THE SODA IS NO LONGER IN PRODUCTION

THE INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE IS FOR HISTORICAL REFERENCE

The Cotic Soda is our titanium Uber-Hardtail. The lightweight evolution of the Cotic hardtail, the Soda will take you anywhere from the World Cup start line to your favourite singletrack in a blaze of amazing acceleration and incredible handling. The Cotic designed 3Al/2.5V Titanium tubeset subtly and effectively enhances the ride feel, and forks up to 120mm travel means that race-bred is also be trail tough.

The Soda shares it's amazing handling and geometry with the Soul and BFe, so you know that you're in for the ride of your life. For the latest version, we added the incredible metalworking skills of our new friends at Lynskey. The Soda now features a custom manipulated down tube, with ovalised bottom bracket end for maximised power transfer and tapered and shaped head tube end for maximum fatigue resistance. Signature Ovalform top tube and World Cup race tested 35mm seat tube lock in the precision without compromising the fabled titanium ride. Also present and correct are all the refinements you have come to expect from Cotic: Great tyre clearance, dinky cowled dropouts, maximum attention to detail. All this is set off with a gorgeous finish with the graphics sandblasted onto the tubes. Subtle, but oh so effective; just like the frame itself. The result is a shocking combination of low weight, high strength and superb ride, all backed up with the legendary Lynskey build quality and a limited lifetime warranty.

The Cotic Soda : Your all day, all night, start-to-finish weapon of choice.

• Seamless 3Al/2.5V titanium tubing.
• Custom manipulated down tube with fatigue optimal shaping at the head tube junction.
• Ovalform top tube and down tube bottom bracket end boost precision and maximise compliance.
• World Cup race proven 35mm seat tube for massive pedaling stiffness.
• Super light cowled dropouts with replaceable mech hanger.
• Renowned Cotic geometry. Minimum 100mm travel forks for lightning fast race and singletrack handling, or 120mm for taking on the trails.

• Long top tube, short stem set up (60-90mm stems recommended) for super sharp steering whilst maintaining a good position.
• Steep seat angle and short 16.5" stays pin the front in for ultimate grip, handling and cornering ability.
• Sizes - 16" (S), 17.5" (M) and 19" (L). The frames are designed to be compact and chuckable.
• Weight - 3.3 lbs for the 16"

The chart is a guide to frame size. Ultra Compact Geometry means that the frames are small and long. You can take this two ways. You can either have a regular position coupled with a small and chuckable frame, or you could go for the next size up and go long and racey without feeling like you're riding a gate. You lot are just too different to say for sure, so drop us a line at size@cotic.co.uk and we'll be happy to discuss set up based on what you're riding at the moment.

Seatpost diameter: 31.6mm (wise to get a decent length one)

Front Mech: 34.9mm (Top Pull)

Bottom Bracket width: 73mm

Headset: 1.125" only

The second Cotic model to reach production was the titanium frame. One of the first Soul frames went to Ian Potter for guiding guests in his job as a mountain bike guide. After a season of using the Soul, Ian loved the handling but was hankering after something lighter and more comfortable to help keep fast guests in check and his shonky bank in one piece. So, after some discussions over winter 2004, a titanium version of the Soul was developed with identical geometry and layout, but using double butted titanium tubing to drop weight and increase compliance. Head tubes gussets were added due to titanium's lower strength and lack of air hardening ability compared to the Reynolds 853 used on the Soul. Top tube gussets ends up under the top tube instead of on top (where everyone else was putting them), because it wasn't apparent to me why you'd need one on top to combat fork loadings, but the stresses got high on the underside under horizontal fork compression loads. I put the gusset where it was needed, not where everyone else thought it probably ought to be.

Feb 2005: First prototype arrives. Ian builds it up and starts riding! After three weeks it goes pop at the seat tube. Further investigation leads to the seatpost shim which didn't reach down the tube far enough. Discussions with the factory get custom shims done for Cotic due to the extended seat tube frame design.

April 2005: Second prototype arrives and is shipped to Luchon for Ian to use for guiding AQR Holidays guests. Here it remains all summer set up with big tyres, 130mm forks and big bars. Ian covers approx 5000km.

Aug 2005: With the frame longevity well proven, it's time to go into production. Meet with Ian for an extended discussion about the frame and what he feels could be improved. It seems that it gets a bit wayward when pushed hard, and a couple of rides on the bike myself confirms this. I decide that increasing the down tube size is the best way forward to combat this, and we're supplied with two larger options with stiffness increases of either 16% or 56%. We eventually settle on the smaller of the two options and a 40mm OD down tube specified when analysis shows that this is almost exactly the same stiffness as a Soul down tube once the material differences are accounted for.

Oct 2005: Launch Soda at the first Cycle Show we attend.

Autumn 2006: After 1 frame failure at the seat tube/top tube weld on a large frame with a 6ft 4in rider on board, lab test analysis of the failed part shows a pure fatigue failure rather than any defects. As a result the next batch of frames are ordered with a thicker wall, plain guage seat tube to ensure no further failures of this type occur.

Spring 2007: Kate Potter start racing a stock production Soda frame as the basis of her Cotic Bontrager Race Team bike.

June 2007: Laser etching introduced for the first time on the top tube finishing.

Autumn 2007: After a successful first season on her Soda, analysis of the year brings feedback that the comfort of the titanium is a boon even for top level racers, but Kate was putting out so much power by season-end that something stiffer under pedalling would be good for 2008.

Feb 2008: Cable routing is altered to the under the top tube position and clip on hose guides are introduced. Laser etching now on top and down tube.

April 2008: Kate's first race special Soda arrives with an oversized carbon fibre seat tube bonded in place. Weight is a little less than the production frame, coming in at just under 3lbs for the small size. Stiffness is much increased for pedaling.

Summer 2008: Meet with Kate and Ian Potter to discuss the race and production Sodas they're both using. Feedback from some customers and test riders is that now forks and tyre technology has moved forward, the Sodas sometimes wayward characteristics were making a re-appearance when pushed hard. This is a tricky dilemma, as the Soda was intended to be relatively compliant compared to the Soul to accentuate the titanium feel, but technical trail riding is what we all love at Cotic, so it seemed that beefing up the Soda a little to give it some more precision could be a good thing. Some development work had already been done on an oversized tubeset, and Kate also now has some custom sizing requirements. I also felt the carbon seat tube was something of a developmental dead end. So, 2 prototypes are soon designed and ordered - a full ti custom fitted frame for Kate with oversized ti seat tube, and a large sized frame for me and Ian to ride with stiffer top tube as well.

December 2008: The prototype arrives with larger diameter seat tube and top tube so that all the torsional stiffnesses are close to the Soul. This results in a much more precise ride, and because the larger seat tube requires a much thinner shim for the 31.6mm seatpost, this offsets most of the weight increase due to the larger tubes.

April 2009: First batch of oversized frames arrives along with Kate's race frame. Kate reports that it's the fastest bike she's ever ridden!