Hope you had a great Christmas! We always planned to have a January sale, but seeing as the rest of the world seems to have made it Boxing Day Sales, we thought we would get involved today.
First up are the final few Mk1 Solaris frames in small. These share a lot of the great features of the new bike, including full Reynolds 853 front triangle and 27.5 x 2.8" Plus tyre compatibilty. There are a handful left in both duck egg and green. Utter bargain at less than half price, just £249. Order yours now:
Next up is the Duck Egg colours Escapade. We're not bringing this colour back on this model, so we're selling through the last few we have left in medium (56cm) and large (58cm). Just £249 for the frameset, we are also knocking £100 off the complete bikes too, so a Sora bike in Duck Egg is just £899, and a 105 Hydraulic bike now starts at just £1499. Order your Duck Egg Escapade here:
You can only get these prices ordering direct from us at Cotic. All frames on sale are available from stock until they are sold through. When they're gone, they're gone! We will dispatch all bikes and frames ordered over the next few days on Thursday 7th January for delivery on Friday 8th January in the UK.
Right, we're off to eat our own bodyweight in Christmas dinner leftovers.
Party hats are on, crackers are pulled, we're closing for the holidays! We will be back open again on 4th January 2016.
It's been a great year for us here, but no more so than because we are back with Rocket and that's such a great feeling after so long without it. We have big plans to follow this up next year, and we're excited to get on it. You'll be seeing more of these fellas next year....
These were a Christmas present to Cy from the rest of the Cotic boys, in case you were wondering.
Although we're not around, the servers never sleep so if you want to get orders in for anything next week, you can do that and they will be dispatched on Thursday 7th January. We can highly recommend the mudguards for our current riding conditions ;-)
If you're looking for a bit of entertainment, don't forget all our videos are now in one place on the website at www.cotic.co.uk/videos.
So that's it, we're done! Thanks to all of you for following us this year, for your support, wisdom and feedback. It's always accepted and always welcome. Thanks if you have bought something from us, it means a lot to make people happy with our products. It's the best bit of the job.
We hope you have a great Christmas and a happy New Year, spent with people who are important to you. Hopefully you'll get a ride in, and for any of you working over this time in the emergency services and helping keep us all safe and well, a huge thank you to all.
Now, crack open the port and make yourself comfortable. See you in 2016.
Just received a lovely email from a customer in France who has just received his Hot Yellow Soul275:
Hello Cy
I received my frame yesterday. Actually, it's more beautiful than I had imagine ! Currently it's hidden till Christmas, and I'll built the bike later :(
Current highest bid is £750. If you think it's worth more and would like it then email a bid to cy@cotic.co.uk.
Couple of things to clarify too based on emails I've received: Normal shipping rules apply, so it's free within UK mainland, and additional overseas. For instance, Western Europe will be £30 shipping, USA £50, Australia £80, Far East and New Zealand £100.
Secondly, you can run a 1 1/8" steerer should you so wish. It's a 44mm head tube just like our other bikes, so it fits tapered steerer forks, but add a Hope HS136 adapter to your 1 1/8" fork and it will work with any taper steerer compatible headset.
Our long lost What Mountain Bike Rocket26 long term test bike finds its' way home. Rare as rocking horse 💩! 26" wheels, medium, gloss orange, hope seat clamp, BOS Vip'r shock. In great condition, hasn't been ridden for over a year (it got lost in the Immediate Media Bat Cave), fully refurbed with new bearings and bushings by us.
Can be yours (or a significant others) in time for Christmas. Email auction bids to cy@cotic.co.uk. Closes 5pm 21/12/2015 for shipping the next day. (Immediate payment required for next day shipping - credit cards, PayPal, cash!) Keep an eye on social media (@coticltd, facebook.com/coticltd) for updates. Get bidding. Good luck.
Here's our hero Rocketman rocking the Rocket26; a medium in orange as it happens....
We have just got this rather lovely Escapade 105 back from Cycling Plus. It won the Twin Test they ran against a Kona Rove ST, have a read.....
The bike is medium (56cm - check out the sizing details here: escapade/sizing) in Hot Yellow. It was built just for Cycling Plus and was with them for about 6 weeks. Apart from the scuffs on the cranks it could be brand new. There's not another mark on it.
Usual price brand new is £1599, this is yours for £1200. Only one available, drop us a line on info@cotic.co.uk if you'd like to buy it.
We thought we'd better let you know what we're doing over the Christmas period if you're ordering from us.
This week is dispatch as usual on Thursday, but I'm calling this last day for merchandise, spares, mugs, and anything else apart from frames and bikes that we put in the normal post. Even if we post 1st class (which we will) I can't see anything posted after this date arriving before Christmas, so if it's pressies or little Cotic treats you're after, get them on order before Thursday lunchtime please.
For frames and bikes, and post that doesn't need to arrive before Christmas, we're doing our final dispatch in December on Tuesday 22nd. TNT will guarantee deliveries on frames and bikes by Christmas Eve at the latest, and you'll receive any post by around 29th Dec. It's the Christmas night out on the 21st though, so speak softly and slowly if you call on the 22nd, eh?
We're around until lunchtime on the 24th to answer calls and emails and then we will be ho, ho, ho-ing off into our Christmas shutdown. We're back on Monday 4th January 2016 and we'll get a dispatch done on the Tuesday and Thursday that week to get orders received over the shutdown out ASAP.
Our US dealer in Pittsburgh, Trailflo Bikes, have just taken delivery of this beauty; the very first Rocket275 to make it to the USA.
This is their demo bike and it's a super sweet SRAM/Race Face build. If you're in the area and looking to get some Grit and Steel in your life, give them a shout and take her for a spin. They're right on the trailhead.
A few weeks ago the Singletrack guys got in touch with us about a project they were supporting. From the makers of BICYCLE, a new film was in production charting the course of the British Mountain Bike scene. Have a watch of the trailer.
Although we're not part of the 'it were better in the old days' crowd, most of us here grew up through the early 90's when mountain biking really exploded in the UK. Although we wouldn't trade our Souls and Rockets for those 1992 Dynatech Diablos or Orange C16Rs we rode back then, it was an interesting period in the sport and threading that together with how we got to where we are today we think will make a great little documentary.
The team are crowd funding the film production budget, and we have got involved and pledged some cash to become an official supporter. There's still a few days left of the crowd funder, and whilst they have met their initial target, bigger budget means more filming, more locations, and a better movie. Full supporters Orange and Hope have put up a pretty cool prize if someone signs up to be the Exec Producer, so big up our Northern Brothers and Sisters for getting behind the film so strongly as well. Here's what the producers have to say.....
Just a few days left to support film about history of British mountain biking"
“Mountain Biking: the untold British story”
A co production between Blue Hippo Media and Singletrack in association with Orange Bikes and Hope.
We are so thrilled to have reached our initial crowd funding target but we still have amazing perks available. Digital Downloads, tickets to the Cast and Crew after party, name in credits, Associate Producer slots and 1 Exec Producer slot are all still available and only 4 days left on the campaign!
Now Orange and Hope are on board as a headline sponsors just look at what you get for being part of MTB history as an Exec Producer on the film:
An Orange frame with Hope kit , worth over £2,300!!! The Perk is £2,500!! and you get masses of other benefits for being an Exec Producer anyway.
YOUR NAME as EXEC PRODUCER on a single slate in the opening titles of the film.
PLUS an Orange Bikes Five Frame 2016, (custom colour of your choice), with Fox Float DPS EVOL Shock RRP £1700! PLUS Hope wheelset & either cranks or Brakes!!
You & 3 friends will meet the filmmakers and see the rough cut of the film (date/venue TBC) + 4 tickets to the World Premiere in June (date/time TBC) + 4 x 1080p HD digital downloads + 4 x Annual Print and Digital Subscriptions to Singletrack (Jan '16).
WE REALLY WANT THESE TO GO ASAP !
"It's awesome that there's going to be a film about British mountain biking, the best in the world! We're proud that we will be part of it! Please support the film."
Dan, Gee and Rachel Atherton
Tracy Moseley 4 X World MTB Champion commented, “I’m so excited that there is going to be a film looking back at the history of mountain biking in the UK. It’s an exciting history that I think has yet to be pieced together so I can’t wait to learn a little myself too.”
Here's a little vid we shot on a very important day for us; the UK press launch of the Rocket275.
A good day, but we have NEVER been so ruined by riding our local loop. The weather combined with the pressure of getting right and organising the day proved a bit much in the end. Productivity the following day was low!
Quick note to say that the applications are now closed for the Sales/Demo job. We have been slightly overwhelmed by the response - 51 applications! - and want to thank everyone who has applied for being interested and taking the time to get in touch. With such a lot to go through it's going to take us a few days to figure this out, but we aim to shortlist by next Monday 14/12/15 and let people know whether we'd like to interview them or not.
First Soul bike using our new 11spdXT/Raceface/Hope build...
Shimano Deore XT M8000 1x11 with 11-42 Cassette
Race Face Turbine Cinch 175mm Cranks
Race Face Direct Mount 30t Chainring
Hope Hoops Tech XC wheels
X Fusion Sweep RL2 120mm, 15mm axle, taper steerer
Deore XT M8000 Brakes, 180/160 rotors
All properly thought out. The Tech XC wheels are plenty tough, but nice and light to suit the Soul's character.
30t chainring to give a good climbing gear, without running out at the other end. This is based on Cy and Paul's experience in going 1x after many years being perfectly happy with a front mech. 30/42 gives you a similar bottom gear to a 2x10 for spinning comfortably up big hills and for long days in the saddle. We have yet to spin out the 30/11 top gear offroad, with Cy even clocking just under 30mph on that gear riding his Rocket at Steel City DH practice this year. That's PLENTY fast enough offroad thank you very much!! When you do the maths (and we like maths around here) 30/11 is actually a touch taller geared than 38/15 which is big ring and 8th on most popular 2x10 setups.
And remember, all the features we have built into our bike spec over the last couple of years are all there. Your choice of 60mm or 70mm stem length, your choice of flat 720, 12mm x 785 or 38mm x 740 bars to get your fit just right, or for an upcharge the Joystick 20 x 800mm carbon bars to save a bit of weight. It's all about getting you fitted just right on the bike.
Bike as shown weight just over 25lbs without pedals.
It's winter, it's perfect hardtail season. Get some Soul in your life!
Got a lovely email from Drew in California about how much he's enjoying his Solaris. And he sent a picture, which given the state of the weather here right now made us both happy, and sad. Sigh......
With the recent introduction of the Rocket275 full suspension frame - as well as running successful hardtail model lines - we see the key for expanding our sales is demo rides. We are currently limited to our Calver demos due to our staffing levels, and whilst effective, we need to roll this kind of event out around the country.
This role is based around being out on the road 3-4 days per week over most weekends, with a demo fleet, and the aim is to use a combination of the Cotic mailing list, social media, and other contacts to organise formal and informal demos of the bikes. You will be confident and easily approachable, happy to talk to groups or one-to-one, technically adept, with a good knowledge of cycling and mountain biking in particular. You will be on the road our your own so you will be self-starting and highly motivated and able with work with little direction, and be confident and creative enough to make decisions in the field. You will be running and maintaining the demo fleet, setting up and adjusting the bikes for demo riders, so a level of competence as a bike mechanic is essential.
As a result of the need to fit in around other peoples' ride times in evenings and weekends, it will be fully flexible hours, so if you're meeting a group for a night ride one Thursday, for example, then your day could be 3-10. We would expect working 3 weekends in 4 or similar, and when you're not on the road you'd likely be office or home based getting on top of scouting, planning, organising, contacting and following up.
During your travels we expect you to visit our dealers to keep our profile raised with them. You will also be expected to do some media PR, for example getting involved with relevant magazines and websites and gaining brand exposure, talking to dealers, writing blog style newsletters, and providing content for Cotic's social media streams under the guidance of our marketing team. It is your opportunity to be a 'face' of the Cotic brand.
We value as much input as possible on future model development, so you will get involved in product development and some prototype testing from time to time. If you have good ideas for bikes you think will sell, then we can look at these options. You will be our eyes and ears on the ground so your feedback will be valuable in helping us improve our products and introduce new ones.
The role is largely UK based, but we would also be happy for this to expand into Europe if it makes sense. For instance, heading to the Passportes du Soleil wouldn't be a bad way to spend one of the weeks. We're open to ideas so get creative! Being Sheffield based would be very advantageous, but as this is largely a travelling role throughout the country we are open to discussing you being based from another location if you're the right candidate.
This would be a permanent, salaried position, at £25k per annum plus a bonus scheme connected with overall company performance. There will be an initial 6 month trial period with an option to finish at that point from both sides.
It includes the use of the vehicle provided, phone, expenses, and a company bike and riding kit as well as access to all our trade accounts for your own use.
Cotic is small company, currently a core team of 4 people, so you have the opportunity to have a big impact on the company and the future direction we will take. We're looking for someone to bring some new energy and views to add to the mix.
To apply, please forward CV and covering letter and any questions you may have to Cy
Turner at cy@cotic.co.uk. Closing date for applications is Friday 4th December.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
Yin and Yang.
Ebb and Flow.
Three years ago Rocketman saved the trails and the riders. With a job well done, he hung up his cape and retired to take a job as a mild mannered trail advocate, for Ride Sheffield.
All was well, but just as the power of the orange Rocket brought calm, has the green Rocket now brought chaos?
The yang, the ebb, the reaction....
Obsessed with getting to the end of the trail first, no flow or soul in the ride, the power of the Rocket has fallen into the wrong hands.
Blowing out berms and cutting off corners. It knows only speed. It knows only straight.
A dark power rises, but as desperate times approach, will our hero return?
Cotic Bikes and Steel City Media present: The Rise of Straightline...
With his suit hung up, Rocketman has officially retired to office life with Ride Sheffield. Little does he know, the trails and berms around Sheffield and the rest of the world are in peril... 'The Rise Of Straightline' is coming to a trail (or website) near you very soon....
Quite appropriately as the weather seems to be closing in, we took delivery of our first Cotic branded mudguards today.
Made by our Sheffield mates 35 Bikes, they're printed with our iconic Wrap decal design, and they're colour matched to our orange and green frames, or there's a white one for matching your decals. Collar and cuffs dahlinks!
They mount on the fork brace and they work brilliantly. Check out the demo Rocket below.....
We're big fans of this type of mudguard and have them on a lot of our own bikes, so when the opportunity came around to get some Cotic ones to match our bikes, obviously we had to get them done!
As always with Cotic products, postage and packing is included, so no hidden extra costs. They're £10 a pop, and you can buy them separately or add them to your upcoming frame order. If you have a frame on order with us right now and want one, give us an email with your order reference and we'll add a 'guard to your order for you. Get yours ordered today for delivery next week:
This is our new Merch section of the website where we'll be pulling together all the branded kit we do over the next couple of weeks. The mugs are already on there, and there are some beanies on the way. Don't forget we also have the Cotic Oneal ride jerseys in stock too over in the clothing section:
Finally, we still have a handful of places available to ride a Rocket275 on the demo tomorrow. We have large bikes available on the 9.30 and 12.30 rides, and a medium on the 2.30 ride. Email demo@cotic.co.uk to book on.
There's also someone around all day, as Paul and I tag team the rides, so if you want to come down to Calver and have a look at some frames, or just have a quick sit on the bike (we have a small Soul275 and medium Solaris built up too) then feel free. We had a couple of Soul customers come down to check the new colours In Real Life (tm) before buying. We even have biscuits!
We're at Unit 9 Calver Works, S32 3XH, just off the A623 between Calver and Stony Middleton, on the Alphaweld site.
The exciting news this week is that we have delivery confirmation on the main batch of Rockets. It will be with us on 18th November, so order now or at the demo you'll have your Rocket on Friday 20th November GUARANTEED! We also have all our XT M8000 11spd drivetrains in stock, so we can do bikes too. Order yours today!
Our first demo with the new Rocket275 went off brilliantly on Saturday. We'll admit we were not looking forward to it as the rain hammered down early in the morning, but it was actually really warm. Despite the odd shower it was never uncomfortable, and despite packing almost all the cycling clothing we owned, we only needed the first set we climbed into. Most of the time it was too warm for a jacket even when the rain was falling. By lunch time it was blue skies and sunshine and we were treated to gorgeous views of Chatsworth down the valley.
We were busy all day, and we had a great time talking to people about the bikes, introducing them to the somewhat 'exciting' conditions on our locals trails, and getting some brilliant feedback on the Rocket. To a person everyone who tried it loved it, with most commenting how well it climbed, and also giving some very positive comparisons to other bikes they'd demo'd recently. Great to hear!! With the nature of the bike and the geometry numbers, you can see it will be great riding down hills, but right from the start with the Rocket26 people have been pleasantly surprised by the bikes' climbing abilities. This was of particular relief to a few of the demo riders who were experiencing 1x drivetrains for the first time, although our 30/42 spec bottom gear on the XT bikes was purposefully chosen to be easy on the legs on big days in the hills.
On the way back down our test track, it was rocky, rooty, slippery and covered in leaves. You needed a confidence inspiring bike and everyone had a ball on their Rocket. Again, a lot of nice comments about the bikes lightness of touch, not feeling heavy and feeling fun and easy to pop around.
We're doing it all again this coming Saturday at our base in Calver in the Peak District. We still have rides available on both the medium and the large bikes, so email demo@cotic.co.uk or 07970 853531 to book onto a ride.
Don't worry about the weather, the forecast looked like the apocalypse and it turned out lovely. Come over and have a go: It will be great!!
You have probably heard by now that Jenn Hill, a great friend of ours and Deputy Editor of Singletrack Magazine, passed away on 16th October after a long, brave, and frankly incredible fight against lung cancer.
Jenn was just a fabulous person and we're so sad we won't see her again, but we're proud to have been a part of her life, and in particular to have made one of her favourite bikes. You see Jenn had a spin on a very early prototype Solaris, and although the bike changed for production, Jenn really rather took to it so given that it was surplus to requirements we did a bit of a deal for her to keep it.
A couple of years ago Jenn even competed in the Ardrock Enduro aboard her trusty hardtail, and in typical fashion saw off plenty of fully suspended competitors whilst she was about it. It seems that as a result of this and the fact we're very far from the only people missing Jenn, the Ardrock guys have come up with a brilliant idea: The Jenn Hill Hardtail Trophy.
From this year onwards there will be a trophy to commemorate Jenn and to reward the fasted guy and woman on a hardtail at their event. The names will be engraved on a trophy for all to see and the trophy will be kept somewhere suitably visible for a year, when they’ll do it all over again.
We can't think of a more fitting tribute to a very fine lady, so if you want to get involved in this years' event, and blast your Cotic hardtail around the course just like she did, the entries open on Friday 30th October at 6.30am at http://www.ardrockenduro.co.uk/.
More product stuff: It is bloody busy here at the moment! We have had new shipments of Soul275 and BFe275 into stock, and there are some new photos to show you shot in our exclusive photo studio aka Burbage Valley in the Peak District.
First up, Soul275. We are still running Matte Orange because, well, I like it, but we have pulled in a couple of the ace colours from the Life Bikes for the winter/spring season. Here is Hot Yellow and British Racing Green
We have gone a bit old school motorsport with the references here, as BRG with orange detailing were the colours made famous by BRM in F1 and Le Mans in the 1960's. They also made the quite outstandingly bonkers H16 configuration engine for the then new 3 Litre Formula 1 of 1966. But I disgress.....
On the BFe275 we have Matte Green and Matte Blue continuing, and being joined by Grey/Yellow.
We also shot the Matte Blue a couple of weeks ago on a lovely sunny morning, so you can have that photo too on this rather dull Friday afternoon......
If you're particularly eagle eyed you might have noticed that those two BFes are built with Deore kit and Shimano wheels rather than our usual XT/Hope kit. That's because as of today we're offering a second bike build option, for a lot less than the XT/Hope.
Still the same lovely X Fusion forks, still the same lovely Race Face/Cotic finishing kit, still the same proper Conti Pure Grip tyres, but instead of XT and Hope wheels we're offering the Deore 2x10 drivetrain, Cane Creek headset and Shimano MT-15 wheels to make the bikes a little more affordable.
This means that the BFe275 starts at just £1500, and the Soul and Solaris now start at £1650. We will be doing an option with the Rocket275 after Christmas. We're having to wait on bolt through rear axle hubs for that. We'll get you details and exact pricing on that when we have the wheels and are ready to go.
All the Soul275 and BFe275 new frame colours (and the existing ones for that matter) are in stock and available right now, as are the Deore bikes. Get involved and orders yours today.
The first Rocket275 frames are now with their lucky new owners, and on Friday we did the photoshoot for the new bike. Pretty bike! Shown is the stock XT Bike spec we're selling for £3599. Remember we're offering 0% finance for up to 2 years on all our direct sales now.
There are a load of lovely pictures of the bike and the frame details now up on the gallery on the product page. Grab a beverage of your choice and go and have a look. We had a stunning morning up at Burbage for the shoot, and they're beautiful pictures.
All the first frames into stock have now been sold, and we're waiting on the bulk of the production to arrive in mid-November. Reserve yours; click on the link below:
Production Rocket275 in the HOUSE! As you can probably tell from the 'taken on Cy's phone on his kitchen floor' pics these have literally JUST arrived, but we wanted to show you the first production finished frames in both the colours. They look BRILLIANT.
If you've ordered your Rocket275, then expect it to be delivered on Friday. We'll be in touch to sort out details.
If you haven't ordered your Rocket275, there are still a medium green and a medium orange available to get this week if you'd like one. Click on the link to order yours today:
Some lovely pics from Jamie who has done the first build we have seen using Shimano Di2. It's not kit we really planned on people using when we first developed the bike, but I think you'll agree it's gone on very nicely.
You can see the control box neatly clipped to the brake cable in front of the head tube, and the cable runs along the usual derailleur cable run down the down tube and the external battery clipped to the seat tube bottle bosses. It even runs nicely to the rear much snugly under the chainstay protector.
Something we have noticed recently when people inquire about our complete bikes is why we use X Fusion forks, or they ask if they can have something else. There was even a comment about the new Rocket XT comparing to it to some similarly priced bikes, "yeah, but those bikes come with Pikes".
We feel we need to make the case for using the X Fusion forks, because it is out of choice. We could get Rock Shox or Fox or whoever else, but the X Fusion forks are superb. We use them, they work really well, and X Fusion are great to deal with. But don't just take our words for it, Bikemagic did a head-to-head test with the Sweep RL2 vs the Pike RCT3. Here's the summary if you haven't clicked through to the article:"
Performance – Both forks performed so well that neither of us could define any one distinctive benefit that made it stand out, both forks do some things better than the other but they’re so closely matched it’s hard to name a clear winner. Draw.
Specification – 1905 grams vs. 1861grams, 34mm vs. 35mm stanchions, trail 46mm vs. 42mm, post mounts 180mm vs. 160mm, blah vs. blah. There are subtle differences between the forks, but they’re so small that none of these specifications play any noticeable part in their individual performance. Draw.
Reliability – This one is a bit hard as the RockShox charger bladder system is new, so there are no confirmed reports on how long it will ride before needing a service or how durable it is. Whereas the Sweep’s RL2 system is a known commodity, it’s been proven to need very little maintenance and is reliable, in fact I think it gets better with age. But I have to call this a draw, as only time will answer the Charger damper question properly. Draw.
So, according to Bikemagic, it's a pretty close run thing with the Pike and that was the Sweep in RL2 spec (as we put on the hardtails). This year X-Fusion have introduced the Roughcut HLR damper, and this is the damper we are specifying on the Rocket XT bike. It's a fabulous piece of kit. Here's what Bikeradar thought of the Trace 29er fork fitted with the new damper:
X-Fusion forks have been offering impressively consistent control and rock solid reliability at great prices for several years now, with options for everything from lightweight cross-country riding to full-on downhill hammering. The new 140mm (5.5in) travel Trace Roughcut matches the firm's proven 29er trail chassis to top-end damping, and the results are outstanding.
While the new ‘Roughcut’ damper sounds like a dumbed down version of the HLR cartridge used in the X-Fusion Metric and RV-1, it’s actually an evolution that offers improved performance and more user-friendly adjustment. For a start, the new damper piston means less stiction than with HLR and way less than with the RL2 damper of the standard Trace, so you get proper trail-hoovering traction and “ooh, plush” small-bump sensitivity from fresh.
Things are noticeably improved at the ragged edge of extended rocky/rooty/steppy sections too, where – like all but the best, most expensive forks – the rebound of the Trace used to become inconsistent. That’s because Roughcut is a fully sealed bladder damper (like RockShox’s Charger and Fox’s FIT dampers) so there’s no danger of air getting into the damping oil and causing cavitation, where the damping piston hiccups as it pushes through bubbles rather than consistent-resistance hydraulic oil. We’ve taken this system (the HLR version) to the maximum load, stump smashing, suicide straight line limit on the RV-1 and Metric for over a year and so far the new Trace has delivered similarly super-rich and supple control.
Where the original Trace really shone was with its superbly measured midstroke compression, and its successor doesn’t disappoint in this area either. While the new fork still feels too soft off the top, you’ll still rarely see the travel ring push past 60 percent under braking or steering and the fork slingshots berms or stutter-bump corners with superb poise and tyre-flattering support. Both high- and low-speed compression damping are independently and widely adjustable via easy-to-adjust leg top knobs too, while 36 clicks of fine-tuned rebound adjustment is available at the bottom of the leg.
They gave it 4.5/5. High praise indeed.
And it's not just the forks; Chay has been running a big Vector HLR Air shock on his Rocket for nearly 18 months now with just one service last winter, and he really likes it. We love it because it's the only air shock he's had which has lasted more than 3 months on his bike!
Allied to all of this, they're still pushing forward and innovating.
The Revel inverted fork is coming to production soon and we're really excited about it. We're suckers for an upside down fork, and with keyways similar to dropper seatposts adding stiffness to the legs it's likely to be the first inverted fork to truly realise the potential of the layout.
We use X Fusion kit because we think it's the best. Simple.
For those of you interested in the Chubby/Plus/Semi-Fat tyres, we have our first batch of wheels in stock now, and available to order.
The wheelset is based around the WTB kit, with Asym i35 front rim for good support of the front tyre at low pressures, Asym i29 rear to keep the weight down at the rear for a zippier feel where tyre support is less critical. These are built onto Hope Pro2 Evo hubs with double butted spokes, and are hand finished. We will fit the WTB 27.5 x 2.8" Trailblazer tyres using the WTB tubeless system. All this little lot is £599 delivered to the UK.
We know plenty of you will scoff at yet another new wheel thing, but it's really fun this. Cy says his next hardtail will be a Solaris with 275 Plus wheels when we build the new demo fleet. There's also quite a cool blog on the WTB website about how the Trailblazers came about. Have a read if you have 5 minutes....
Oh, and as we've been asked a fair few times - yes, you can put the Trailblazers into the original Solaris (including the ones we have in small for just £299 right now). The new bike has a little more clearance than the original, but we did all the development work with these type wheels and tyres in an original Solaris and had no trouble.
Man this has been a long time coming. However, today we are enormously proud, happy, relieved, psyched and all sorts of other adjectives to announce the Rocket is back!
We are all through final certification, and the production batch is in paint right now. Cy has been riding the first production sample for a few weeks, and it's fantastic. We get the first production frames unpainted and in kit form so we can put them together ourselves and make sure we know they go together just as we want. Thankfully this is exactly what happened - it went together like a dream, and just a couple of very minor things with spacers which is all sorted now. The quality is superb and we're so happy to be able to be telling you all about this bike!
Chay up there has been hammering his prototype for a few months, and we're really happy where the bike is. It's a development of the original Rocket, moving to 27.5" wheels but maintaining 150mm rear travel. The geometry is closely related to the 26 inch bike too, mainly because we spent a long time honing that bike and it was ace! The new bike has the same BB height (adjusted for the bigger wheels, obviously), and similar angles. The main development has been the application of our OFI rider fit, so the front ends are longer, the effective seat angle is a little slacker than the previous bike, and we stretched the rear end a little as well. Not only does this keep the weight balance where we want it, it gives a little more room for those bigger wheels.
The details are improved, as you might expect. There is now internal routing down the seatstay for the rear mech for cleaner lines and quieter running (and yes, it IS easy to thread. Promise!), and there's internal seatpost routing as well. We have kept the external dropper hose routing option under the top tube, same as the original, for those of you who have an older style seatpost.
We have added pinch clamps to both sides of the main pivot to make bearings changes really quick and easy, and have retained the low maintenance, high load capacity shock bushing arrangement for the seatstay pivots.
Cy's done a video taking you through all the details down at the bottom there....
Main things you need to know is that frame prices start from £1549 with the Fox Float Evolution shock, or you can have the Cane Creek DB Inline for £1749. There's also a no shock option for those of you with 200 x 57 shocks lying around. Colours are matte orange (like the bike in the picture) or matte green, both with the black decals. We're also doing a complete bike, 1x11 M8000 Deore XT, Race Face cranks, Hope wheels, Reverb, the usual refinements. These start from £3599. You can read all about it here:
We are airfreighting in 12 frames as soon as they're painted, and they should be here by 10th October. If you want to grab one of those then order yours now. Be quick, the Mailing List subscribers have already nabbed 7 of them!
If you miss out on one of those first 12 frames you can pre-order your Rocket from the ocean freight shipment which will arrive by the end of October.
As mentioned at the start, this has been a long time coming, and if you've been following our adventures over the last 2 years you'll know it's been a pretty emotional journey too. If you've been waiting all this time for us to get these frames built, then we thank you for your incredible patience. However, we also need to thank our families and friends who have helped us get back to this point with their support, wisdom, help and knowledge. We're a small company, but we're a big family.
Got this email from Mark who bought an X a few years ago....
Hello,
Last year I emailed to say that I had cycled my Cotic X to Tajikistan, on my way to New Zealand from the UK.
We've now made it! After 14 months in the saddle, my fiancee and I flew from Sydney to Auckland, completing our journey (for now).
Overall we covered almost 25,000km, including about 200,000m of climbing, crossing Europe, Central Asia, China, South East Asia and some of Australia.
We're going to stay here for a while, to earn enough money to cycle home.
The bike was great despite the pounding of awful Central/South East Asian roads and 50-60kg of luggage attached to the frame. Thanks again for making such amazing bikes,
Mark
Thanks for doing such amazing things on one of our bikes Mark!
If you like the look of that, the Escapade would be just as well suited to this kind of thing, probably more so than the X. Get your adventure on!
Our German friends at Eaven Cycles are having some Cotic Gatherings and Demos over the next few weeks. First one is next weekend, September 19th, Saturday start at 12:30h, Stuttgart Degerloch, on the Schwäbisch Alb.
The next one after that is October 10th, Saturday start at 12:00h, Nieder-Beerbach, at the Odenwald near by Darmstadt
Carsten says....
We're going to ride a tour together guided by the locals, afterwards bike testing, beer & barbecue. We will have the newest BFe275, Solaris and Escapade. Of course there will be a lot more bikes available for a test ride :-)
More information at MTB-news in the Cotic supplier thread or directly from Carsten at Eaven Cycles
We've had quick a few people asking recently what's going on with us putting solid black panels on our more recent colour options. The answer is, they aren't solid black! For a while now we have been using 3M Blacklite material for the COTIC lettering on the wrap decals. It's very dark, and subtle in daylight, and never ones to make life easy for ourselves it's a pig to photograph! It shimmers slightly when you see it for real, which is pretty classy, but the real party trick is when it gets dark. At night it shines up and sparkles because it's reflective, just like the more common silver Scotchlite reflective foil.
It's brilliant for the Life Bikes like the Escapade and Roadrat because it doesn't shout LOOK AT ME too much when leaving them locked up (the loud Hot Yellow and Matte Orange colours are a slightly different matter!), and when riding home in traffic in the dark, the bike lights up and helps keep you safe.
We liked the look with the Matte Orange so it's running on the new Solaris as well, because it will look really cool when you're on the night ride with your mates this winter.
Just like the fact you get all your boss bolts, hose clips and a seat QR in with your frame when you buy it, it's all in the details. It usually is with us.
We have new colours for Autumn 2015 on the Escapade and the Soul275.
The rather lovely Gunmetal Gloss is introduced on the Escapade, with Hot Yellow restocked for those waiting to get hold of a large (58cm) or small (54cm) bike in that colour.
Reserve your Gunmetal Gloss or Hot Yellow Escapade today, for delivery end of September. Click here:
Also updated with new colours is the Soul275, although now the Soul26 is now sadly departed, Soul275 is The Soul now, isn't it? Anyway, naming semantics aside, we have Hot Yellow (like the Escapade above) and British Racing Green (like the Roadrat but with a different downtube panel... think BRM colours) joining the lineup alongside Matte Orange.
Reserve your new Soul today for delivery mid-October. Click here:
Today is the 20th Anniversairy of Jason McRoy's death. He was such an inspiration to a generation of mountain bikers. I can still remember where I was when I found out, and it knocked me for six. How could JMC be dead?
So far ahead of his time, the seminal Dirt movie from 1994 had a segment in that says it all about Jason. So fast, so dynamic. Wish I'd met him.
Ride Free Jason. We're off to do some skids and wheelies.....
Seems we have forgotten to mention getting things into stock that people have been waiting for. Sorry about that!
First off, as the photo alludes to, green new Solaris frames are also in stock as well as the orange ones. So, if you've been waiting for a green one, we have them! Click here to order now....
We also still have the last small size original Solaris in green or duck egg for just £299. Get on it quick, there's not many left! Order yours today....
We have also had a big shipment of a Deep Dish Disc rims which we have had built up, so the Escapade and Roadrat bikes - including Roadrat Alfine and new Singlespeed options on Escapade and Roadrat for just £799 - are now available from stock. Order yours at the links below...
The 2015 Online Yard Sale is GO! Major warehouse clearout, with lots of ex-demo bikes and kit available (Ninja Turtle not included). Bikes, forks, shocks, cranks, spares, wheels. Lots of stuff at bargain prices. It's all listed here:
If you see something you like, drop us an email or give us a call. All the usual payment methods are available except finance, so cards, paypal, cash, cheque, bank transfers. Get involed!
As a result of the new Solaris frames being in stock this week (order yours here), we need to move through the final stock of medium and small original Solaris.
Original Solaris frames are now £299 for the frame. Remember, the small size geometry was the starting point of the new bike, so this is pretty close to the new model and even more of a bargain. 275Plus wheels fit fine in the original too. If the original is the bike for you, then orders yours today to avoid missing a complete bargain:
Our favorite Escapade riding brothers Simon and Tom Rounding are now in Slovenia and well on their way to Istanbul. They've had a few mishaps along the way but the Escapades are still going strong and they are working their way through the field. Still plenty of kilometres to go but they've already perfected the 'Thousand Yard Stare'.
You can read more about them as well as hear their thoughts on breaking in Brooks saddles on their Facebook page here
Here are a few more snapshots of their journey so far.
Back in April we told you about brothers Simon and Tom Rounding who
were preparing to race the Transcontinental Race this July on Escapade
105 Disc bikes.
If you've not heard about it basically you have to cycle from
Geraardsbergen in Belgium to Istanbul in Turkey by any route you see
fit (hitting a few check points on the way) and the clock never stops.
The lads are racing in the pairs category set off on Saturday night
and are currently heading towards Lyon. You can track them both here:-
Sorry if you've not been able to get through to speak to us today, we've had a problem with the phones. Hopefully should be back to normal tomorrow (Tuesday).
17/07/2015 - New Solaris is in the BikeRadar Friday five-a-side
In all the fuss we're making about our new BFe275 and Solaris a fantastic review of our iconic Soul on BikeRadar has served as a timely reminder that it's not all about burly builds and big wheels around here.
They really loved the bike, which we supplied in our stock 1x10 build option. Here's a couple of excerpts....
The Cotic’s skinny tubes might suggest a noodly ride, but the Reynolds 853 steel tubes keep the bottom bracket in place, and the 4130 chromoly chainstays transmit your wattage to the rear wheel with surprising efficiency.
The top of the climb comes quickly and it’s not long before we’re hitting the first section of hardpacked singletrack. Gentle berms are mixed with the odd hump and bump. On less playful bikes it’s a fun bit of trail but on the Soul, it’s a riot. With corners coming thick and fast, the Soul eats up direction changes, the front tyre gripping doggedly to the trail. The humps in the trail that usually invite a manual become doubles, as the Cotic pushes you to find fresh fun lines through your usual trails.
Another interesting part of the review is there conclusion on the geometry:
In the twisty, fun stuff we loved the playful, pliable nature of the Soul, but when the trail turned fast and slippery, or steep and rooty we started to wish for a little extra length, or at least a degree or so off the head angle.
The Soul can’t be called nervous or twitchy though, and given that our local steep stuff makes up relatively little of the riding it’s tough to call the Soul up on its performance here. The fact is, if we were looking for one bike to do it all, the Soul 27.5 still remains one of the first bikes that we’d look to.
We think this gets to the nub of where we pitch our handling. The Soul has always walked a fine lined between agile fun and getting rowdy at speed. However, this point also illustrates where you need to look if you do want a little more length; the new BFe275 has a 1 deg slacker head angle than the Soul for those of you looking for something a little more grrrrrr, and with the Solaris similar intent to the Soul, but with 29" wheels or 27.5+ chubbies for more comfort and/or rolling speed. Whichever way you're looking for a hardtail, we've got you covered!
We have frames available in blue in medium, and blue and orange in large. We've got some more coming in September in all sizes and colours. Order yours now...
In a second extract from his newsletter email from last week, Cy writes....
So the geometry of the new frame was set, but there was one last spanner to get (potentially) thrown in the works: Plus sized wheels. We had looked into 29+ when that came about, but it involved some bespoke parts and compromises we weren't comfortable with. It also become clear that no suspension fork manufacturers (at the time) were going to support it, and that was a no-go for us. We like our suspension forks, and not having them would have made the Solaris into something quite different. However, 27.5+ started to gain some popularity and once the lovely chaps at WTB had sent us the specs we knew it would fit in the Solaris so we had to test it.
If you've been a subscriber to these emails for a while, you'll know we got the wheels earlier in 2015 and were immediately impressed with them. The weight was good, the rolling resistance surprisingly low, and the performance and grip both over the rocks and also in fast singletrack was impressive. That they proved faster than Ardent 29er wheels over our woodsy singletrack loop was something we just weren't expecting. If you missed those emails, then click the links below to have a read:
Given that we had tweaked the new Solaris to have slightly more clearance out back, it was a no brainer to offer 275Plus as an option on the bike. The main conclusion from our testing (apart from how much we liked them) was that a lighter narrower rear rim was definitely preferable to the much heavier wider option, but on the front we much preferred the support of the wider rim to prevent deformation when loading the front of the bike in corners. We compared a WTB KOM i25 (25mm internal) at 445grms to a WTB Scraper i45 (45mm internal) at 695grms as the extremes. For production we're going with WTB's Asym i29 rear at 510grms and the Asym i35 front at 560gms. This will give us the support we like on the front with the snappy feel at the bike with the support for the tyre we like. They are available as a chassis pack option or as an upgrade on the complete bike from August 2015.
They are due for delivery mid-August, but you can pre-order yours now, in gloss green with the new style decals, or matte orange with blacklite reflective decals. If you'd like a bit more detail on why we have done the update and how the development went, read on.....
We've revised the geometry and updated a couple of features based on what you guys are actually doing with your bikes, and what we wanted ourselves.
Firstly, no one was using 80mm forks and very few 470mm rigids, and the original frame was designed to use these as a minimum. At the other end of the scale more and more people were using 120mm forks, but this was on the limit of the geometry and did present a bit of a compromise for all round riding.
Secondly, we had successfully developed the small size Solaris which diverged from the original geometry particularly with respect to head angle. As we were limited in terms of how short we could make the frame because of the wheels, we had to accept that shorter riders would use 50mm or even 40mm stems to get a good position, so we slackened the head angle to slow the steering down a little to balance this out. Fast forward 3 years and now most people are looking to run stems down to that kind of length regardless of how tall they are.
Both of these things put pressure on cockpit room. People want shorter stems, but when used with longer forks, the reach of the frame is reduced. Ally this to the widespread adoption of dropper seatposts which usually use an inline clamp and we felt we needed to re-optimise the frame for these kinds of things.
The great thing for this project is that we had applied solutions to all these problems when we developed the OFI geometry on the 27.5 wheel bikes, so it was a matter of applying those ideas for the new bike.
Firstly, OFI dictates that we optimise the reach for the longer fork (in this case 120mm travel) so the reach was reset to the design length we established for the original frame on 80mm travel forks, but with longer forks installed. Secondly, we tweaked the seat angle so it was in a good position for inline seatposts and saddle in the middle of the rails for 120mm forks, so it would still be possible to achieve a good position with 100mm forks but the 120mm setting wouldn't be too far rearward.
The final piece of the puzzle was establishing the new handling layout. Fork offsets have increased for 29er bikes. The 51mm offset that was the sole provision of the Trek Group was made available across the market 3 years ago. The original frame was designed at a time when 44mm offset was the largest available and some 29er forks were still around the 40mm mark, same as 26". This resulted in a steepening of the head angle compared to the smaller wheel bikes to compensate. Larger fork offset reduces trail and lightens the steering.
Having been instrumental in the development of the small frame with the slacker head angle, Paul was convinced this could work for the larger sizes, having tested the small bike with 51mm offset forks from X Fusion (all X Fusion 29er forks are 51mm offset). We have a series of anglesets for the 44mm head tube our bikes use for exactly these kind of situations, so I tried out the 1 deg (net effect 0.7deg slacker head angle, 3mm lower BB) and 1.5 deg options (net effect 1deg slacker head angle, 5mm lower BB) on my large Solaris with 120mm travel Magura TS-8 forks. These have a 46mm offset so would also show whether slackening the angles would have an adverse effect on the forks with a smaller offset. After some back to back testing we found that not only did all the people who tried it prefer the slacker option, it was also faster around our test loop. The geometry was measured and set from this layout, with the OFI rider fit principles applied to bring us to the final layout. Because you can use a short stem and wide bars without compromising the fit on the bike, it still has a lightness of touch in the singletrack which you might find surprising just looking at the numbers. It works better with 120mm forks than the previous bike and is much more at home on rough, high speed terrain. By tightening the window of operation to 100-120mm forks, it works better in both guises than the previous bike.
The frame price remains £499, and the complete bikes with 1x or 2x Deore XT(10 spd)/Hope builds will be available from £2350 with the X Fusion Trace fork, or our new BOS Dizzy option at 120mm travel and £2450 for the bike. The WTB 275+ wheel option is a £75 upcharge. We can also do you a 275 Plus rolling chassis for £1699 including frame, Trace Fork, WTB 275Plus wheels and tyres and Hope headset. Click on the link below to have a look at the options and place a pre-order:
As a result of the new Solaris coming in soon, as of today all remaining stock of medium and small original Solaris is reduced to £375 for the frame. If the original is the bike for you, then orders yours today to avoid missing a complete bargain:
Our distributor out in South Africa has been supporting a local talent in the enduro series down there. The lad has been getting some amazing results on his Soul275!! Is there no end to that bikes' capabilities? Check out what Matt has to say about the latest race....
The Magaliesburg mountains near Pretoria played host to event number two
in South Africa's Hakahana enduro series. As a format, enduro has been
eagerly embraced by SA's typically up-for-anything mountainbikers and this
event up in Gauteng was a first for the province.
Blasting down the steep Magaliesburg rock gardens and unforgivingly sharp
shale, the country's premier and not so premier riders had to negotiate gap
jumps, drops and some very sketchy loose stuff through the race's five
stages.
A bracingly cold start saw 110 riders head off up to the start of SP1 and
the riding was fast and hard with riders gathering in small groups after
each run to share war stories and lick their wounds. of which the sharp
rocks and drops-off accounted for many.
Cotic SA factory rider Dirk van Schalkwyk was notably impressive on his Soul
27.5. Kitted with some really big 2.4 tyres, he finished 13th overall - a
result that saw plenty of high-five acknowledgment given he was riding a
hardtail on a course that was as rough as it gets. There's no doubt that
when his dual sus Cotic Rocket arrives later this season, he'll make a big
move further up the overall standings.
We'll admit to being suckers for a Lefty, so when we got these pictures from one of our Scottish customers who's put one on his BFe we had to post them up. Here's what he had to say....
Not sure if this would interest you, as you must receive loads of these emails. Just though you may be interested in seeing the the completed bike after purchasing a frame from you. Have gone for a 140mm float lefty, with All Mountain setup. Not the adventurous type in the colour scheme and have kept it a matt stealth black, with a bit of gold.
Appreciate the help you gave both over the phone and on emails.
Looking forward to taking it out on the weekend and giving it a good go in Kirroughtree, albeit to the dismay of my other half! I’m now only missing my chain guide and tensioner.
Looks great to us George! We hope you have a fine time at Kirroughtree.
One of our BFe26 owners has been competing in the Hardtail Super Series this season, doing great things. Here's his report from the UK Hardtail Downhill Champs held a couple of weeks ago. Look out for Mark at the next few events; we've sent him one of our Cotic Oneal jerseys to race in so he can properly represent!
Mark Harris writes.....
UK Hardtail Downhill National Champs Race Report
7th June 2015, Queen Elizabeth Country Park – Hampshire
The UK Hardtail Downhill National Champs took place on 7th June at Queen Elizabeth Country Park (QECP) in Hampshire. The race formed part of the Bird Hardtail Super Series, seven races in total piggy backing on five Gravity Project DH series, plus two QECP Enduro events.
The event was the brainchild of Scott Fitzgerald (spankingly handsome Cotic owner - Cy) of QECP Collective/Southern Enduro, Scott has been racing hardtails for several years and wanted to bring more competition to the category and the local racing scene.
The track was laid out and taped by the Gravity Project crew, and as is the norm with their tracks, it was fast and technical, with plenty of roots, off-camber loamy corners, step-downs, gap jumps and a huge table to finish.
With 22 riders entered into the Hardtail category the competition was going to be tough.
After a few practice runs and watching some of the other hardtail riders I knew the best I could hope for was a top 10 finish, although I was sitting in 2nd place overall in the series labeling the event the UK Champs bought out some big guns!
Photo - Big Mac Photography
I was however really enjoying the track, my BFe 26 was inspiring confidence and the 160mm Pikes up front were soaking up the roots and step-downs with ease.
The positions were decided on best of 2 runs, my first run was clean putting me in 10th place, but I was sure I could go faster and the 2nd run felt much better, and with the slightly damp track now drying out I was sure I had shaved off several seconds only to find I was only 1 second faster, but securing me 9th place and the top 10 finish I had been targeting.
Photo - Big Mac Photography
First place went to Darren Evans, who smoked the entire field not only winning the hardtail category but also getting fastest time of the day overall.
So what’s next for 2016? Scott says they plan to spread the series around some new venues and maybe add another Enduro, and take the UK Hardtail Champs to a bigger more technical venue in 2016, and possibly in a different part of the UK.
All sounds like brilliant fun. For more information on future events in the series visit the series websites listed below.
Few people have been wanting to see photos of the new jerseys, so here's Cy studiously avoiding having his face on camera whilst wearing a size large. We have medium, large and XL in stock. Order yours now:
We have another batch of Cotic Oneal ride jerseys back in stock. Same design as the team are riding this season. Free handsomeness and ability to look Crushingly Superb with every purchase.
They are £49 delivered (remember, no hidden postage or extra costs with any Cotic product) and you can order yours here:
We've tweaked the sizing a little with this lot to make them a little less loose. Not skinny fit by any means, but just responding to feedback from our first batch customers.
Cy was also wearing his last week at an Oneal Sponsor Day down at PORC in Kent. All the UK Oneal teams came down to ride, and a certain Mr Greg Minnaar was there fresh from his win at Fort William. Was very cool to meet him and do a few runs with him. Cy got so carried away he didn't even think to get a selfie with Greg, so there aren't any photos.
A good friend of ours has been working over the last couple of years to develop a really cool new type of roofrack bike carrier. It's called Tiltshift, it's all made in Sheffield and they now need some backing to get the production tooling bought. Have a look, and if you're in the market for a new bike carrier, have a read and get involved.
A little something to brighten your Monday afternoon. As with a lot of the best things, it's the simple things done well that are so good. Bluebells, loam, sun dappled trails, Soul275.
The third Calver Demo of the season is upon us!! This Saturday the 6th June we are riding again, so if you have been wanting to test ride a Cotic then get involved!
The new demo loop went down a treat with the people who came out on the first demo, and you get views like that which isn't too shabby!
Feedback from the last demo was overwhelmingly positive on the Solaris fitted with 27.5+ wheels/tyres. Are you plus-curious? Come and give them a go! You can back to back them on consecutive rides with regular wheels to see how you find them. Scientific!
10am - Small Soul275, 2 x Medium Soul275
11.30am - Small Solaris
1pm - Small, Medium Solaris, Small and 2 x Medium, Large Soul275
2.30pm - Small, Large Solaris, Small and 2 x Medium, Large Soul275
Plenty of spaces on the afternoon rides.
We also have just finished our second set of 27.5+ wheels based around the wider i45 rims, so the Solaris can be set up 27.5+ on any of the rides.
You have to reserve the size and model of bike you want to ride and which ride you're
planning on doing as we're limited to 8 people per ride.
To book, drop us an email at demo@cotic.co.uk or call
07970 853531 with your name, phone number, preferred ride time and bike preference and we will reserve it for you. Feel free to book a couple of different bikes on different rides; maybe try a couple of different sizes if you're not sure, or the two different wheel sizes?
Once you're booked on, we will send you a map with our exact location (sat nav's don't work) and some other joining instructions. At the very least you'll need a helmet. No helmet, no ride. All you have to do then is turn up in Calver 30 mins before your ride to be set up on the bike of your choice.
And as if Peak District riding wasn't enough on it's own, another great advantage of coming to the Calver demos is that if (as we hope) you're over the moon with the bike you've ridden, you can walk away with your new frame that very day as we're all set to prep and process your new frame order whilst you wait, although if you want a complete bike we'll need a few days to get that built.
Hope you can find some time to come and ride with us. See you on Saturday?
The new BFe275 will finally be arriving mid-June. Sorry it's taken so long, but it will be worth the wait. Such a great bike! Fun, fast, rowdy. Smiles for miles. Here's some pics to get you excited!
It will also be available in the matte blue colour, same as the Soul275. Frames are £349, bikes start at £2000 for the full XT/Hope build. Click here to pre-order yours:
We have our second Calver Demo of the season this Saturday the 16th May, so if you have been wanting to test ride a Cotic then get involved!
The new demo loop went down a treat with the people who came out on the first demo, and you get views like that which isn't too shabby!
It's a little shorter than our old loop, so we've been able to tighten up the ride timings, but it's packed full of great trails. We still have some bikes available, particularly on the last ride. Check out the list below:
10am - Small Soul275, Small Solaris
11.30am - Small Solaris, Medium Solaris, Small Soul275, 2 x Medium Soul275
1pm - Small Solaris, Medium Solaris, Medium Soul275
2.30pm - Small, Medium and Large Solaris, Small and 2 x Medium Soul275
Cy's running the 2.30pm ride, with only one rider so far. Come and keep him company!
We also have just finished our second set of 27.5+ wheels based around the wider i45 rims, so the Solaris can be set up 27.5+ on any of the rides. If you're curious, why not come and give it a go?
You have to reserve the size and model of bike you want to ride and which ride you're
planning on doing as we're limited to 8 people per ride.
To book, drop us an email at demo@cotic.co.uk or call
07970 853531 with your name, phone number, preferred ride time and bike preference and we will reserve it for you. Feel free to book a couple of different bikes on different rides; maybe try a couple of different sizes if you're not sure, or the two different wheel sizes?
Once you're booked on, we will send you a map with our exact location (sat nav's don't work) and some other joining instructions. At the very least you'll need a helmet. No helmet, no ride. All you have to do then is turn up in Calver 30 mins before your ride to be set up on the bike of your choice.
And as if Peak District riding wasn't enough on it's own, another great advantage of coming to the Calver demos is that if (as we hope) you're over the moon with the bike you've ridden, you can walk away with your new frame that very day as we're all set to prep and process your new frame order whilst you wait, although if you want a complete bike we'll need a few days to get that built.
Hope you can find some time to come and ride with us. See you on Saturday?
We were at the annual Steel City DH in Greno Woods on 2nd May. It was COMPLETELY ace, as always. Cy was racing and looking spiffing in his new Cotic Oneal Ride Jersey. The organisers had tried to even the playing field by putting in some fresh cut sections the night before the event which mixed up the original red trail with the new black opt in, so it did need some practising. The tracks up at Greno are such good fun, and they were running pretty much perfectly on the day, in the morning. Second runs in the afternoon were slowed down by the rain greasing things up, but it was still bloody good fun.
As well as the scores of kids and women and people doing their first ever race, it was - as always - a pleasure to watch top riders on little bikes absolutely flying down the track. Josh Bryceland won by over 3 seconds from local fast lads Swinny "Rocketman" Swinden (aboard his trusty Cotic Rocket) and Hope rider Craig Evans. Josh was just sucking grip out of the ground like nothing we've ever seen. Another level completely.
Add to all of that baying hecklers at Jolley's Gap Jump and crowds three deep up the bottom third of the course and the atmosphere is the best thing at a UK race this side of Fort William. If you get the chance, come along next year. It's blinking amazing.
If you fancy representing and getting a Cotic Oneal jersey of your own, they're in stock now. Click on the link below:
They are available in S, M and L sizes and they come up on the big side, so err on the side of going smaller if you're unsure. We have a no quibble swap option anyway, so we can always sort you out if you get it a bit wrong.
Cy will be giving the inaugural run to his on Saturday at Steel City Downhill. They are the exact same Cotic ONEAL ride jerseys that Chay will be riding and racing in this season. It's based on a the ONEAL Element FR jersey, with a couple of tweaks to the features and in glorious Cotic orange. The V-neck means they stay cool when you need them to, and they have a slightly dropped tail to work properly on the bike. They are £49 delivered in the UK (remember, no hidden postage or extra costs with any Cotic product) and you can order yours here:
We've just completed our first build on the new Escapade 105 bike with the new Shimano road Hydraulic discs. Doesn't it look fantastic?
The bike features a full 105 5800 series groupset and the RS685 STi and R785 calipers. These are available from stock for £1600, although the bike shown has the Hope headset upgrade at £1675. You can order yours now by clicking here:
The first 2015 Calver Demo went off brilliantly on Saturday with blue skies, dusty trails, great bikes and lovely people. The new demo loop proved a big hit, and we had three groups riding during the day on various Soul275 and Solaris bikes, all loving it and plenty of them placing orders. Thanks for coming all who came, and especially big sloppy kisses to those who ordered bikes!!
Want a piece of this? Of course you do!! Get involved on May 16th or June 6th. Email demo@cotic.co.uk to book on. Due to the new loop being a touch shorter than the old one, we're re-jigging the timing a little, so there are rides at 10am, 11.30am, 1pm and 2.30pm on the next two demos.
If you can't make it to those and are South Coast bound this weekend, Quest Adventure in Worthing have a demo on and we're sending them a small and medium Soul275, and a medium and large Solaris for people to have a shot on. Give them a call on 01903 573700 to book on.
Taken from a newsletter email from last week, Cy writes....
We have been doing a little more riding on the 27.5+ WTB Trailblazer tyres over the last few weeks and thought I'd share what we are finding.
Firstly, the pressures I quoted in my first update of 15psi front, 20psi rear were way off. That's what I sent them at the day before the ride, but as you'll recall (check out the news story if you haven't seen that letter: http://www.cotic.co.uk/news/2015/chubby) I found the tyres pretty soft, but just about usable on that first couple of rides. As it turns out, the day between pumping up and riding was key given that I'm running them tubeless. Subsequent resetting of pressures to 15/20 and riding immediately resulted in a very firm ride, and not dissimilar to normal tyres. It lost that monster truck feeling of smothering the bumps, although the front end handling was sharper.
In reality the pressures I was running those first couple of rides was closer to 9 front/12 rear (all these are indicated pressures on the same pump BTW, not with a calibrated gauge) which with more experience I have found is right on the very lowest limit for me to ride weighing 85kg. My preferred set up has moved towards around 13 front/16 rear. It rolls well enough yet still smothers the bumps. I'm always skirting on that limit of where it's too soft at the front so the tyre collapses and spreads out when I loaded the front end, and getting a postive front end but still some float.
A couple of weeks ago, Paul and I took our Solaris's to Sherwood Pines to do some back to back testing with regular 29er wheels. Paul rides a small, and I ride a large. It was an interesting morning. Here's Paul's take on it:
"Cy's been riding and enjoying the chubby wheels for a while and I wanted to try them too so we set up a back to back comparison test. Both of us on Solaris bikes, one with standard 29er wheels and 2.2" Maxxis tyres and the other with the 27.5"+ wheels and WTB TrailBlazer 2.8" tyres.
I rode the standard wheels first and followed Cy along some swoopy singletrack. I was happy with the control wheels and I was riding as I expected, but in longer corners or S bends Cy could just pull away a couple of bike lengths. Must try harder to keep up I thought, but each time it was still the same little gap appearing as before. Time to swap wheels!
With the 2.8" tyres I instantly felt more cushioned or isolated from the trail vibration as you'd expect from running with just 12psi front, 14psi rear. They obviously require a bit more effort to get them moving, but once rolling I didn't feel any extra resistance or drag over the standard wheels. On the twisty bits it was my turn to lead and I pulled out the same 2 or 3 bike length gap over Cy riding the standard wheels that he was able to do before.
There's more grip available, but there's also good feedback on the grip level which allows you to lean over more and hold more corner speed. In a series of linked corners it's possible to open a gap over a bike with standard wheels, then on rougher straight sections the greater cushioning allows you to hold more speed too.
As for downsides, well I haven't ridden them on long climbs yet so the extra weight might be more apparent over a long ride, but they'd certainly be fun on the other side. Also, we're using quite narrow rims for this size of tyre and occasionally it was possible to squidge the tyre over on an off camber lip or root - perhaps a bit more pressure would solve this.
Overall I was impressed at how well they rolled and how much fun they were to ride."
My thoughts on the day agree completely with Paul. It was fascinating to feel comparatively rattled around and a little bit hampered by the bumps on what would usually be considered smooth riding 29" wheels. I also did ran some different pressures, going as low as 8 front/11 rear which was much too soft, although not completely unrideable. I came back to my more usual 13/16 setup at the end and that felt good.
Following on from this we have decided to get a set of the wide Scraper i45 rims to see what a difference they make to the performance. It will certainly be interesting to see if more support on the front tyre helps. The major downside of these rims is that they're 260grms heavier than the KOM i25's per rim, so it's a big chunk of weight to add to the bike. We will see what this trade off brings. The key thing we're working towards is finding our preferred setup so we can spec a 27.5+ option on the Solaris complete bike later in the summer.
If you'd like to feel for yourself what these tyres are like, we have decided to offer the option of running them on a Solaris on the demo days. We currently only have one set of wheels/tyres so it will be one bike per ride, so there will be four opportunities to give them a go during each demo. If you already have a Solaris booked you can give them a go, or maybe add another ride in with these to compare to regular 29er wheels? The demos are on 18th April, 16th May and 6th June at our place in Calver, Derbyshire. Email demo@cotic.co.uk to book on.
At London Cycle Show we were approached by a couple of guys who got chatting to us about riding the Transcontinental Race or TCR for short.
They were clearly a bit bonkers, but in the best possible way and loved the look of the Escapade as a possible race bike. Once they told how they ran the coast of Britain for fun, in 50-something days, these guys clearly weren't messing. The phrase left ringing in our ears was this...."We're probably not the fastest, but we are stubborn. That's what we're relying on to be competitive". Blimey!!
We've decided to support them on the race and are in the process of building them some custom spec Escapades for the job. We'll have some pictures of these bikes up when we get the final parts, as we have some custom made USE Dynamo hubs and a couple of other tweaks to get sorted. Anyway, the guys are Simon and Tom Rounding and here's what they have to say by way of introduction.....
Simon Writes...
The first thing you notice when you meet us is that we both look similar, its pretty obvious that we're brothers, we both spent our formative years growing up in Yorkshire and even though we no longer live there, it still has a pull on us today.
The Transcontinental Race is an event that is relatively new. 2015 will be the 3rd time it has run, when you read about it you could easily be transported back to a long gone era. When times were tough and people were tougher
This is what the organisers of the TCR say.....
It will be no coincidence that the most prepared will be the most successful. For those who rely on luck alone; Transcontinental Number 3 will raise the stakes. Many will fail.
One stage – The clock never stops. Racers chose where, when and if at all to rest.
No Support – Racers can only use what they take with them, or what they can find en-route at commercially available services.
No Route – Only mandatory controls ensure that racers visit some of the most famous pieces of road in Europe and connect with the suffering of their forebears. The rest is up to them.
Tom and I are relatively late comers to cycling. We - like most kids - had bikes and were always out on them but as we grew up bikes seem to disappear from our lives for a while. We both have served in the Armed forces and Tom is still serving approaching 20 years, hence why we have selected the charity we are fundraising for for the TCR.
Keeping physically fit has been an important part of our lives and endurance events seem to always manifest, I think this is partly due to liking to challenge ourselves but also because you really need strength of mind or what I know to be stubborness. Tom is pretty stubborn which is a good attribute when your muscles are aching and everything is telling you to stop....Tom says I'm more stubborn all I can say is that I'm not sure about that.
Tom recently completed a challenge where he was on the go for many months skiing across Norway, cycling across europe and running across Britain. To condense such a mammoth effort into a few lines is impossible, so more on this can be found at http://www.1664challenge.co.uk/. While I on the other hand come from a mountaineering background have started to ride my bike a lot more than commuting having rode from Lands End to John O'Groats in under 4 days and riding 12 hour Time Trials, yes for fun.
Anyway Tom and I rode the Marmotte which is considered a hard sportive, which it is... there's 5000m of climbing! We got round without doing much training I think the furthest Tom had ridden before that event was 35 miles on the flat. We basically relied on that stubborn streak and really enjoyed the freedom of riding bikes for a long distance. We decided to come back together for the TCR.
Why Cotic?
When undertaking an event it's important to know your strengths and weaknesses, Tom and I already know that we won't be the the fastest but we intend to be competitive so that means we have to ride longer than most people will want too, where aiming at about 260 miles every day for 10 days. We have been looking at the bike market for sometime looking at suitable bikes for what we plan to do and the Adventure bike that seems to be this years fashion is the way we wanted to go, many companies have a model they have labelled adventure.
We decided to make our minds up at the London bike show show as we had a short list of bikes and the plan was to check them out and discuss what we were going to put them through. After many hours of walking round and checking out our shortlist I have to be honest many people we encountered either were not that passionate or that knowledgeable about the bikes. This was not the case when we crossed paths with Paul and Cy, the passion and interest was obvious and when I mentioned what we were doing and that the Escapade could be the bikes for us the lads didn't just say yes and jump at the chance of selling a couple of bikes, they said let us have a think and see what we can come up with. We took note of this the guys are passionate but also want to make sure that the bikes don't let us down .....now we have to make sure that we don't let the bikes or Cotic down.
We will also let you know how the bikes cope. Thanks for all your help guys, Simon & Tom
What an adventure!! We're looking forward to helping the guys get the bikes right and get behind them for the race. There are spot trackers for the riders so we'll be able to keep you updated on their progress when they start in July. If you'd like to support them and their charity then please click the justgiving link.
For a while now we've been looking for a nice carbon bar upgrade option for our complete mountain bikes. Local guys Hookit Products have been bringing in Joystick components for a while now and they have been getting some great write ups and feedback, so from this week we're offering the Joystick Analog Carbon bar in a 20mm rise and 800mm width (it is trimable!), for a £100 upcharge on the BFe275, Soul275 and Solaris bikes.
It's a beautiful thing, and saves 130grms (over 1/4 lb) over the stock Race Face Respond bars. Here's what Joystick have to say about it:
ANALOG CARBON – Our Analog Carbon bars are manufactured with premium composite materials specially designed for Joystick and molded in our own unique custom molds. With a lab tested strength to weight ratio and incredible feel the Analog Carbon delivers results on the trail and the podium. Analog Carbon has been designed to enhance ride control and dampen vibration from trail feedback. These bars feature reinforced clamping zones in all the key clamping areas for your controls and stem interface. Destructive and real ride testing is done on a regular basis to ensure our standards are continually met.
We're just catching up with the IT side of things so they're not currently on the drop down menus for ordering, but if you put a note on your order that you would like to go carbon on the bars then click 'PLACE PROVISIONAL ORDER' we can sort it all out for you.
There are still some places available on our demo on 18th April at our Peak District base, Calver in Derbyshire. We're offering the option to try out the 27.5+ wheels and tyres we have been testing if you demo a Solaris. There is still a small Solaris available for the 2pm ride and all sizes available for the 4pm ride. Come and see what all the fuss is about?
As you can see from the photo we are also running some BOS Dizzy forks to try out. As always with BOS, initial impressions are great and with factory and UK support all sorted out we will be looking to add these forks as an upgrade option on the complete bikes in a month or so. This is the large demo Solaris so if you're booked on that bike then you'll be able to see for yourself.
As well as the Solaris bikes with either 29" or 27.5+ wheels, we also still have small and medium Soul275 demo bikes available for all rides, 10am, 12noon, 2pm and 4pm. We've also cooked up a new demo loop for this season which will be fun. Get it booked now! See you in a couple of weeks?
We did the shoot around Sheffield where there are a series of murals by Rocket01 which we thought would make a great backdrop for our Life Bikes. It's Harry Brearley behind the Escapade; he invented stainless steel. More obviously behind the Roadrat is Neil Armstrong and Patrick Moore.
The Escapade and Roadrat are now available from stock, and you can order now:
The weather has scuppered us! Just heard from the port that the high winds have shut the cranes down so container loading is massively behind and the train ours was supposed to be on has been missed. The way it works when we have a full container is that it goes by train from Felixstowe up to Doncaster and then is road hauled to us. So, the container is now booked in to be with us Thursday lunch time. Not a lot we can do except do the best we can and get as much as possible out in the couple of hours we will have between the container arriving and TNT collecting boxes.
Once we have got through that we'll be in on Tuesday next week to catch up and get back on track so hopefully the most your shipment will be delayed is 1 day. We'll keep the updates coming on here if there is any more trouble getting the container on a train.
Really sorry for the late notice, but we only heard ourselves 10 minutes ago.
We have a pretty busy week coming up as we have the long awaited container full of Escapades, Roadrats and Soul275s arriving on Wednesday.
Plan is to unload and sort on Wednesday and dispatch Thursday. If you already have a frame on back order that should go out this week for delivery next Tuesday. We would normally try and dispatch before the Easter weekend, but we don't get a guaranteed time slot for the container delivery on Wednesday so if it arrived late we'd get into a right old mess trying to dispatch on the same day. If we sort Wednesday and dispatch Thursday then we are much more likely to get the right things in the right boxes going to the right people. I hope you understand, and don't mind waiting a few more days.
Bikes with the new disc only rim wheels are going to take another couple of weeks as we need to get them built up at the wheelbuilder. If you'd be happy with the older style rim brake wheel for £50 less then let us know and we can get that out to to you next week as we have a few of those wheelsets too.
Although we have a fair number of back orders to work through, don't let that put you off. We have plenty of stock coming in and we'll be able to get you a frame or bike in the next couple of weeks for sure even if you order now:
As well as the Life Bikes, we have more Soul275 coming in. It's all proper finish, full spec awesome on these from now on! Don't forget you can come and give one a try at our demos on 18th April, 16th May or 6th June. Email demo@cotic.co.uk to book on, or if you know it's the bike for you order yours now here:
On another subject, Paul and I have been out testing our Solaris's with the 27.5+ tyres. We're putting together our thoughts on this and will be sending those out later this week.
As we're assembling the 2015 demo fleet ready for the 2015 Calver Demos, we are identifying parts we have which we no longer need from previous years. Over the next few weeks we're going to have an Online Yard Sale for these, and we'll start with the 26" wheel forks. For all the details and prices you need to head to:
Chay was off racing his second race of the season yesterday, the Welsh Enduro Series Round 1. And he only bloody came second! It's his (and our) first Elite podium in Enduro and we couldn't be happier. Awesome effort Chay!!
Here's Chay's thoughts from the weekend.
Chay writes.....
First round of the Welsh Enduro Series is here and I thought I’d have a go.
It’s based at Coed y Brenin trail centre in North Wales, which if you haven’t been is a beautiful part of the world. It's a few miles up the road from Barmouth where a walk on the beach with a ice cream never hurt anyone!!! (this is why you should always go to races a day early)
Anyway, so it’s a 1 day event with practice in the morning and then your timed stages in the afternoon, we have 3 stages the first traversing across the hill side on a nice flowing singletrack, the killer part being two little techy uphill’s half way through. The key seemed to be maintaining a good speed the whole way and not just sprinting the first 100m then blowing outta your back door for the rest of it. I normally run flat peddles but to keep my pedal on I opted for spds so I could keep it spinning.
There is no timed transitions at these events so a gentle ride/walk with the boys gets us up to the top of Stage 2 where its fair to say “that view were grand lad”.
This one has a little tech 30 seconds in some trail centre stuff then what seemed miles down a fire road; it's not far but spinning all the way down it really hurts! You're then into a spot of fresh cut that was ace, and finally you join Snap, Crackle and Pop as its named to end the stage.
So that’s twice in two stages I'm on my knees trying not to be sick. Was it to many jelly babies before I set off or that fact I’ve pedaled like my life depended on it? I’m not sure.
Coedy is real rocky and punctures are a real threat. I’ve got my tyres pumped up pretty hard despite running tubeless, hoping to avoid any flats. This makes it a night mare on the wet corners but that’s outweighed by the super-fast rolling on the long flowy trails. The 29er was deffo at home here in wales where flow and carrying speed is key.
I'm dreading Stage 3 as its between 7-10 mins long and that kinda race used to be called an xc race when I were a lad, so I’m kinda thinking don’t go guns a blazin' and have some dignity at the end.
That kinda worked but the fire road in the middle is enough to make anyone feel ill, however I was still able to push on and not look like a wet lettuce in the bottom switch back part. It's amazing how you can still stand up when you see a camera man watching you.
That said I’m still on my knees when I’m done which must be a sign I’ve done some graft.
The timing at these races is the same as PMBA and is done instantly you arrive back. You hand in the transponder and they print out a receipt that tells you the current position you’re in. That’s bitter/sweet as when it says I'm currently 1st, things can only get worse and my stress levels seem to rocket!
So their all in and counted and somehow I'm 2nd Elite and 3rd overall out of apparently 240ish riders. That will do lad, that will do.
Crackin event, crackin folk, crackin weather and a crackin result. What more can you ask for? Well, that ice cream in the sunshine on the beach was damn good too.
Massive thanks to Cotic for backing me in this 3rd yr of racing for them and roll on more weekend like that one.
For 2015 the team will be receiving kit and protection support from ONEAL. It's great kit, but one of the main attractions was the possibility of doing our own ride jerseys, something which we haven't managed to do in previous years.
Due in a couple of weeks are the exact same Cotic ONEAL ride jerseys that Chay will be riding and racing in this season. It's based on a the ONEAL Element FR jersey, with a couple of tweaks to the features and in glorious Cotic orange. The V-neck means they stay cool when you need them to, and they have a slightly dropped tail to work properly on the bike. They are £49 delivered (remember, no hidden postage or extra costs with any Cotic product) and you can pre-order yours here:
Chay Granby continues with Cotic Steel City Media Racing in 2015, and did his first race last weekend, taking in the PMBA Round 1 at Gisburn. This looks like being a great series and he'll be doing more of these plus the UK Gravity Enduro, Steel City DH and the Scotland EWS this season, continuing in the Elite category.
He's still racing the development Rocket29, which will be seeing some improvements as the season progresses and we solve the issues on it and move it closer to production.
We've had a fair few people asking what's happening with our 26" hardtails recently given that we've run low on mediums in particular.
To confirm, there is another batch of BFe26 coming in about 3 months. We've been caught out a bit with this because the medium sold through whilst we still have good stock of small and large, but they will be back and we'll be running matte green and gritstone as the colours again.
As regards the Soul26, unfortunately for our founding product we have decided that the current batch in stock is the end of the road. Whilst BFe26 sales are still strong, at the lighter weight, higher end of the market the 27.5 and 29 inch wheels have pretty much taken over. At the current level of sales compared to the 27.5 Soul and 29 Solaris we can't justify another batch of Soul26. We need to be able to move at least a batch per year, and over the last 12 months it has dipped below this point, whereas Soul275 sales have rocketed right from the moment we introduced it. We're sorry to be saying this, and it's weirdly emotional for us given that - as I said - it's our founding product. However, the Soul lives on in the 275 version, and times change. We've always said we are all about building Modern Steel Hardtails. If that doesn't include 26" wheels anymore, then so be it.
So, if you want an awesome 26" wheel, light weight, zippy trail hardtail, this is your last chance. Once they're gone, they're gone. You can order yours here:
On a brigher note, that man Craig Evans has a big write up on Pinkbike today, which features his starring role in #26aintdead. Seems pretty appropriate today, for the BFe at least. Get some berms smashed!
We're being asked a little more these days about whether there's a thru axle option on our hardtails. There currently isn't. It's good old 135mm QR. Below are laid out the reasons why this is the case and we're interested to know what your thoughts are on this; whether you're not bothered, simply would like the option to swap wheels between other bikes with thru axles, or some other reason we haven't thought of yet. So, here's the case for the status quo:
Firstly, from a performance point of view, we don't think there is any point. A hardtail frame is very stiff at the back end and a thru axle will not make any noticeable improvement or different to this. It's not like on a swingarm of a suspension frame where you don't have that intrinsic stiffness, or a fork where it's two long slender legs resisting all the twisting on their own. A Rocket, for example, benefits a great deal from having the Syntace X-12 system we use on that, and none of us here would ride with anything other than a thru axle fork, but that's because the thru axles in those situations bring obvious and marked benefits.
Second reason is weight. One of the things we pride Cotic products on is not carrying unnecessary weight. When we had to add a thicker head tube and gussets to the Soul in 2009 to meet the CEN regulations, we redesigned the dropouts to the current design to offset the weight gain. Our current dropouts with mech hanger weigh just 93 grams. A Hope rear QR skewer weighs 65 grams so you have a system weight of 158 grams. We have been offered a thru axle dropout system from our factory which weighs 187grams and uses a Maxle or E-thru axle. Best case here is the Maxle for weight at 74 grams claimed, although we prefer the e-thru for function which is 97 grms from the XTR version. Even best case it's 261grams, and given our preferred option more likely 284grams. That's a 126 grams weight increase - over 1/4 of a pound! - for no obvious advantage apart from convenience and everyone else is doing it. We find that a bit hard to deal with when we try so hard to keep every gram from our frames, our flagship 853 frames in particular.
We did design a dropout system in steel for when we were looking at possibly doing the Rocket swingarms in steel last year, but even using the X-12 axle which is only 39 grams, the system weight on this was 215 grams, which is still a fair bit heavier at 57 grams more than the regular QR option.
Finally there's cost. To keep these dropouts even remotely sensible weight they're considerably more complex to make than our current dropouts, plus we would have to make more complex mech hangers and also supply an axle with each frame. Rough estimates suggest needing a £50 price increase on frames to include a thru axle, and mech hanger prices in the £20-£25 region, not the current £13 price.
So that's the reasons why for the moment it's staying QR, but we want to know your opinions on this. We sent this out to the mailing list subscribers last week and got a fantastic response (sign up to the mailing list here), mostly supporting our view that 135 QR works great so no need to change. However, there were a number of good points made arguing for thru axles too, so whilst we're not looking to adopt them on the hardtails any time soon it's certainly given us food for thought.
It's possible we might be getting a little too precious about a few grams here and there, so let us know if you think you'd carry the extra weight for the convenience. It's not like we're adversed to adding weight for performance gains. We all have disc brakes, suspension and and dropper seatpost on our bikes, all of which are heavier than the older technology they replaced, but they bring performance gains which are well worth carrying them around. We can't see that with thru axle hardtails yet, but go ahead, tell us we're wrong!
After bringing back the Rocket product page last week with some initial details of the new bike, we have added a little more information. Firstly, we have published the sizing and geometry tables for the new Rocket275 due later in the year, so head over to the new product page section to check that out.
Secondly, at the request of existing and new (to them) original Rocket owners, we have now revived the original Rocket page for the 2012-2013 26" wheel frame.
This has the original descriptions, gallery, specifications, geometry and components sizes along with a link to download the Owners Manual which has all sorts of information about the frame and how to set it up.
Ian and Kate Potter from AQR Holidays have just set up camp in Portugal for their annual Spring trips. Cy went a couple of years ago and the blue skies and warmth are a tonic at this time of year! Ian's just finished his new Soul275 for guiding this year and sent us a few words
Ian writes.....
Hi Cy
Just thought I would drop you a line to let you know how I’m getting on with my NEW Soul 275! Bike is built and ready to start its first season of work here in Portugal and then on to Luchon for the rest of the guiding season, where it will share its guiding duties with the FS.
After spending the last couple of seasons on a Solaris (which of course is a great bike!), I’m enjoying the feeling of the bike having a more agile handling feeling about it. It has the impression of quicker turning, is really good on the manuals, jumps and bunny hops, but still feels really planted, which in turn gives you great confidence on the trail. This then makes you want to ride better, and does not feel any different from the Solaris, and its climbing like a dream and very quick. The frame feels nice and stiff when you stamp on the pedals, giving a nice lively ride. The Soul275 tracks very well on the loose and rocky descents, keeping on the line you choose, without the feeling of being beat up at the bottom of the descents. I love the feel of the 853 steel frame, stiff where you need it to be and compliant where it’s needed also!
So I think want I’m trying to say is thanks for making another great frame, I just have a few things to change on the set up. I’m going to put a Maxxis Ardent 2.4 on the front and must get around to putting the forks up to 120mm travel. After that I think I might play with the stem length just to see what is best for me. Otherwise I’m quite happy on the bike after only a few rides. One thing which is quite nice and different from the Solaris, is the option of having lower gearing because of the smaller wheel size. Looking forward to getting the Soul275 back to Luchon, France, by then the snow will have disappeared, so I can get out in the big mountains, and see how I get on.
Oh and by the way, save me a couple of mugs to feed my coffee addiction, I will pick them up when I’m back in the UK.
Mugs are back! Soul orange, Solaris blue, BFe green or Cotic Wrap. Fully optimised hot beverage receptacles. Gets yours ordered, click the link below now.
Don't forget we also have plenty of our other merchandise in stock too. How about a nice T shirt to show what a discerning cyclist you are? Free handsomeness with every one!
Today we're launching the 2015 Calver Demo Season, with the first three dates across April, May and June. After a break last year we're excited to be back doing these, running rides from our warehouse in the heart of the Peak District. They're a lot of fun, and we get some proper riding in so you can get the best idea about the bikes you're interested in. Tea, Coffee and Biscuits have been purchased. We're ready!
Why from Calver? It's actually pretty central, and there is tonnes of amazing riding to be done up here. We'll do proper guided rides around our 60-75 minute local test loop which has some great climbs and really fun descents, and it'll give you a flavour of where and how we develop our bikes.
Come and make a weekend of it. Ride a demo on Saturday, do another local loop once you're done with us, a big Peak Classic on Sunday and you've had a lovely time.
Dates are as follows:
18th April
16th May
6th June
We're building up a demo fleet of the latest bikes and for the first demo we will have the following bikes available:
Solaris - Small, Medium and Large
Soul275 - Small, 2 x Medium, Large
When the BFe275 frames arrive we will build at least one medium, but that won't be available until the May demo at the earliest.
Either Paul or Cy will guide you, answer any questions you may have and generally have a nice time. Rides will go out at the following times:
10am
12 noon
2pm
If it gets busy we will add a 4pm ride weather/daylight permitting.
You have to reserve the size and model of bike you want to ride and which ride you're planning on doing as we're limited to 8 people per ride.
To book, drop us an email at demo@cotic.co.uk or call 07970 853531 with your name, phone number, preferred ride time and bike preference and we will reserve it for you. Feel free to book a couple of different bikes on different rides; maybe try a couple of different sizes if you're not sure, or the two different wheel sizes.
Once you're booked on, we will send you a map with our exact location (sat nav's don't work) and some other joining instructions. At the very least you'll need a helmet. No helmet, no ride. All you have to do then is turn up in Calver 30 mins before your ride to be set up on the bike of your choice.
And as if Peak District riding wasn't enough on it's own, another great advantage of coming to the Calver demos is that if (as we hope) you're over the moon with the bike you've ridden, you can walk away with your new frame that very day as we're all set to prep and process your new frame order whilst you wait, although if you want a complete bike we'll need a few days to get that built.
If you do take our advice and make a weekend of it, have a look on Visit Peak District for some accommodation and maybe some things to do for partners/kids.
If you need route advice then both of these Vertebrate Publishing guides for the Dark Peak and White Peak are ace and packed with info. And of course, our local Cotic dealer and all round top shop 18 Bikes are in Hope to help you with any kit you need/want/break during your stay.
Although we do get asked, we're afraid we have no plans to demo anywhere else. With just two of us doing demos on top of running the company, we simply don't have the time to put into scouting locations elsewhere and setting up the demos. We would rather do the demos here and know we can do them properly and give you a proper ride on the bikes. We hope you understand.
A little bit of Rocket news today. A few weeks ago we removed the Rocket from our product pages, and following feedback from people at London Show it was clear that this has caused confusion and plenty of people to think we're not doing the Rocket anymore. This is definitely not the case!
The Rocket will be back, and it is going into production back in Taiwan with our current framebuilder. The new frame will have 27.5" wheels, and we will no longer be doing the 26" bike. It will have all the features of the original, and similar spec - 150mm travel, 140-160 forks, 853 front end, all that jazz, and combined with some developments we have made over the last couple of years and evolved geometry to make the most of the bigger wheels and latest kit. There will be Fox Evo and Cane Creek DB Air shock options.
This was the main reason we took the original product page down, as it no longer represented what we were working on. It was clearly the wrong decision to make, for all the people who are following the project and are still interested in the Rocket.
The aim is to have them in late summer, but we're not making any firm declarations or taking any orders until we have frames in boxes on a boat. We've learnt our lesson there!
The Rocket29 bike which the team raced in prototype form in the 2014 season is still being developed, but we have no firm date for getting this into production. We love the bike, but it's not quite right yet. When it is, we'll let you know!
The reason we have gone back to Taiwan is that after so long out of production we simply need product available and they can guarantee that. It was also clear from the emails received back in December that for every one person who was psyched about the UK Made project, another just wanted a Rocket wherever it was made. We have learnt a lot working with UK suppliers, but for the moment it's on the backburner.
One of the nicest things about the London Show was how many people came by to ask about the Rocket and were clearly excited by the bike and wanted to know more, as well as existing owners saying how much they loved theirs. It was fantastic to hear that, and gives renewed energy to us to get this project completed and get frames to people who want them. A lot of the decisions regarding what to say when about this project have been clouded by the emotions brought on from our difficult year last year, so I'll be the first to admit that we made the wrong call pulling the product page down. It's now back, explaining all about the bike, and the current status of the project, plus there's some archive videos and tech write ups from earlier in the project, and of course, Rocketman.
Thanks to everyone who dropped by to have a chat at London Show. We really appreciated it, and had a lot of fun having some good natters about the bikes with lots of people.
But now onto something I mentioned a few weeks ago. You might recall I fired a couple of pictures around when we received a sample set of WTB's new semi-fat (I'm going with chubby) tyres, the 27.5 x 2.8" Trailblazer and some rather lovely KOM i25 rims to put them on. The idea with these is that they're big volume, wide tyres which come up around the same size as regular 29er wheels so you can go chubby on your regular 29er without needing specific frames, forks and the other paraphenalia associated with 'going fat'.
By the time I had got the wheels built (you need minimum 25mm internal width rims for these tyres, hence the i25's) it was nearly show time so I put them on the show Solaris for giggles. They certainly drew plenty of attention and plenty of people were curious about their performance.
Show over, I finally got the wheels in my Solaris and took them out for a first ride on the Wednesday night ride. This was on my local trails around the edge of Sheffield; Houndkirk and Blacka Moor. A couple of big up and downers on fast, rocky trails.
I pumped them up to 15psi front and 20psi rear. First thing on the quick-spin-up-the-road test is that they feel very different to regular tyres on hard surface. They're quite rounded in profile so the transition to a turned handlebar when turning corners was very noticable, like a big camber change. I found the rear tyre bounces a lot when spinning along. Kind of understandable when you have effectively strapped a virtually undamped 1" travel air spring to the back of your bike. Pedaling induced movement was way more obvious than it is on my Rocket with 150mm of suspension. Final thing I noticed was a lot of squirm under braking going down hill on a road.
All this slightly alien feel left me a little trepidatious heading offroad, but just like a jacked up Land Rover will be a soggy mess on the road, but perfectly at home on the dirt, so it was with the Trailblazers. There is this incredibly addictive soft edged, floaty, muted feel to the feedback from the trail, but handling wise the most surprising thing is how unsurprising they feel. You just ride the bike. They roll way faster than they have any right to being so big, but get them leaned over and there's some serious grip to be had. Hats off to the WTB guys who designed this tyre. Proper clever piece of tread work.
Speaking of leaning, that was one thing I noticed is that you don't really steer the bike as such, and I don't know if it's because I've not ridden 29" wheels for a while or not but I seemed to be needing a lot more lean angle in corners than I expected. That said, lean angle is the proper way to get around corners so once I adjusted it was working great.
The big tyre and near 29" wheel diameter meant some pretty serious speed even on choppy terrain. I was a bit nervous of the lack of pressure in the rear; due to there being a day between first inflation tubeless and riding offroad, some pressure had come out and it felt VERY soft at times, and yet I only felt the rim on a rock once. (N.B. subsequent checking suggests this first ride I was running around 10psi front and 12-13psi rear on the ride). It's just a whole different area of perception in terms of the feel of the bike.
In the muddy sections the footprint seemed to spread and keep me on top of the slop with very little slip under power and I had no issues with clogging despite running a front mech and a fork brace style front mudguard on my Solaris.
No firm conclusions yet, but as I'd hoped these big tyres are much more all round usable than any kind of full on fat bike would be, but they seem to offer a good degree of that float which fat bikes are reknowned for. My plan for the next few weeks is to fiddle with tyre pressures a bit on the local loop to see how that affects things, and also get in some trail centre berms-and-jumps style laps at Parkwood Springs to see how they go there, again with some pressure fiddling to see if I can find a good setup. JPJ from A Line Coaching has the medium Solaris demo bike at the moment so I'm planning to get out with him and do some swapping of wheels to see what we both think.
I'd be interested to know what your thoughts having this as an option on the Solaris.
The frame uses our new Optimised For Inline frame layout which was developed for the Soul275 but with a 1 deg slacker head angle for a given fork travel. For example, where the Soul275 has a 69 deg head angle with a 120mm fork at ride height, the BFe275 is 68 deg. Once you're up to 150mm forks the BFe275 the head angle is 66.8deg so it's a little more like a hardtail Rocket, and rightly so. This is one fast bike!
The BFe has always been the hooligan of the range, and now in giving the BFe unique geometry we're turning that up to 11 with a proper little riot machine.
It's available to pre-order now for delivery in early May. There is the matte green you see up there, or matte blue as seen on the Soul275. The new BFe275 is £349 for the frame, and the complete bike starts at £2,000.
One of things we were determined to offer when we started Cotic was a 'no hidden extras' policy. Since day one all our frames come with everything you need - bottle bosses, hose clips, chainstay protector, even free delivery, but always, always with a seat clamp included. Cy bought a very expensive frame back before he started Cotic and was pretty pissed off when faced with another £50 to spend on a proper seat QR, a chainstay protector and all the other bits he needed, and didn't want to put his customers in that position. So, Cotic mountain bike frames have always come with a really nice seat QR. Hope on the 853 frames, and a nice Cotic one on the BFe.
However, with the growing popularity of dropper seatposts (Cy would put one on his Roadrat if he could), and the fact that all our mountain bike frames have been compatible with droppers for a while, more and more customers have been asking for a bolt up option instead of the usually included seat QR.
As usual the lads and lasses at Hope have come up with a great solution, with their Dropper Clamp. It gives nice tidy routing for your dropper remote and works brilliantly in tandem with the under top tube routing provided on the Soul, BFe and Solaris.
So if you are aiming to put a dropper post on your new Cotic, from this week you can order your Cotic with a Hope Dropper Clamp for an upcharge of just £15 on your Soul26, Soul275 or Solaris, or £25 on your BFe.
Don't forget we're at the 2015 London Bike Show this week, which is being held at ExCeL in Docklands 12th-15th February. We will have the Hot Yellow Escapade, Roadrats in both build options, Soul275 and a 27.5+ equipped Solaris. Come and see us for a chat!
In March we will be getting our next batch of Roadrats and Escapades.
For 2015 we have swapped one colour on each of the models; Roadrat continues with Gloss Olive/British Racing Green as it's luuuuurvely and people are really liking it, and will now come in the matte orange as beautifully modeled by the Soul275.
Escapade continues in Duck Egg but with the Blacklite reflective graphics introduced last year on the Gloss Olive Roadrat, and new for 2015 is Hot Yellow, a spiffing gloss finished vision of loveliness. It's going to look fantastic as the Complete Bike option with all the black kit.
We still have small and medium Roadrats in stock in Duck Egg if you prefer that option or you'd just like a lovely looking bike RIGHT NOW DAMMIT!
We're aiming to have the Hot Yellow Escapade and Matte Orange Roadrat on our stand at London Bike Show next week. To order your tickets, head over to the London Bike Show website.
To pre-order your 2015 colour Escapade frame or bike, click here now:
If you have no idea what the Escapade and Roadrat are, head over to the product pages or check our launch video. This is what these bikes are about....
Sorry if we've seemed a little difficult to get hold of today. We've been at the Shimano 2016 Product Launch. We could tell you what we saw, but then we'd have to kill you. Soz. Just back in the office now and catching up.
We'll be dispatching on Monday to catch up with orders from this week we haven't had a chance to ship because of the snow. We've still got 25cm here!
Well, we tried, but there's no way we're getting any frames out today. We have actual Thundersnow in Sheffield, and the Peak is a white out. Paul made it in to the warehouse, but there's so much snow coming down he's getting out soon. Cy can't even get out of Sheffield, and having spoken to the courier drivers neither can they. Really sorry if you have an order booked on this week. We're going to take a view on what is possible later today, but our feeling is that it will be Monday before we can get anything out, which will be delivery on Tuesday.
In meantime, have a nice pic of Chay's Racin' Rocket at EWS La Thuille last summer.
We have just received our first batch of 2015 Soul275 frames. They're available to order now in frame or bike form. Don't forgot we offer 0% Finance options on all Soul275 options from Frame Only upwards.
Got a lovely package from Mike at WTB today which we've been looking forward to for a while. Some of their 27.5x2.8 Trailblazer "semi-fat" tyres to try out. The idea is that they give some of the float and traction of fat bikes without the weight and drag. By running them on 27.5" rim they come up a little smaller diameter than a regular 29er wheel, but a little wider with bigger volume. On the rather lovely KOM i25 rims they will fit in a Solaris so once the rims are built up we'll be fitting them to demo bikes and giving them a go.
What are your thoughts on this? Drop us an email and let us know.
Those fine purveyors of viral entertainment at Steel City Media have been doing #metalmonday for a bit, but this one with Eddie Masters is properly funny top off gomping.
From time to time we get sample parts in to assess them for possible future use. One of those sets of parts last year was an Alfine 11spd set. We're still not sure about putting this into production as an option - we'd love to hear your thoughts on that - but we've built up a lovely medium Duck Egg Roadrat one off bike.
There's only this one, and it's only available in medium and Duck Egg, and you can buy it for £1149. It's too much faff to add this to the database, so if you fancy a Roadrat that goes up to 11 (I couldn't leave out a Spinal Tap reference, could I?) then drop us an email or give us a ring on 07970853531 and we'll do things using Actual Talking. How very 20th Century!
Hope you had a good break and enjoyed the snow if you got any. There was loads round our way and it was a lot of fun to play in!
We're back today answering the phone and emails and processing orders, and we're doing a dispatch on Monday (5th Jan) for delivery on Tuesday to clear orders that have come in over Christmas. So if you're hovering over the ORDER button then get on it! Frames, T Shirts, mugs, hats, any orders received up to 10am on Monday will be sent Monday for delivery Tuesday. Make it a Cotic New Year and get your order in now.
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