides 24/7 heart rate monitoring, full training plans for running, cycling, swimming, cardio, and strength, along with detailed data tracking for all your activities. I’ll get back to you soon with whether it can live up to these claims!
Kask Nirvana helmet (£320)
First seen earlier this year worn by INEOS Grenadiers riders, Kask officially launched its new aero helmet, the Nirvana, this summer. The Nirvana drew plenty of attention with its distinctive over-ear cover and teardrop shape.
The helmet promises to deliver both speed and breathability, offering a “35% reduction in aerodynamic drag and a 19% increase in ventilation compared to the top aero helmets in its class.”
Kask claims a weight of 270g for a medium-sized Nirvana although our review model came in slightly under that at 262g. Products are usually a higher weight than advertised, rarely lower.
Connex chain ring wear indicator (£11.99)
> A beginner’s guide to building your first bike tool set
Your bike’s drivetrain will gradually wear and you’ll eventually need to replace the various components, but how do you tell when that time has come?
The Connex chain ring wear indicator claims to help you determine if it’s time to replace your chainrings or sprockets. While you can visually monitor wear by checking the individual teeth, a wear gauge simplifies the process by providing an indication of when replacement is needed.
One Good Thing wrapper free snack and protein bars (£19.80 for 12)
We first spotted these “world first” wrapper-free, pocket-sized oat and protein bars being used by Matthew Holmes who’s been tearing up the UK domestic racing scene this year.
The bars are plastic free with an edible beeswax-based coating that replaces traditional packaging eliminating the hassle of trying to tear open fiddly wrappers on the go.
Available in boxes of six or twelve, the bars come in a variety of flavours for you to choose from. VecchioJo will be putting them through the taste test and seeing how well they hold up in his back pockets!
17 thoughts on “Are the “world’s first” wrapper-free bars the ultimate jersey-friendly fuel for cyclists? Plus more cool stuff from Oakley, Kask, Coros + Connex”
I don’t understand the
I don’t understand the wrapper-free thing, aren’t there wrappers there to stop all the crap from your cupboards, pockets and hands from being on what you eat?
webbierwrex wrote:
OK, each individual one is without a wrapper, but they are not wrapper free, cause they come in a box. That box solves the problem of stuff from the cupboard getting on them, but not from your pocket/bag. If I were to use these, I would recycle a bag from something else, or use a small washable bag/box, in order to carry them in my top tube bag/jersey pocket.
At which point you may as
At which point you may as well just carry sweets/loose flapjack or whatever. Also struggling to see the point in these. If it’s a situation where you can happily eat the wrapper as it’s not covered in pocket shite then you don’t need a wrapper.
Organic/biodegradable wrappers make a lot more sense.
You just hamster them, one in
You just hamster them, one in each cheek.
That Connex chain ring
That Connex chain ring checker looks good (insert round bit between two teeth, if it goes all the way in, it’s time to change), a little more definitive than pulling chain links from a chain ring (difficult on inner).
One is on its way to my garage as I write, hopefully arrive before the end of the week.
Let us know your thoughts on
Let us know your thoughts on it!
Will do…
Will do…
momove wrote:
Well my Connex Chainring Wear Indicator turned up today. Couldn’t find any UK stock at the time of ordering (Merlin & others list it but no stock). I ordered it from BikeInn for less than the list price (£7.99), however with the postage of £5.99 it was £13.98 in total delivered. BikeInn are in Spain and all prices shown in the UK are inclusive of all VAT & duty so what you see is what you pay. I’ve ordered a few items from there and service & value are excellent, although stuff does take around 7-10 days to arrive.
First impression – brilliantly simple. Other methods such as pulling on chain links are subjective, and waiting for the chain to skip is too late. I think this will pay for itself in no time in spotting early drivetrain wear. Checking takes less than a minute and can be done when routinely cleaning the chain. It’s just a go/no-go visual process. Put the round bit between two teeth. If you can see between the gap and the tool, it’s good. It it bottoms out, it’s not.
A few examples to follow:
This is a chainring that has
This is a chainring that has done 2700km, still good.
This is a newer one, has done
This is a newer one, has done just 350km (although this gets dirtier, it’s a gravel bike).
Finally, as a control check,
Finally, as a control check, and the absence of any bad chainrings in my fleet, this is a chainring I took off my brother’s bike a few months ago and haven’t got round to binning. No idea of mileage but probably more than the Millenium Falcon…
From the pictures of the tool
From the pictures of the tool alone I couldn’t fathom how it worked. So is the vast majority of it just decorative handle? Or will those slots also open a bottle?
quiff wrote:
I don’t think the tool is physically big enough to provide the leverage required to comfortably open a bottle, and the slot is a bit too small by the look of it. I don’t have a crown top bottle handy to try it with at the moment.
I guess it had to take the shape of something though, it’s been made in the shape of a flat pedal.
mark1a wrote:
Doh! Now I see it! I honestly thought those slots were somehow part of the functional tool.
Though they could have made
Though they could have made it a 2-in-1 tool by just adding the extra knobble to a chain checker tool.
Well done, that one is going
Well done, that one is going on the list, quite near the top. Thank you for the quick review and pictures, seems to be simplicity itself in use.
Hardly a “world first”: in
Hardly a “world first”: in southeast India people have been enjoying pootharekulu for centuries, sweets wrapped in a layer of edible rice starch, exactly the same concept.