We have just been told that we are a finalise for the Singletrack Reader Awards Bike Industry Paying It Back Award. To say we are chuffed is a massive understatement. We try to be better than 'just another bike company', so to be recognised in this way is really, really lovely.
Ever since I read Let My People Go Surfing by Patagonia founder Yves Chouinard, I changed how Cotic worked to support the sport and the people that support us. That started over 10 years ago with giving some money and time to refurbish a local pump track. That then escalated into doing a lot of volunteer work and fundraising for Ride Sheffield, our local trail advocacy group.
We donate part of our turnover each year to trail organisations, and we have supported Ride Sheffield, Bolehills BMX Track and Tweed Valley Trail Association.
A few years ago, we were approached by Dom Ferris to help him our when he founded Trash Free Trails. It's so important we all look after the countryside, and our planet in general, a bit better. This is a really pro-active way to do something good. Leave A Positive Trace.
We now support their Trashmob Academy programme, which Richard emailed about earlier this week. He's been a driving force behind this at Cotic, and if you didn't see it, it is one of the most important things we have been involved in.
We founded the Women of Steel group 5 years ago. When Hannah - our first female employee - joined we realised pretty quickly that we couldn't just be "not against" women in mountain biking. To make a difference we had to actively, positively promote women in mountain biking. It's been amazing to watch that grow into something really important and powerful to people.
More recently we have helped get the Colour Collective off the ground, giving staff time and expertise to get this important movement going. Their aim is "Celebrating and increasing the participation of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds within Mountain Biking." We couldn't agree more.
Reading this back now, in some ways it seems like a lot, but more often than not when putting effort into these things I wish we could do more. To me it's just being a decent human and, by extension, a decent company.
If you're reading this and you own a Cotic, you are a part of all of this, because that frame or bike sale allowed us to do all these things. Thank you.
And if you would like to see our little brand celebrated further for trying to be better, please go over to Singletrack and vote for us before 25th October.
Thanks,
Cy