Our mate Joh has been out racing the Megavalanche last week. He took his new orange BFe with him, but after practice decided against going with it in the main event Robbie Style. Still, he had plenty of fun on it, and as these photos show, you really can drop it off buildings! ;-)

Robbie's been fine tuning his new beverage powered ride with the aid of some chaintug wiggling and a second set of cogs installed behind the first. Hey presto! Two singlespeed gear options. There's lot's more in Robbie's latest two blogs, including a video showing the gear change in action, and another showing Robbie being nonchalantly talented. As usual.

Singletrack Classic Weekender was BRILLIANT! A great "3 Events, 1 bike" format worked really well, with time penalties for the XC race start for people not cleaning trials sections or getting close to the winning time in the DH. As you can see, Cy took his Hemlock and used it to great effect with a top 10 in the DH and a clean trials card leaving him on the front row of the grid with no penalties at all. After the shock of the start (XC racing REALLY hurts!) and going backwards for a lap whilst the whippets with time penalties stretched their legs, things settled down and again the Hemlock proved a great tool, looking after rider and trail as fatigue kicked in. The reward for all this suffering was a top 20 in the Senior Men catagory, and an enormously chuffed bike designer who's not been so successful in a race for about 15 years! Another shout out goes to Ant Mayer, a Cotic Soul rider who was completely shocked when they hadn't mentioned his name in the results for the Veteran Men until he was called up to second on the podium! Good work fella.

For us this was quite possibly the event of the summer. Great format, good fun, plenty of time so very relaxed (the trials was even 'turn up when you're ready'!). Thanks to all involved with organising and running it. See you next year.

After much hassling from some of our more switched on Cotic owners we have setup a new public Flickr group, which any one with Cotic related photos can join and contribute to.

WOW! She's making a habit of this! Kate won the 4th Round of the British NPS at Crow Hill last weekend making it three wins in one month for our girl. Brilliant performance, and we couldn't be more pleased that Kate's realising the potential we've always known she had. A few post race words from the lady herself are on her Blog.

Kate's next adventure takes her back to Europe for some Spanish Cup and World Cup races. Good luck Kate. BRING IT!!!!

After plenty of pics of Robbie's lovely new Builders' Tea Simple last week, one of our latest Cotic owners sent us some great pics of his new Espresso Soul. Looks lovely!

The new colours are definitely looking great when built up, and that's when it counts. Check out more of Neil's new bike on the Espresso Soul Gallery.

We had a catch up with Ian from AQR yesterday, including a nice ride from Cy's house out into the Peak Distict. While he was around, we had to get some of the new frames out to show him the colours "in the metal" so he could appreciate just how lovely they are.

Robbie's just taken delivery of a lovely new toy, a Cotic Simple. He wanted something snappy and light for street trials and other such things. Here's his thoughts on his blog.

We've just heard from Kate:

Many of you have already expressed a preference, but we thought it would be a bit of fun to do a quick poll. Feel free to vote for as many colours as you want, you don't need to have one favourite.

POLL NOW CLOSED

We've had a few people asking if Cotic are going to be at Mountain Mayhem this weekend, so we wanted to let everyone know that we're not going this year. So, there won't be a stand, but Kate Potter will be there flying the flag for Cotic Bontrager as part of the Scott Racing Mixed Elite team. They won last year, and are hoping to repeat that result. Good luck to them! AQR Holidays will also be there with a team, aboard their trusty Cotic Sodas, so if you want to find out a bit about our bikes then grab Kate or one of the AQR guys and ask away.

This isn't to say we've got a complete grumpy face on about racing this year. Not a bit of it; Cy will be at the Singletrack Classic Weekender at Lee Quarry on 5th July and we're all heading down to Bontrager 24/12 in Plymouth at the end of July. After such a great event last year down there, we're very much looking forward to returning.

Robbie's just been on the phone, having crawled out from beneath the pile of dissertation deadline pressure he's been under. Turns out that he's not just good a chucking a BFe about; he's obtained a First Class Degree with Honours in Physics. We're all extremely impressed and would like to offer our hearty congratulations. It's now time to look forward to plenty of ace bike related tales being blogged now he's got a bit of free time. He's already started.

The blog will be well worth following over the next few weeks as limited time recently has got Robbie getting into some street trials stuff. After telling us how much he liked the new colours, we're sending him a Builders' Tea Simple for some hoppy, trialsy action. He'll keep us all posted with how that goes....

In amongst all the new colour joy we've now sold out of medium Espresso Souls, but the good news for ace colour fans is that we still have medium Souls in custard in stock. Order yours now....

Don't forget these are in very limited numbers.

Kate has posted her report from the World Cup round 4 in Madrid. It goes without saying that we are very pleased with her progress.

Robbie is finally free to get the BFe back out again, and his timing couldn't be better as a proper summer hits Wales and the rest of the UK. He's posted a few pics on his blog. Note: New BFe stock arriving next week. We'll have two sizes: Small (as Robbie rides/races) and also Medium is making a return. As well as the battleship grey that the BFe has been available in up to now, we'll be getting a few frames in ORANGE for those that want to be noticed.

• Orange : for BFe
• Espresso : for ROADRAT, Simple and Soul
• Builders Tea : for ROADRAT, Simple and Soul

There's a lot of shipment activity in the next month as we get our stocking back on track. It's coming in 3 bursts though, so here's the lowdown on timings:

• This Week: First 20 of the new beverage colour ROADRATs. Pretty much all of these are pre-allocated now.
• Next Week: 853 frames are GO! Soul and Simple will be back in all sizes in limited edition "Espresso" and "Builders Tea" colours. 50 Souls, 30 Simples and that's it! BFe is also back in small and medium in grey, but with a new orange frame colour option too. These should be shipping to customers end of next week (5th June)
• Late June: Main bulk of the ROADRAT shipment arrives, we'll have full stock of framesets and bikes.

We'll have frame shots of the new colours by the end of the week, so you can all see how ace "Espresso" and "Builders Tea" are.

Quite typically, these shipments have managed to land just when Cy and Paul are both having holidays, so we'll be doing our best to keep on top of things, but we might not be quite a quick as usual at turning around orders. It'll all be settling down in mid-June though. If you want pre-order anything, get over to the framebuilder and drop us a line.

There's a fantastic Dartmoor Route Guide in the latest issue of Singletrack, featuring staffer Matt Letch aboard his Cotic BFe. The photos are so lovely, we thought we'd bring you one to look at on this miserable Friday morning. Matt was working with me this week to do a subtle mod on his BFe so he can fit a Truvativ Hammerschmidt crank. There will be more on this in a future issue of the magazine.

We're going to have the BFe back in stock in about three weeks, both in grey and a new colour option to be revealed soon. Put it this way, if the grey is subtle, the new colour is the anti-subtle! We're also moving back to the medium sizing from the old 'big' size. The frame is the same shape in terms of rider fit, but it reverts back to our standard medium size as per the other hardtails as feedback has been that people would much rather have a more compact frame. If you want to pre-order, email us or give us a call.

We have unfortunately had to pull out of our participation in Keswick Mountain Bikes' demo weekend at the Keswick Mountain Festival this weekend. Cy was due to run it, but is too ill to go, and Paul is already committed to his AQR Skills Coaching duties this weekend. We're sorry if you were hoping to ride with us in the Lakes. KMB can still get our demo fleet sent to them for test, so if you are local to them, drop by and talk to them about getting a Cotic demo.

One of the questions we most frequently get asked is 'What fork travel should I use'? With all our frames having such wide ranges of operation, I guess it's a sensible thing to ask, but basically it comes down to rider preference. Take the Soul for example; it will work with forks between 100 and 130mm travel, and for the last year or so we've been selling loads of Magura Menja 130 forks with frames as people take the 'more travel is better' route. But is it better? We've just got a bunch of the 100mm travel Menjas into stock, because despite living in a pretty rocky place both me and Paul have 100mm forks on our Souls, and we think they're ace. It's that little bit easier to pin the front end down on steep climbs, that little bit sharper and faster in the singletrack, and if you make sure you've got some proper tyres on, it's not much slower heading down the other side. Sure, it's our preference, and you're welcome to yours, but we thought we'd give a shout out to the shorter travel forks. It's what we ride, after all......

Well, that took us by surprise I bit. We've sold 24 of the 30 ride jerseys we got in just two weeks! So, just 6 left and last chance on this batch. We're out of Size 4 Green now, and have the following left:

- Size 4 Orange, 1

- Size 5 Orange, 3

- Size 5 Green, 2

Price is £50 including P&P, and once they're gone, they're gone. However, after the success of this little lot, we're planning on doing another limited run of a completely new design later in the summer. We'll probably go for full short sleeves on that too, because it IS going to be a great summer. It just is!

If you'd like one, email order@cotic.co.uk or call 07970 853531.

We needed to get some product shots recently, so we got together, rode our local trails on a very 'British' Spring day, and with the help of some great photography we think we've produced some pretty inspiring shots. It sums up a lot of what it means to ride on this fine little island of ours. Check out some more pictures here.

Bit slow on the uptake here, but Wideopen Magazine Issue 9 has been out for a bit now, and features an interview with Cy from last winter. It's pretty in depth, and as it was done by email, Cy had time to type it out to make himself sound much more eloquent than he really is!

Wideopen is a free to download web mag, with lovely high production values and lot's of nice stuff in it. Well worth a read.

After frankly years of not sorting out some nice tops to ride in, we decided pull ourselves together, give a stiff slap round the chops and do a couple of variations on Robbie's new team tops for all you good people. Lovely British Racing Green colour with orange highlights, Cotic Heed logo on the back and Evil striping like our frame decal designs on the side panels, these tops have all the sweet graphic features of our frame finishes. There's two styles, with the COTIC either with an orange band or a more subtle all green approach.

Nice crew neck means you don't look like a dork, and 3/4 sleeves with breezy cuffs means great cooling for warm days with some very welcome extra upper arm protection for those brambly summer night rides. Cy has already extensively 'tested' this feature. Ahem. We've even kept an old skool rear pocket, which is zipped so you can pop your phone or iPod in it for quick spins without your pack. If you want a little more convincing, there's some pictures of Robbie making it look good on his NPS 4X blog entry. Robbie's got the sleeves roller up there, by the way. They come about halfway down your forearms when fully unrolled.

Price is £50 including P&P, and two sizes are available - size 4 for normal people (it's baggy but good on Paul who's 5ft 8in, works up to around 6ft), or size 5 for taller types (Cy's 6ft 3in and it's good for him. Will work for 6ft-ish and up). If you'd like one, email order@cotic.co.uk or call 07970 853531. Be quick though, we've only got 15 of each colour....

Kate's just sent us final pics of the 2009 Cotic Soda in custom World Cup guise; isn't she a beauty? Less than 19lbs in all it's Bontrager and Magura equipped finery, with supporting roles from KCNC with the maddest cassette you've ever seen and Crank Bros pedals and headset to round out the super light package.

Kate's given the new bike a run out at the Offenburg World Cup last weekend and loved it. The frame features custom fitting for Kate, but retains Cotic's legendary hardtail geometry. The 2009 frame also features a return to full titanium after 2008's carbon seat tube. To maintain the stiffness, the seat tube is now oversized and due to added cunningness is actually lighter than the previous smaller diameter tube. This feature will find it's way onto production Sodas when they return later in the year.

On the Bontrager side, the carbon XXX-Lite seatpost and bars return with fancy 2009 graphics, and the new white finish on the Race X-Lite stem matches the Magura Durin 100SL forks and Marta SL Magnesium brakes perfectly. New for 2009 are the very bling carbon rimmed XXX-Lite wheels which have knocked a chunk of weight off the previously pretty feathery Race X-Lite wheels used for the last two seasons.

Kate's really excited about the bike, and has sent us a message letting us know just how much. Find out more on her latest blog.

Robbie's just popped a story up on his blog about the landowners threatening to bulldoze his local trails. It's obviously a really important place for Robbie and South Wales riders, and if you have a quick read of the story you'll see where you can email to appeal for them to stay.

Robbie's also been having fun at the BMX track, with tales from a day out in the sun also on his blog.

Cy went to see Reynolds yesterday, to have a look around, and also to discuss working together on some tubing projects for the future. It was a really positive meeting, and Cy's all excited about amazing steel tube designs. More news later this year....

As well as talking tubes, Cy picked up some camera phone shots of some of the Reynolds equipment. It's ace old school stuff, and some of it nearly 50 years old now and still going strong because it was so overbuilt in the first place. Here's a few shots.

Kate's racing every weekend at the moment, and came a fantastic 7th in the SwissPower Cup race last weekend. She'll have a report up soon, but for now read her full report from South Africa.

Kate's flying the Cotic Bontrager flag in Offenburg this coming weekend at the second round of the Nissan World Cup. We'll have some shots of her new custom Cotic Soda World Cup next week after she 'runs it in' in Germany on Sunday.

We're smiling about it. Read her quick report from South Africa.

Turns out Robbie snuck off for a sly snowboarding holiday straight from his successful first NPS 4X outing, but now he's back he's blogged his thoughts on the event and got some great shots from moredirt.co.uk.

Kate is in Pietermartizburg, in the Republic of South Africa, preparing for the first round of the 2009 Nissan UCI MTB World Cup. We just received a short email from her:

Yes, two much needed bank holidays this weekend, and we will, of course, be closing for both. Open again on Tuesday ready to answer your questions and take your orders.

Kate and Robbie were both in action last weekend as the UK National Point Series kicked off at Sherwood Pines for the XC, and 4X at the UK Bike Park. Kate came 4th on her first official outing on her 2009 Uber Bling Cotic Bontrager Soda in a really closely fought race. Read more about it on Kate's latest blog.

Robbie had a storming run as well, taking his freshly Bontrager equipped BFe to the podium with a 3rd place in the Senior catagory. Well done that man! Keep an eye on Robbie's blog for his view on the event soon.

In a follow up to their review, road.cc have posted a video on the drop bar ROADRAT. Note that the bike is fitted with our carbon bling package of Bontrager bars and seatpost (highly recommended) and our new cable disc option.

We recently took Robbie, Kate and Ian to one of our favourite local spots, Stanage Edge. Ben from Singletrack came along with his diddy hand held video-cam and took some nice footage of Robbie, which we've now added to our podcast.

Over the last couple of weeks we've had to make a couple of running changes to the spec of the ROADRAT bikes. We keep meaning to take some nice pics, but we're selling them so fast right now we haven't managed it! So, here's a quick run down:

• Shimano Alfine Cranks, Single 45t Chainring
• 2009 Shimano V-Brakes in a lovely silver finish (flat bar bike)
• Tektro MiniV's (drop bar bike)
• Alex R450 Rims
• Cotic 2014-T6 Aluminium Flat Bars (on the flat bar bikes, natch), 580mm x 5deg sweep

The bike price remains the same. The main driver for the changes is the unfortunate decision on Bontrager's part to discontinue cranks and rims. However, the replacement items are are of similarly high quality, carrying through our philosophy on the bike specifications for fitting kit that lasts, not just hitting a price point. We want you to be able to buy a ROADRAT Bike safe in the knowledge that pretty much all you've need to do with it is keep the tyres pumped up for years to come.

Those fine skinny tyred aficionado's on road.cc have had a drop bar ROADRAT fully loaded with our Bontrager Carbon Upgrade Pack and Tektro road discs for testing. They've just written a review of it, and think it's : "Possible the ultimate do it all bike." Four and a half stars, thank you very much!

Kate has just been on BBC Radio Lincolnshire promoting the Ladies' Day AQR Holidays are running this Sunday at Sherwood Pines, and she chats lots about her racing and her bike. A good listen when you've got a spare 10 minutes. Grab a cuppa and check it out on the BBC Radio website. The radio interview is on the radio player link at the bottom.

The ROADRAT has been getting some more coverage in the media this week. Firstly, we're offering a frameset as a prize for City Cycling readers. Find out more on their website here.

Secondly, the bike has been featured in Bicycle Buyer magazine again. It's in the recommended list of Sports Hybrids from Issue 3. Pick up a copy in your local newsagent.

Superprestigio Massi Series Round 1 - Avilles (Asturias) Spain Round 1.

Grab a cup of tea, or coffee, it's time to settle down to read Kate's report...

Got a very excited email from Robbie last week about how many photos he'd got in the latest Dirt. Robbie and his BFe did a shoot with Steve Jones back in December with a bunch of other Swansea locals for the first of DIRT's new Road Trip series. We picked up a copy over the weekend and it's a great article, great pictures, and a great issue all round.

DIRT Magazine designer Jon has just put some lovely detail pictures up of his Soul long termer build up on his Dirt Mag blog. Here's a teaser:

We had a server crash last night, and the resulting solution has been to change our web host. We've lost a few news stories [they're back now], and the site may be a little clunky for a couple of days, but rest assured our order system (which isn't web based) hasn't been affected at all, so if you've ordered yesterday we'll have all your details. If you tried ordering yesterday after 4pm, then give us a call on 07970 853531 and make sure you got through.

The Soul bug is spreading down at the DIRT Magazine offices. Our latest owner is none other than mag designer Jonathan Gregory. Jonathan asked if he could run the Soul as his long termer after riding Steve Jones', but seeing as Steve still doesn't want to give his back, and as Jonathan fits a small slightly better we've sorted him out with a proper black beauty with the now classic Cotic Wrap decal.

Read more about the fevered build process and consumption of millinery in Jon's blog post. We have to say we're particularly pleased Jonathan's gone for a Soul. DIRT is arguably the best looking magazine out there, and that's a lot to do with his efforts, so we must be doing something right with the look if he's picked us.

We got through the worst earlier in the week OK, but today it's dumped again, so Cy's ended up on Daddy duty and there's no phone reception, and Paul's internet's packed up so he's at his parents trying to answer emails. Needless to say service may be patchy for a day or so. Hopefully we'll be sorted tomorrow, but most likely after the weekend, so we're sorry if we don't get your email or phonecall answered as quickly as usual.

We lent our resident hardtail hooner Robbie a Hemlock a few weeks ago, and this week we finally pryed it out of his hands and got it back in time for demo season (for dates see the story below).

He "quite" liked it!! Ride all about it on his latest blog entry.

As of this week, Cotic are no longer available through the Halfords Bike2Work service as they were "asked to trim their 3rd party supplier base". However, all is not lost as we will be signed up with Cyclescheme before long, and all our dealers are already with Cyclescheme. So, if your company is looking at running the scheme, either push them towards Cyclescheme, or why not try and get them to run it themselves? It's relatively easy for payroll (kind of like a pension contribution), and all the information is available on the Department for Transport website. The full details are on our CycleToWork Information Page. If you have any specific queries, email sales@cotic.co.uk.

A few months ago, TT legend Guy Martin approached us through a mutual friend to see if he could buy a frame. Who were we to say no?! We'd seen the record breaking TT lap live and it's an awesome thing to watch. So now Guy rides a Soul, and we've been sent a great little feature about it, including a self-commentated video of 'that' lap.

Guy Martin and his Soul - photo by Nick at nmdesign

It's getting into demo season again, and we want you to come and test ride a Soul or Hemlock, so you can see what all the fuss is about! We've signed up to be part of the National Demo Tour as we did last year, and we'll also have demo bikes at our own Big Day Out in March. We will have Souls and Hemlocks in all sizes, and we'll even have two medium Hemlocks in different setups for you to try; 1 short travel trail, 1 long travel burly. We'll be at the following events:

Aston Hill National Demo Tour - 8th February

Cannock Chase National Demo Tour - 22nd February

Cotic Big Day Out, Sherwood Pines - 21st March

Glentress National Demo Tour - 5th April

Check out demodays.bikeradar.com for information and bookings, and register for the Big Day Out with our friends at AQR Holidays by emailing kate@aquickrelease.com.

If you can't make it to any of those events, you can still test ride at any of our dealers who have demo bikes, or any Magura Passion Point dealer who has a 2008 Magura Test Bike, because these have been built around the Cotic Soul with a mouthwatering selection of kit, including Durin 120 forks, Marta SL brakes.

We're sorry to announce that the crash of the pound has finally caught up with our ordering, and that our 853 products - the Soul, Simple and BFe frames - have to go up in price. Since we last ordered from our suppliers, the pound has fallen 25% against the dollar, and we simply wouldn't be making enough money to continue trading for long if we tried to swallow all of that price rise. We have never, in nearly 6 years in the bike business, paid so much for our 853 stock coming in, and this is only our second price increase in that time. To be fair to our suppliers, they've held their 2008 prices, it's purely down to exchange rates. What this means for you if you have a frame on back order direct from us (which will be anyone wanting a medium Soul or any Simple at least) is that we will honour the current £410 price for you and for any orders received by Thursday 15th January. After that point the price on all Cotic 853 frames will rise to £470. If you have a frame on back order with one of our dealers, our price to them will be held at the current level as well, but this is only for frames currently on order and price rises to shops is effective as of tomorrow, the 9th January.

We've tried to minimise this as far as we can, and we have cut our margins to soften the blow, as this is a 15% price rise against a cost increase of 25%. We didn't want to do it, but the numbers didn't stack up otherwise, and we still firmly believe you're getting great value for money. The Soul is, in our opinion, quite simply the best trail hardtail you can buy, in any material. It's the lightest frame in its class, and the next nearest product that can take 130mm forks is 1/4lb heavier at least. The only frame close to beating it on weight wouldn't take nearly the same beating on the trail. The BFe comes in at a weight that would make a lot of our trail bike competition nervous, and yet you can put 160mm forks on it and race downhill or dirt jump on it. Our geometry is proven, and widely regarded as resulting in the best handling hardtails around. Our finish is of the highest quality and durability, our colour and decal options are wider than anyone else's this side of full custom, and we're still making sure you have no hidden costs as the shipping, seat QR and chainstay protector are all included in the headline retail price. Add all this in with our outstanding customer service and support, and a 4 year warranty period and we still firmly believe this is a great value package. Yes, there are cheaper frames out there, but they're not as good.

If you have any queries regarding this subject, please email cy@cotic.co.uk

Fancy losing 1/2 pound off your ROADRAT as well as smoothing the ride? Of course you do! We have the answer: Our new Bontrager Carbon Upgrade Pack consists of the Race X-Lite carbon seatpost and handlebars - flat or drop, whatever's your preference - for just £90. They cut down road buzz nicely, and drop the weight for those all important traffic light drag races!

Also just arrived is something for those of you needing some rough stuff ability when out on your ROADRAT. Our Monster RAT Upgrade Pack includes the Bontrager XCX 29x1.75" tyres which are full blown mountain bike tyres (Cy uses them in 26x2.1 on his Soul) and they fit into the RoadRat! No tow path, pothole or back lane too bumpy now; for just £60 (RRP £75) you can have the Monster RAT Upgrade Pack with a set of tyres and tubes and delivered to your door.

Remember, we also have the fantastic Magura Julie HP disc brakes for just £49 per brake, and these prices aren't just for complete bike buyers; you can also get them with your frameset purchase, or even on their own if you've already bought your ROADRAT.