North-east Wales is an area that's slightly off most people's trail radar - a lot of riders pass through on their way to somewhere else, but not many stop to ride. Which is a pity, as there's plenty of good stuff there. To help you find it, this is the very area covered by the second Bikefax mountain biking guide - "The Best Mountain Bike Trails in North East Wales". The guide contains 24 routes in the Clwydians, Mynydd Hiraethog and the North and South Berwyns. The new guide is, we're told, improved and decluttered compared to the first book, with more space between sections, a graded route list and clearer descriptions. Welsh speakers will be glad to see that it's still bilingual. The accompanying CD-ROM will include plain-text GPS route files that'll work with any make of GPS, plus Tracklog files. Find out more at www.bike-fax.com.

Just in time for autumn is a new range of base layers from The North Face. The range comprises long and short sleeved crew and zip neck tops, along with capri and full-length tights. Plus men's and women's briefs (that bike riders probably won't be interested in) and a "women's bra", not to be confused with the often-seen men's bra, presumably. All the garments are made from TNF's Equilibrium fabric, which uses long, hollow-core polypropylene yarn - it's apparently soft, resists pilling, has rapid moisture transfer and excellent thermal properties, as well as containing stink-resisting silver ions. The range is split into Summit (slightly heavier, warmer) and Flight (lightweight) Series - we'd anticipate that the Flight stuff would be the best option for riding in. More details at www.thenorthface.com.

We tested the Spanish Rotor Systems crank arms a while ago, and were reasonably impressed by their top-dead-centre eliminating articulated crank cleverness. The system has its downsides, though - weight, cost, non-standard chainrings, not-quite-contemporary BB arrangement, that kind of thing. In an effort to deliver some of the Rotor benefits to people who are unwilling to shed their existing cranks, the company has come up with Q-Rings - elliptical rings designed to deliver a higher gear on the power stroke and a slightly lower one at top and bottom dead centre. We know what you're thinking - they've reinvented the largely-unlamented Biopace. But Biopace actually did exactly the opposite - it was intended to take the pressure off rider's knees by having an effectively lower gear on the power stroke. Some canny riders rotated Biopace rings to get a more useful effect, and Chris Bell's elliptical Eggrings have been using the same idea for years. The innovation in Q-Rings, though, is the simple idea of having considerably more than the usual four or five bolt holes, allowing you to position the chainrings pretty much however you like relative to the crankarms to tune them to your pedalling style. It's certainly an interesting idea - when we get hold of some we'll let you know how it goes, but in the meantime take a look at www.rotorbike.com.

Finally this week, a whole host of new things from Pace. First up we have the new RC31 Titanium rigid fork. It looks very similar to the old model - the titanium's hidden away inside, being used for reinforcing spigots at the top of the carbon fibre legs. The steerer and crown are still aluminium and the dropouts are still magnesium, but the weight has dropped to a remarkable sub-600g with a 200mm steerer.

Also new from the Pace stable is a 20mm through-axle option on the RC40 and 41 forks. You'll get CNCed 6262 T9 aluminium dropouts and a 7050 T6 hard anodised axle for a super-secure front wheel without much of a weight penalty.

Pace is also doing 150 limited edition "Factory Forks", available exclusively through Leisure Lakes. There'll be RC40 XCAM, RC40 Fighter, RC41 XCAM and RC41 Fighter versions, all with an upgraded 7050 aluminium steerer, custom offset gold anodised crown for faster steering, hand-finished internals, custom-blended oils and custom graphics. Each fork will be individually numbered. Find out more at www.pacecycles.com.