Soda is officially go, with the first test bike off the mags and some great write ups:

"One of the best hardtails we've ever tested." What Mountain Bike

"Titanium with a bit more Grrr" Singletrack

We held our third Big Day Out at Sherwood Pines with the AQR guys ably guiding and running the event. It was great to see everyone, and there were a few sneak previews with the ROADRAT and BFe prototypes on show.

On a personal note, the arrival of my first daughter on 1st April was the highlight of my year. No, we're not doing Cotic trail-a-bikes ;-)

In May we had another great review of the Soul published, but this time in US magazine DirtRag. A pretty exciting time as this is our first proper exposure in the US. Unfortunately shipping costs and the exchange have conspired to scupper sales over the pond, but we're working on that.

Also, much to our surprise and pleasure, we sold out of Soda's in just 4 1/2 months. Unfortunately this took us so much by surprise that we'd not get any more for another 4 months.

What a month June was. ROADRAT was launched, and was warmly received, even getting a Best Buy award mention in The Independent on the 15th June. This was about my best birthday present ever, with the possible exception of getting the Millennium Falcon when I was 6.

Saab Salomon Mountain Mayhem was as great an event as ever, but this year - despite being the fastest we've been for a while - the Cotic Rockets decided that they were hanging up their 24hr SPuD's after not really enjoying the actual race bit.

In a moment of weakness, Joh's nagging paid off and I designed him some singlespeed dropouts for his Soul. It worked so well that I thought I'd better get some built!

In July the plaudits kept coming with the ROADRAT ending up co-winner of their flat bar road bike group test with 9/10. We couldn't have been happier!

In early August we spent a week in Luchon with AQR enjoying ourselves and doing development work with [whisper it] the full suspension frame that Ian from AQR was testing, and checking out how the BFe prototype that Russ was running was holding up. It's hard work this going to the mountains and riding bikes you know. Really. It is work. Honest.....

As we moved into Autumn, we finally re-stocked the Soda's and several flew straight out of the door. We had some more great press with a mini-review in Dirt magazine.

At Cycle Show 2006, we hijacked the column and website inches again by launching both the Simple and the BFe models to an unsuspecting public, as well as announcing our first ever race team. The deal with Bontrager and our other partners puts Cotic in a great position to get known on the race circuit with Kate Potter at the helm. It was a hell of a busy week, building the show bikes on the stand the day before the show and then working like mad to talk to everyone who wanted a word. Great to be there and begin to feel that Cotic is really part of the industry.

Into the colder months and still there was no let up! We finally got together a great package to allow us to start selling the ROADRAT's as complete bikes, and we launched some new look graphics for the Soda as a prelude to mixing it up a bit on this front for the 2007 853 frames.

And finally the icing on the cake, into the last week of the year my interview in Singletrack magazine was published, which I'm absolutely chuffed to bits about. And then, to top it all off, Cycling Plus arrives on the 21st December with the ROADRAT having won Commuter Bike of the Year! It's still such a great feeling to be recognised in this way, and as I said at the start, my head is still spinning!

Overall 2006 was an amazing year, but we're hoping 2007 will be better again. Our BFe and Simple frames will be available from January, and following on a few months later we should be launching our first full suspension frame. We're all hoping that Kate will come back from Australia stronger than ever to take Cotic Bontrager colours to victory wherever she races, and we'll keep the ideas ticking over to bring even more great frames in the future.

2006 was a blast ; bring on 2007!

Cheers,

Cy