....that we did have some sunshine a few weeks back, and Robbie's just posted up about a sweet summer day's riding back in June with his trusty BFe as One Bike To Ride Them All. I know it's grey outside, but the pictures really lifted our day.

It's not the Alps, that's Wales that is. In the Sunshine. No, really!

More great pics like this one on the blog, plus some inspiring words about getting out and enjoying yourself.

Cy's back from Luchon (which was lovely, thanks for asking), but plenty of Cotic riders have been Keeping It Real (tm). Here's our mate Richie rocking his Soul in the mud bath up at the Selkirk round of the Merida Marathon.

It's back to mud-plugging for us this week too, but we love it really. No, really we do. Honest.....

Cy's gone to Luchon to see Ian and Kate at AQR Holidays, and do a bit of product testing. He'll be back on 18th August. Paul's still here taking orders and answering questions on info@cotic.co.uk or the usual phone number 07970 853 531 .

Kate's now had time to recover and figure out what happened during the 24/12 weekend, and the full story from her point of view is now on her blog.

Photo by Joolze Dymond.

I know it's been very race reporty recently, so sorry about more of the same, but me (Cy) and Paul have just got back from the Bontrager 2412 race down at Newnham Park near Plymouth. What an amazing weekend! The course was so good that even the professional event grouches that Paul and myself have become gave it a second lap on Friday to 'just get that singletrack line in that bit, and the other bit there' etc. Brilliant organisation from Martyn Salt and beautiful weather combined with the ace course to provide a stonking good event. We even got to spend quite a bit of time with Mr Bontrager himself due to some press commitments with Kate, which was an absolute pleasure.

Cotic HQ for the Weekend

Photo by James Dymond.

Saturday was the main event, with Kate and Ian riding for Cotic Bontrager in the Mixed Pairs 12hr and he AQR Holidays team were there too, racing in the Open Mixed Team 12hr. Kate and Ian were up against another 5 Elite level pairs including National Champ Jenny Copnall and a strong TORQ entry. Come 12 noon, they were off with Ian doing a storming first lap to come in with the top 10 overall. I ran the race making sure the Potter's were fueled and in the right place at the right time, and Paul ran the spanners. Pretty early it became clear that it would come down to Ian and Kate or the TORQ pair. The other pairs were dropping back at over 1 min per lap, but there were just seconds in it up front. It was pretty tense, and it was brilliant to be involved with the race to the point where I felt I could make a difference; checking times here, a mug of Ribose there, minimising the handovers. Kate was as epically fast as ever, but Ian was riding out of his skin matching and on one occasion beating the lap times of TORQ rider Ryan who's a top 10 Elite racer. Unfortunately it wasn't to last, with Ryan finding some amazing form around 7pm which put them 3 mins clear. With TORQ doing two laps for Ryan to one lap for Mel against Kate and Ian's lap on, lap off we were never going to catch them as Kate was tiring too. Still, despite a slow puncture and a bent mech hanger, the Cotic Bontrager guys never missed a beat and they kept the pressure on in case something should befall the leading team.

Prepping Kate's Race Bike

Photo by James Dymond.

In the end Kate carried the team across the line at just gone midnight with an epic 20 laps completed, with over 20 mins on third and nearly a lap on the Fisher pair which included Jenny Copnall. The pace was just astonishing throughout, with the Cotic Bontrager result so fast that it would have placed 3rd in the Open Men's race! Congrats to Ryan and Mel from TORQ/Kona for playing a very fast and very canny race, but mostly to Kate and Ian for pushing it above and beyond the call of duty.

It wasn't just the Cotic Bontrager riders flying either. AQR Holidays won their Open Mixed 12hr catagory, and if that wasn't enough, the Yeti/GoldTec boys were camped with us and won the Open Mens 12hr. It seems that so long as you were camped with 20ft of the Cotic pit you were on for a good result! Cotic - bringing the magic.

There will be much more on this later in the week from Kate's blog and plenty of photos from Joolze once everyone's back in the land of the living. Great weekend, and it's back at Newnham next year so get yourself along.

As well as our directly sponsored athletes, this year AQR Holidays have a race team and most of them are aboard Cotic Sodas with Magura Durins. Warren and Tracy Miles have been ripping up the endurance racing circuit and crowned it off with a couple of great results in some recent big enduros up in Scotland. Tracy dropped us a line, writing:

"After a close second at Fort William's Ten under the Ben scoring ten laps, but coming in behind the local Nevis Cycles pair, we went one step higher at the recent Ten at Kirroughtree taking the Vet Mixed Pair category win and also second Mixed Pair overall. We racked up another fifty miles each over the technically challenging course with our trusty Sodas and Magura Durins taking the switch-back climbs, rock features, slippery roots and soft loam sections all in their stride."

The Cotics just keep on winning it seems, and we couldn't be more pleased. Read the full stories on Tracy's blog, with more photos on the Team AQR Flickr Stream.

After a couple of days to recover, Robbie's now written up his Megavalanche experiences on his blog.

He was one of 10 guys rocking the Unofficially Hard catagory and was fastest front sprung man on the mountain aboard his trusty Cotic BFe, qualifying in the top 400 for the official race and coming in 164th overall. He's got a bunch more photos up on his blog, and it looks pretty epic! Good Skills to Robbie, and of course his BFe - Unofficially the fastest DH hardtail in the world!

Keswick Mountain Bikes have sent us a photo of their new Hemlock demo bike:

Speak to them if you want to try it out. If the beautiful Lakes are too far for you, then 18 Bikes also have a demo Hemlock in the Peak District and Freedom Bikes in Brighton have one for the Southern contingent. Some of the best places in the UK to ride a Hemlock? We happen to think so.

We sent a drop bar ROADRAT bike down to Cycling Plus a while back, and the review has just been posted on bikeradar.com. They loved the handling and a lot of the details, so go and give it a read if you're wanting an opinion on our latest model.

The Product pages have all the information you need on the ROADRAT frame and the Drop Bar complete bike.

As well as Robbie taking on the Megavalanche in Alpe d'Huez on 13th July, Ace from Hardtail Nation has just been onto us after racing Robbie at Rheola. They're running the UK Unofficial Hardtail DH Champs at the next Dragon round at Mynydd Du on 13th July. We've sent Ace some Cotic swag to hand out, and you can enter at Dragon Downhill.

We've just received our first shipment of Chris King headsets. As with our other headsets, we'll only be offering them in black to keep things simple, and they are now available with any of our frames for £100 including fitting.

Robbie did the Dragon DH last weekend in 'interesting' conditions aboard his BFe, now sprung with Magura Wotans for extra big hit ability.

Well done to Nick Craig, Stu Bowers, Paul Oldham and our own Kate Potter for winning a hard fought race over the weekend.

Kate had a great time, and her short UK race season this year has been fantastic. We know she really appreciates the way she's made to feel at home when racing here.

Photos by Joolze Dymond.

Both the Potters got out and raced at the weekend, with our Kate taking first in the Elite Women (yey!) and team mechanic/guru/husband/joybundle Ian Potter making a return to racing in the Vets category. Kate has sent us a quick email:

There will be full report on Kate's blog when she finds the time/words to post. At Cotic we're as pleased as ever with Kate's racing, and just as importantly, her attitude. She's a riding, walking, talking ambassador for Mountain Biking, and more particularly for Cotic, Bontrager, all her sponsors and the holiday company she runs with Ian, A Quick Release.

The Hemlock is now available to order in the new black anodised finish. All three sizes of frame are in stock, as are both rockers. The Fox RP23 upgrade shocks are also in stock and can be supplied with a frame, instead of the standard Rock Shox Pearl, for a not unreasonable £40 up-charge.

If you're thinking of building up a super versatile full-sus bike, then everything you need to know about the Hemlock is on the product page. Also, ideas on some of the many, many builds possible with the Hemlock can be found on the "Your Poison" mini-site. If you still have questions, you can ask Paul using any of the usual contact methods, or start a conversation with your local Cotic dealer.

Here's a quick photo of Cy's current poison: a black Hemlock frame, Fox shock upgrade, the big fun Magura Wotan forks, Bontrager finishing kit and Hope M4 brakes.

Kate was racing for the Cotic Bontrager Race Team at the latest in the World Cup XC series at Fort William last weekend, and despite being gridded at the back again due to the arcane UCI rules, she finished a fantastic 33rd. BRAVO!

Photo by Joolze Dymond.

After the trials of the last couple of races we're really chuffed that Kate has been able to show some of her true potential. Keep up with Kate's race reports and musings on her blog. We've also recently added a listing of the build ups on Kate's bikes, so if you want to know the building blocks of a sub-20lb Soda, look no further!

We've just received our latest Hemlock frames which feature the new black anodised finish. Here's a shot of a frame straight out of the box, featuring the Fox RP23 upgrade and long travel linkage. The photo was taken in the sunshine near our Peak District workshop (it's a tough life).

These will be available from stock in all sizes from next week (16th June). Join our mailing list for more information on availability.

Check out his latest ride pics on his blog. It's good for us to see him back in action on his BFe, another positive sign that summer has well and truly hit us.

Last year we produced a little flyer to give out at the London Cycle Show, and for our dealers to use. It offers a more succinct introduction to our mountain bike range than our detailed product pages, so we're making it available in various electronic forms here for those who'd like a quick read.

It's getting to that time of year again where people are starting to worry, the lights are being charged and the sacrafices to the rain gods are being made. Yes, Mountain Mayhem 2008 is on it's way. Kate is racing again with Lumicycle providing the illumination for those all important night laps.

In a switch from her previous entries in the solo event, Kate is competing as part of the Scott team in the Elite Mixed category, with Nick Craig amongst others. They've got a strong chance of winning, and we're pretty excited about that.

As for the rest of us, we won't be at Mountain Mayhem in any official capacity this year, but we do wish all the Cotic owners out there competing the best of luck. Give Kate a cheer too, if you see her. Have fun out there; that is the point!

One of the great things about working with Magura this year is that they've actively involved us in their development programme. It's hugely flattering for us to be asked to help out, but they really want us to get the kit working exactly as we want it to on our frames.

Since Christmas, Cy's been putting some time in on a couple of products which we're very excited about. The first one is the new Thor fork. This is a 140mm trail fork with a bolt thru axle, and as a result of some clever design work it comes in at under 4lbs despite having fantastic stiffness. Our sample was run on a Hemlock which previously had a Wotan fork on it, and the amazing thing about the Thor was that despite being some 1.5lbs lighter, it performed nearly as well. So, a pocket Wotan at trail bike weight? Yes please! We had to send our sample back about a month ago, and were very, very sorry to see it go. With the great remote travel adjust feature, this could well be the fork of 2009. We'll be stocking it as an option for the Hemlock come late-summer.

The other item we've put some miles on is the MX damper. This uses airbag technology from trucks and high-end cars with no pressurised sliding parts so no stiction at all. We've tried a couple of different tunes on the damping system, and we think it has potential to turn people's perceptions around. It doesn't feel at all like an oil damped shock so you need to ride it for a while to get used to it. It's just different, so you have to adjust a little. Once you have, it has astonishing responsiveness to the tiniest imputs whilst still maintaining commendable control on the bigger, faster stuff. We still haven't got it completely dialled to our low leverage suspension, and a switch to longer stroke shocks on the Hemlock for 2009 means we still have some work to do before we introduce it as an option on our frames, but once we have the correct size and tune there's no doubt we'll be offering it because it does represent a genuine step forward in some areas of shock performance.

The new issue (42) of Singletrack magazine has a great feature on riders from around the UK, and the trails and bikes they ride. Well worth a read. Shown below, and included in the mag article, is "Northern Man" Stuart Price (photo by Ben from Singletrack) and his Soul, and "Southern Man" Andew Diprose (photo by his brother) with his rare as hen's teeth custard Simple. Big pics, and lots to read, in the mag.

Our 4X rider and general hooner Robbie Rickman has been known to dabble in DH racing, albeit fully sprung. Recently though, he's been chatting to people at 4X races and they've hit upon the idea to race the Megavalanche at Alpe d'Huez on their hardtails, and he wants you to join him! Kind of an unofficial hardtail catagory, but more just a bunch of like minded people tearing up the mountain on their unsprung back ends. As hardtail aficionados, Cotic are getting behind him on this and we are going to give T-Shirts to anyone racing hardtail at the Mega, and we'll also give the fastest hardtailer down the hill a BFe frame. Robbie's going to keep an eye on things, and emailed us this:

Singletrack magazine called the BFe 'The fastest downhill hardtail in the world.' Rob's on the right bike then! Our good friends at Magura have sorted him out a Wotan fork, Hope have supplied dinner plate sized brake rotors, and we're getting tubeless-erisation advice from justridingalong.com. As outlined above, Rob's keeping the list for the T-Shirts, and it's all a bit of silliness really (you might argue about as silly as it gets ). We love it though. Like our boy said: Man Up!

Kate's now raced at the first three World Cups and is doing really well considering her grid positions (these aren't ideal due to the system working on UCI ranking points). Here's a picture of Kate hard on the gas at the Madrid round last weekend:

It was wet, muddy and the bikes are completely ditched, but to our complete surprise LOADS of people turned out for the National Demo Tour at Dalby Forest yesterday. It was great to meet and chat to people, and lots of people where saying very nice things about our Souls and Hemlocks, particularly in their short travel guise. If you were there and rode one of our bikes and have any queries, drop us a line on info@cotic.co.uk. Also, big thanks to Richy Astridge for dragging his grilfriend up to Dalby (she wasn't that reluctant, as she rode the small Hemlock a few times!!), and staying all day to help out. It was much appreciated, and made the day very much more enjoyable.

As for demos, we're doing one more before packing up the bikes for the summer, at the Keswick Mountain Bike Festival in Keswick (oddly enough!) on 17th May. Email Keswick Mountain Bikes for more info.

With any luck you won't have noticed too much of an interuption of service over the last few weeks due to Cy's absence, as Paul did a sterling job of holding it all together. However, Cy's back at work now answering phones, emails and designing bits. One of the first jobs was to sort out the shipment of Sodas currently on order. They're leaving Taiwan this week, so should be with us at the end of May. Oh, and don't forget we're at the National Demo Tour in Dalby this Sunday. If there's spaces left, book a test ride. You can do that through the Demo Tour website.

Photo by James Dymond of Team AQR.

We've been a bit slow to tell you about a few things recently. First up, the small changes in detail on the Soda titanium hardtail: it now comes with zip-tie style hose guides under the top-tube, buy popular and incessant demand. Also new is the dark etched down-tube logo (as seen above on the race bike of Ian Potter of Team AQR), order (or pre-order if you want a medium) your Soda 'Nude' if you want to show off the etching. We did plan to announce these little tweaks when the last lot of Soda stock arrived, but as the mediums sold out before we could even announce we had them, it slipped us by. New stock was ordered straight away, to hopefully be with us late May or early June, and we also have a few large and small frames left in stock.

The second thing that's already happened, is the start of the race season, and the launch of "Team A Quick Release Holidays," or Team AQR to save on typing. They're enthused by Kate Potter (it's hard not to be) and are racing on the Soda. The team line-up and photos are over on Kate's blog. Check it out.

They had another girl on Sunday night and are currently very emotional, and a little bit tired. It's now over to Paul for business as usual at Cotic...

There's a busy week or so of 'family time' ahead for Cy.

Kate has been updating her blog recently, with a report and photos from the last round of the Australian National Cross Country Series, at which she came in 2nd. There's also her story of the AQR Easter Weekend.