Just look at these stunning bikes.

We have a fresh batch of our flagship hardtail coming into stock very soon.

The Solaris is our very best hardtail mountain bike. Full Reynolds 853 front triangle with bespoke tubing, perfectly laid out in our signature longshot geometry.

It's light, fast, tough and capable. Yes, you can have it all. It is just as happy grabbing a quick hour on the local singletrack as it is crossing the map, loaded with bags.

Solaris frames are handmade in Czechia and we have a fresh batch on it's way to us. The C4 size frames have already arrived, check out these stunning photos.

As you can see, these new frames now have a luxurious gloss finish which looks incredible.

C2, C3 and C5 frames in both Forest and Ember will be coming into stock just before Christmas. If you order today, we'll be able to dispatch your frame or bike early January.

There are no C1 frames in this batch, but we have Matte Forest and Matte Ember C1 frames in stock now.

The Solaris also moves to a UDH dropout, and is the first Cotic frame to be compatible with Sram Transmission derailleurs.

Frame only is £1199, and complete bikes start from just £2399.

We love talking about bikes, give us a call or an email to discuss your new Solaris with us.

Cheers,

Sam.

Join us in the Cotic showroom Saturday 7th December for the Cotic Christmas Market.

All the market stalls are inside, so come in to the warm and dry and see us and all our lovely guest stall holders, before your ride, after your ride, or if not riding at all.

We open our doors one Saturday a month here at Cotic HQ, and our festive market day this Saturday is the last one of the year. There will be:

If you'd like to test ride any of our bikes, get in touch to book on.

Give us a shout if you'd like to join either the CC or Women of Steel rides, they're free, but we like to have an idea of numbers.

Please do come along and get some Christmas shopping done for the bike rider/s in your life. All the brands coming are people we know and work with, who make a range of lovely parts and accessories at various price points from stocking fillers to big gifts.

If you're super organised and have done all your shopping already, then join us for a social spin, festive food, drink and cheer.

Sam.

We try not to get involved with Black Friday sales where possible. We have in the past on occasion, or changed things up a little with our infamous "Duck Egg Friday" when we had a few too many Roadrats in that colour, but largely it's not for us. No shade on people who do, but we set our prices fairly and we hope that you recognise the value in what we do.

That's not to say we never discount. We have discounted parts heavily in the Be More Cotic sale for most of the last year. So that's what we are continuing to do.

We do have some sale items - run out New Old Stock frames, ex-demo bikes, excess stock forks and shocks and parts - and they are where you will always find them, on the Outlet page. We're not discounting them any further, but the prices are very good already, in our humble opinion.

So, if Black Friday fever has hit, but you want to support your favourite bike brand, head over to the Outlet and see what we have.

If nothing on the Outlet floats your boat, don't forget that we are fully stocked and ready to go on Escapade, new Solaris is due in the next week or so, we have UK Made Droplink frames in stock in most sizes, colours and models, and Cascade in larger sizes in the wonderful Cosmic Black, and XS in Army Green. It also won't be long until the next limited run of Escapade UK 853 is here too.

All our bikes are winter proof, because we live in the North. Why wait?

Introducing a brand new Cotic T Shirt and beanie hat.

A limited run of hand printed T shirts and a cozy hat perfect for keeping your post-ride noggin warm.

The T shirts are 100% organic cotton and are screen printed in Sheffield using environmentally friendly inks.

They are a relaxed fit in Anthracite Grey, and are available now in XS, Small, Medium, Large and XL.

Limited run; when they're gone, they're gone.

Perfectly timed for the cold weather, the beanie hats are organic cotton and feature a subtle Cotic tab in orange.

Both are £20, or you can get a T shirt and a Beanie Bundle for £35.

UK shipping is £5.

EU customers can order via our eBay store.

We'll have tees and hats available at our Christmas Market in the Cotic showroom on Saturday 7th December too.

Save on shipping and pop down to buy yours on the day, along with some great gifts from the likes of Restrap, Hex, Hope and Trail Bloom.

You can also demo a bike, eat mince pies and drink mulled things. Very festive, see you there.

The UK made, Reynolds 853 tubed Escapades are currently in production just a few miles away from Cotic HQ.

Tubes drawn in Birmingham, cut and welded in Mansfield, painted in Newark and then built up to your dream spec here at Cotic HQ in Chesterfield.

Escapade UK853 is the most boutique gravel bike we make.

Beautiful, tough, light and unique. Available as a frameset or a built-to-order complete bike.

The gorgeous Cirrus is the standard colour, and there are 'a la carte' colour options for a truly personal bike. They are tried and tested paints we know look great and last well; you can choose your frame colour, decal colour and gloss or matte finish.

Just letting you know that droplink frame production will pause briefly while the Five Land guys set up their new workshop.

Mat and Calum up at Five Land Bikes manufacture all of our full suspension frames from the short travel FlareMAX to the alp slaying RocketMAX. This has kept them pretty busy over the last few years, and they are moving to a bigger and better premises.

They have quite a bit of fitout and setup to do in the new place, and we can't wait to see it in action.

This of course means they won't be able to make any frames for a couple of months.

They expect to be up and running early in the new year and will crack straight on with making droplink frames to their incredibly high standards, with immaculate welding and stunning finishes.

They will also be making most of the parts of our brand new Rocket ebike frames.

We have some FlareMAX, Jeht and RocketMAX frames in stock now in some sizes and colours, so there is a good chance the full suspension Cotic of your dreams could be with you in a matter of days.

If your size and colour choice isn't in stock, the best thing to do is to place a pre-order. This will allow us to plan the production schedule for when Five Land are back up and running, and will save you having to wait longer than necessary.

Simply put; if you order it, we'll make it!

As always we are on hand to chat about your options and answer any questions you may have. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with us, we love chatting about bikes!

Cheers,

Sam.

It's the rebel in the range, the tough nut, the bruiser. Today the rowdiest Cotic hardtail just got even better and more fun.

Introducing Burly Iron in it's latest and greatest form; the brand new BFe.

This new model replaces both the BFeMAX and the BFe275.

This brand new hardcore hardtail has a trick up it's sleeve. It can be run as a full 29er for smoothing out the roughest trails, or as a dedicated 'mullet' with a 27.5 rear wheel for slashing turns and sending jumps.

The all new BFe features our Double Decker Dropout allowing you to run the BFe with either a 29 or 27.5 rear wheel.

You can fit the smaller rear wheel bringing the playful, responsive, fun and exciting handling of a mullet bike. With the shorter chainstay length and quicker handling it drops into steep and committed corners that bit easier, and feels perfectly poised flying off kickers and drops.

Want a more stable and sure footed ride feel in the rough stuff? Looking for a tough bike for big winter miles or local enduro races? Run the new BFe as a full 29er and smooth out the roughest trails and longer rides at top speed, its bonkers how capable this bike is for a hardtail.

Reynolds 853 downtube brings a touch of class and heritage to this tearaway of a bike. Who says bombproof can't feel refined?

The new BFe is available in the sleek Gunmetal or the bold White CMYK colour schemes, from a frame only up to a complete bike. As with every single Cotic, it is 'Your bike, built for you' so you can start with our Bronze Build for wallet friendly shreds or build the ultimate hardcore hardtail of your dreams. Your BFe will be uniquely yours.

Frame only £699.

Complete bikes from £2099 for the Bronze Build.

Silver build with Hope wheels, SLX and Revelation fork is £2849.

Gold Build with Hope wheels, XT and Lyrik Ultimate is £3599.

It's an incredibly versatile frame, as well as wheel size options it can run fork travel from 130mm – 160mm so your BFe could be a razer sharp whippet for slicing through the singletrack, or a burly downhill sled capable of embarrassing your mates on their full suspension bikes. It's a tough machine, if you enjoy brave lines and clocking air miles but also want to munch the miles to get there; this is the hardtail for you.

Our C-Sizing makes it's way onto the new BFe. C1 being the smallest and C5 the biggest, making it easier than ever to get the perfect fitting hardcore hardtail, from 162 – 195cm there is a BFe to fit you and your riding style.

Tonnes of standover clearance and a lower BB make it drop into a corner with ease and confidence, while the slack head angle takes care of whatever lies ahead on the trail. The new BFe also uses the UDH mech hanger, so you can get a replacement hanger from anywhere in the world should you have a mis-hap on the trail. Please note though, the Double Decker Dropout on the BFe is not compatible with Sram Transmission groupsets.

The BFe frames are about to go in paint in Taiwan, you can pre-order today with just a 20% deposit. With shipping time, we expect the frames to be delivered in February 2025.

We'll get a couple of frames sent over early for photographs once they're painted, as soon as we've done these we'll shout about them with loads of photos and video in a few weeks.

We're really excited for this new BFe, and can't wait to see what you'll get up to with it. However it's built, its a bike that will make you grin like a fool.

As always we are here to answer any of your questions, please do get in touch to discuss your new BFe.

Cheers,

Sam.

Well this is exciting! I am very proud to introduce you to the new Cotic Rocket, the worlds' first high performance steel ebike.

Why Ebike?

We are big fans of ebikes here at Cotic. We love the way they can compress 8 laps of the woods into 2 hours, how you can try and ride up silly technical things just because you can. They give access to our beautiful sport to more people. I've seen the joy in my friend's eyes because he's finally able to ride with us again having survived cancer. I've used mine more than any other bike to ride to work on this year. Ultimately ebikes have made us ride more and further this year, and that's brilliant. They can do that for you too.

Fast Ferrous Fun

100% hand made in the UK, our new ebike is everything you would expect from Cotic: Gorgeous ride feel, innovative steel design, lots of options to make it yours, all backed up with our legendary customer service.

The Rocket is a clean sheet design with some new ideas, bringing all of steel’s wonderful advantages to an ebike. This is what we do.

The most obvious departure from the norm (apart from using steel) is the external battery, but it brings a lot of benefits.

Firstly, the external battery allowed me to save weight. A steel down tube and external battery is lighter than a large aluminium tube with an internal battery. Most importantly for a Cotic, it allowed me to dial in some flex and ride feel, and using steel just felt right. It always does!

The added bonus of the external battery is that it comes in 3 sizes from lightweight 418Wh to full fat 630Wh, all easily swapped with the twist of a key in under 10 seconds, so you can choose lightweight or full power in the same bike.

The Rocket is the most authentically Cotic expression of what an ebike should be. It's beautifully clean lined, incredible build quality, it has feel and balance that you have to experience. This is the antithesis of the mass produced homogeneity you see everywhere else. Bold use of material, skilfully wrought by people who care deeply about what they do.

It's a greatest hits of everything we have learned over the last 21 years.

The bikes in the photos and video for this launch are the final prototypes. The swingarms are from the original development frames, and for production will be much tidier, with UDH and a disc mounted speed sensor. Other than that, these are production spec. We are taking orders on a deposit only basis for initial delivery in April 2025.

I'm especially happy because today marks the culmination of 5 years of effort to make a Cotic ebike a reality. It's a huge thing for us, and if you've been following along for a while, you'll know that the Rocket as it is now is very different to the first prototypes we got a few years ago.

It's not just about the bike. This is a much more human story at it's core. It's about me and my team trying hard for a long time to do something difficult, but worthwhile. Grab a brew and have a read about how we got here....

Please do get in touch to discuss your new Cotic Rocket. We are offering frame and drive system packages as well as complete builds, you can also demo these pre-production prototype bikes in C2, C3 and C5.

Cy.

Founder & Director.

Don't forget we have Super Saturday coming up this weekend on the 26th, and we will be showing off the new Rocket ebike. After the CC Gravel ride in the morning, Cy is doing an Ask Me Anything at 2.30pm in the showroom, so if you want to come and find out anything Cotic related, drop by and get involved.

Cotic HQ is here: Google Maps Cotic

Unit 1B, Broom Business Park, Chesterfield, S41 9QG

Pop by beforehand to grab some lunch from the food truck, and a coffee from us. See you Saturday?

Next Cotic Super Saturday is happening on 26th October. Open from 0930-1630 bringing great bikes and good vibes.

• Led Demo Rides with Sam, Paul or Darren 1000 and 1200
• Open Demos in the afternoon
• Cotic CC Owners Social Gravel ride led by Cy at 1015
• Cotic Women of Steel social ride with Kelly-Jayne at 1030
• Showroom open all day
• Ask Me Anything Q and A with Cy in the afternoon 1430
• Food Truck bringing pies and stew 1300-1500
• All washed down with complimentary (amazing) coffee and tea all day

Our entire demo fleet is at your disposal. Come and try out Escapades and Cascades, Solaris, FlareMAX, Jeht or RocketMAX. We have a couple of sizes of all models and we can make things work for you.

We will be running two led demo rides in the morning and open demo in the afternoon.

1000 - Demo Ride 1

1200 - Demo Ride 2

The led rides will be on our local 45-55 min local loop, which is perfect for checking sizing and getting a feel for the bikes. It's also short enough that if you want to try a couple of different sizes or bikes, you will be able to do that without feeling completely done in afterwards! Sam or Darren will take you around the loop, so there will be no worries about navigation, and they will have a few tools and shock pumps on hand to make adjustments whilst you're out too.

1400 onwards - Open Demo

After lunch, from 1400 onwards is Open Demo. So, if you can't make the morning, or if you still want to try something after riding earlier in the day, you can still take a bike out for a ride. Use any of our loops on a first come, first served basis. You can take a bike out for a longer ride, or just try something else on the short loop. You'll need to be self-sufficient for these, and get yourself around the demo loops. We have maps and GPX files for you.

If you are on demo, a few things to remember:

• Please arrive at least 30 mins before your ride so we can sign you in and set you up on your demo bike.
• Bring photo ID and some collateral for us to hold against each borrowed bike.
• Bring pedals if you use clips, or bring your favourite flats if you prefer. We can swap saddles too if you want to take that variable out as well.

Please email demo@cotic.co.ukto book your free demo ride.

Ride Start 1015

September's Super Saturday was really busy and fun. We definitely got lucky with the weather. Whilst we're still planning to ride at the upcoming October Super Saturday, the plans are flexible in case of the British Autumn turning up in full effect.

After doing a couple of MTB rides for the CC Owners recently, we've decided to change it up for this month and do a CC Gravel ride this time. I'll be leading it, riding my Cascade. It's easy going trails, singletrack and quiet lanes. It's loops within loops fairly close to HQ so we have bail out options if the weather's not co-operating, but regardless we will aim to ride for at least a couple of hours. It's open to all Cotic owners, but we'd suggest Escapades, Cascades and hardtails.

The offroad sections need some tooth to the tyre, so if you're on an Escapade we wouldn't recommend it if you have something like the Conti SC2 tyres or something similarly road biased. Anything more gravel orientated, like the Raddlers or Byways or Gravel Kings will be peachy. If you want to join us but don't have appropriate tyres, drop us an email. We can sell you some gravel tyres and set them up on the day so long as you arrive in plenty of time.

We will be rolling out on the CC Ride at 1015. Doors open at 0930 so make sure to arrive in plenty of time to get kitted up and have a coffee.

Ride Start 1030

Kelly-Jayne will be leading a Women Of Steel Social Gravel Ride. About 19km, and it's about getting involved, meeting people and being back in time for the food truck!

If you want to get more involved with Women Of Steel, email wos@cotic.co.uk and we'll send you the link for you to join the Whatsapp Community.

Komoot ride info is here: Women Of Steel Super Saturday Social Ride

To make the most of the event feel, we will have our new coffee machine up and running, the tea urn steaming, and we will be brewing free beverages all day. We will have some snacks and cakes around as well and a few beers on hand for later in the day if you want to keep things going into the afternoon.

At lunch time our local food truck will be around between 1 and 3 bringing pies and stew. We've tried both and they're amazing! There will be dairy free and veggie options.

1430 onwards

In light of the potential for 'weather', this October's Super Saturday will introduce an event element to the day in the showroom.

This month we're going to be kicking things off with a freestyle Ask Me Anything Q and A with Cy from 1430 onwards. Format is pretty easy: Cy stands at the front, you ask the questions! It will last as long as people are asking things, and you don't have to have done any of the rides or any other part of the day to get involved. Just come down and join us.

The showroom will be open, so you can have a look at the bikes, chat options, sit down with us and make an order, or do Factory Collection if you have a new Cotic on the way.

We have so many of our amazing photos from down the years on the walls now, it's worth dropping by just to have a look at those!

The Be More Cotic sale parts will be available at even lower prices on the day, and we will have all our remaining T-shirt stock on sale for £10 each too.

Cotic Bikes, Unit 1B Broom Business Park, Bridge Way, Chesterfield, S41 9QG

We will be open from 0930 to 1630 bringing festival vibes to our little corner of Chesterfield. Come and ride bikes, try out bikes, ride, hang out, drink coffee, beer, eat nice food, ask Cy tricky questions.

Can't wait to see you. This is going to be so fun.

A couple of weeks ago we headed over the hill for a weekend of female led mountain bike fun at Gowaan Gals Festival. Despite some challenging weather at times, it was a brilliant weekend.

Bex Baraona and Martha Gill of Gowaan Gals are world famous mountain bike racers, having both won some seriously big races from Enduro World Cups to Queen of Crankworx title. Despite being at the very top of the world, they are still huge supporters of the grassroots and encouraging more women to get sendy on bikes. We've been to a couple of previous festivals and had a great time, so jumped at the chance to return.

The festival took place at Farmer Johns Bike Park in Marple, near Stockport with attendees having exclusive use of the park. A stacked schedule from morning yoga to floodlit evening mini-bike relay racing, the focus of the event was firmly on having fun and getting stuck in.

Cotic brand ambassador Esme Ward and her whole family took a break from their hectic BMX and 4X racing schedule to come along for the weekend, and absolutely loved it. Esme and her sister Charlotte got stuck into everything with an infectious energy. 9 year old Charlotte even sent the airbag!

Both of them won the pump track fastest lap competition in their age categories, and Esme also picked up a special award for progression, as chosen by Bex and Martha for her air bag skills. She was nervous about hitting such a huge ramp, and after some tips from the pros and a few attempts, she was sending one-handers and landing smooth as you like. We done Es!

My wife Kelly came along too and had a great time rallying her FlareMAX. Along with Esme and Charlotte's mum Katie she got stuck into some coaching, maintenance sessions and rode laps of the bike park with everyone.

We also entered the floodlit mini-bike race on the Saturday evening, a brilliantly chaotic relay race involving a bra as the relay batten and an off-camber tarp soaked in washing up liquid, all raced on kids bikes with a shot before handing your bra to the next racer!

Safe to say I was rubbish at that, other than the booze!

We showed off our bikes, chatted to loads of folk and ate delicious pizza from main man Fabio at PREAM Pizza, always a treat. If you haven't had one of his amazing creations yet, you really must. Special thanks to Fab for the breakfast pizza made up with nutella and pistachios, what a way to start the day!

Sunday was a wet one, and the planned long-jump competition was changed to a drift session on the wet grass! Loads of fun with plenty of comedy slides and some seriously long skids.

Cotic donated a Gen1 Jeht frame as the star prize in Sunday afternoon's massive raffle. Excitement built up, and the frame ended up being won by a young lad called Wilf, who was over the moon. Such a wholesome way to round off a lovely weekend of bikes and good vibes.

We have a handful of these frames in stock if you fancy a bargain for yourself, or maybe for a growing youngster in your household?

We'll be back next time, just hopefully the wind and rain doesn't make a return!

It was a great way to end event season. We are already starting to plan which events we'll be heading to in 2025. If you have any suggestions for MTB or gravel events you'd like to see Cotic at next year, please do get in touch.

Happy trails,

Sam.

It's a hard bike to define, which is probably one of the reasons it has been so popular since its launch just under three years ago.

Adventure Bike, Gravel Bike, drop bar Mountain Bike. It does it all, round the block or round the world.

For 2025 the Cascade gets a fresh new colour, and you can pre-order yours today.

This stunning new finish is Damson. You may recognise it from the limited run of 853 Escapades we did a couple of years ago, which flew off the shelves.

The next batch of Cascades is expected to be with us in April 2025, and as well Damson, the super popular Army Green will be fully restocked.

Both colours will be available in all sizes; XS, Small, Medium Large and XL.

Framesets start from just £999 with the colour matched steel fork.

Complete flat bar bikes start from just £1749.

Complete drop bar bikes start from just £2149.

We do have some of the current batch in stock, so if you'd like an Army Green bike in XS or XL, or a Cosmic Black bike in Large or XL you can order today and be riding your new Cascade in just a couple of weeks from now.

Its hard to believe the Cascade has only been in our range for just short of three years, it feels like it's one of the most "Cotic" bikes we've ever made.

As always we are happy to chat over the various spec options and almost endless possibilities the Cascade has. Please do get in touch.

Happy trails,

Sam.

Our first Super Saturday in August was such a vibe. It's back again on Saturday 14th September, and will be a jam packed day of Cotic goodness:

• Led Demo Rides
• Open Demos in the afternoon
• Cotic CC owners social ride
• Cotic Women of Steel social ride
• Coffee
• Food truck
• Showroom open all day

Our entire demo fleet is at your disposal. Come and try out Escapades and Cascades, Solaris, FlareMAX, Jeht or RocketMAX. We have a couple of sizes of all models and we can make things work for you.

We will be running two led demo rides in the morning and open demo in the afternoon.

1000 - Demo Ride 1

1200 - Demo Ride 2

The led rides will be on our local 45-55 min local loop, which is perfect for checking sizing and getting a feel for the bikes. It's also short enough that if you want to try a couple of different sizes or bikes, you will be able to do that without feeling completely done in afterwards! Sam or Darren will take you around the loop, so there will be no worries about navigation, and they will have a few tools and shock pumps on hand to make adjustments whilst you're out too.

1400 onwards - Open Demo

After lunch, from 1400 onwards is Open Demo. So, if you can't make the morning, or if you still want to try something after riding earlier in the day, you can still take a bike out for a ride. Use any of our loops on a first come, first served basis. You can take a bike out for a longer ride, or just try something else on the short loop. You'll need to be self-sufficient for these, and get yourself around the demo loops. We have maps and GPX files for you.

If you are on demo, a few things to remember:

• Please arrive at least 30 mins before your ride so we can sign you in and set you up on your demo bike.
• Bring photo ID and some collateral for us to hold against each borrowed bike.
• Bring pedals if you use clips, or bring your favourite flats if you prefer. We can swap saddles too if you want to take that variable out as well.

Please email demo@cotic.co.ukto book your free demo ride.

Ride Start 1015

Cotic CC MTB ride will be out to Cy's local riding area Blacka Moor near Sheffield. We will take in the famous Devils Elbow descent before making our way back to HQ. It's a little over 37km and will take us about 3.5 hours. There's some good trails, but plenty of pedalling too! It's not a guided or supported ride, so you need to bring you own tools, spares, clothing and food. There's no options for food en route, so bring snacks and plenty of water. Food truck will be waiting for us when upon our return!

Route info here: CC MTB Blacka Moor Ride

Ride Start 1030

Kelly-Jayne will be leading a Women Of Steel Social Gravel Ride. About 19km, and it's about getting involved, meeting people and being back in time for the food truck!

If you want to get more involved with Women Of Steel, email wos@cotic.co.uk and we'll send you the link for you to join the Whatsapp Community.

Komoot ride info is here: Women Of Steel September Social Ride

To make the most of the event feel, we will have our new coffee machine up and running, the tea urn steaming, and we will be brewing free beverages all day. We will have some snacks and cakes around as well and a few beers on hand for later in the day if you want to keep things going into the afternoon.

At lunch time our local food truck will be around between 1 and 3, serving chicken fajita, bean chilli (vegan), BBQ pulled pork and all sorts of hearty fayre to fuel you up. Comes highly recommended by Darren and Mat.

The showroom will be open, so you can have a look at the bikes, chat options, sit down with us and make an order, or do Factory Collection if you have a new Cotic on the way.

We have so many of our amazing photos from down the years on the walls now, it's worth dropping by just to have a look at those!

The Be More Cotic sale parts will be available at even lower prices on the day, and we will have all our remaining T-shirt stock on sale for £10 each too.

Cotic Bikes, Unit 1B Broom Business Park, Bridge Way, Chesterfield, S41 9QG

We will be open from 0930 to 1700 bringing festival vibes to our little corner of Chesterfield. Come and ride bikes, try out bikes, ride, hang out, drink coffee, beer, eat nice food.

Can't wait to see you. This is going to be so fun.

Last Weekend we held the first of our monthly Saturday open days.

Owners Ride, Women of Steel ride, demo rides, coffee and food. A good time was had by all.

The next Super Saturday is 14th September.

We are working on some different routes for the CC and Women of Steel group social rides, keep an eye out for more details soon.

If you'd like to book a demo ride on any of our bikes on Saturday 14th September, just drop us an email or call 07398 189114.

Hopefully we'll see you there.

Cheers,

Sam.

Ard Rock 2024, where to even start?! What an incredible weekend, the festival everyone needed and deserved.

We always have fun at the UK's biggest and best MTB event, but this year felt extra special. The weather had a huge part to play in that, as the sun shone on beautiful Swaledale all weekend, a stark contrast to last year. Thousands of solar powered smiling riders descended on the picture postcard valley for brilliant weekend.

We had a really busy time on the demos, big thanks to everyone who came and test rode a bike, it never gets old seeing demo riders roll back to the stand grinning and amazed at the confidence and speed our bikes bring.

For the first time in a few years, all of us strapped a number board to our bikes at various points across the weekend and got between the tapes. Mat was entered into to the Sprint race, stages 1 – 3 on the Saturday afternoon. I've not ridden a huge amount in the last few months, with life generally getting in the way, so I'd opted not to enter anything. However when my mate Sam popped by the stand on the Friday afternoon to say hi, he mentioned he had a spare Sprint entry going due to a niggling injury, and offered it to me. Deep down I knew in that instant that this meant I'd be doing that race, but it took me a couple of hours to come to terms with that fact, and feel like I'd actually made the decision myself!

I was so glad I did. Mat and I pledged to have a chilled ride and just enjoy it, which of course went out the window as soon as we'd dropped into the first stage! Stages 1 and 2 are the more technical of the whole route, with some steep corners high up and the now infamous 'Heckler's Woods' at the bottom of the first stage. I followed Mat down the first one, and as we tipped into the trees the wall of noise was awesome, fans lining the steep, rooty and rocky section cheering for every rider like it was a downhill world cup. Such a cool feeling.

We swapped over for stage 2, which has some really tight and steep hairpins early on, and Mat took an inside line which was clearly much quicker than my outside line, as he almost T-Boned me on the exit! Coming into the next one I thought “Mat's inside line was good on the last one, I'll go inside on this one”, so I anchored up and tipped in, straight down the fall line with about a bike's length of trail at the bottom in which to make a 90 degree left. Terrifying! Glad I didn't need to use the catch netting!

The rest of the stage was brilliant, my favourite of the three. The dry conditions meant there was tonnes of grip for getting nice high lines in to corners and letting the bike trying not to touch the brakes too much! Swift medicinal pint and a bag of peanuts in the pub before the slog up to stage 3, which is a stage of two halves. The first part is great fun swooping down a gully dodging the rocks which Mat was kicking up, we both had some exciting moments on that one! The stage then exits the gully on a fast but pedally double track, where you have to dig deep and sprint. Mat spied a sneaky line to the side on the grass, which looked good, but a huge compression neither of us expected sapped a bunch of speed. We still managed an overtake before the line though.

We bombed down the road back to the stand for beers, just in time to hold the fort while the owners ride was out. I wasn't sure how I'd get on, easily the biggest ride I've done for 6 months but my legs just about got me round, and I even managed 17th from 50 in category. Pretty damn stoked on that!

Over to Cy:

"What a great weekend. After we had a good time last year despite the wash out, the sunshine this year was an absolute treat. We had a great position with the stand, and after setup Paul and Mat went for a spin in the sunshine. I was still nursing some grazes from a Tuesday night ride spill, so I went and had a beer in the sunshine. Not a rubbish option!

All told, very nice. Same again next year, yes?”

Over to Darren:

"SUNSHINE! We finally had some good weather at And rock (verging on possibly too warm!) It was a great chance to meet new and old Cotic owners from across the country and catch up with familiar faces from the cycling industry.

Already looking forward to next year!

Paul's story from the weekend:

"Ardock 2024, what can I say? We all looked forward to it each year and this year it really delivered.

It's a great event and everyone needs to have a go at it at least once. What ever Cotic MTB you have it'll be great."

Between us we rode a pretty comprehensive variety of Cotics and all had a thoroughly good time both on and off the bikes. If you haven't made it to Ard Rock yet, even just for a look around, I can't recommend it enough. The vibe is great, the trails awesome and the people excellent.

We already can't wait for next year, see you there.

Sam.

From this week, instead of our regular Saturday opening, we are moving to monthly Super Saturday Events at HQ. After having so much fun making a day of it for the Abby Africa Talk, we are making these one day events much more of a thing than our previous Saturday openings were. There will be more of us around, and that means more riding and more things to do!

Our first of these is on Saturday 17th August, and will be a jam packed day of Cotic goodness:

• Led Demo Rides
• Open Demos in the afternoon
• Cotic CC owners social ride
• Cotic Women of Steel social ride
• Coffee
• Food truck
• Showroom open all day

Our entire demo fleet is at your disposal. Come and try out Escapades and Cascades, Solaris, FlareMAX, Jeht or RocketMAX. We have a couple of sizes of all models and we can make things work for you.

We will be running two led demo rides in the morning and open demo in the afternoon.

1000 - Demo Ride 1

1200 - Demo Ride 2

The led rides will be on our local 45-55 min local loop, which is perfect for checking sizing and getting a feel for the bikes. It's also short enough that if you want to try a couple of different sizes or bikes, you will be able to do that without feeling completely done in afterwards! Sam or Darren will take you around the loop, so there will be no worries about navigation, and they will have a few tools and shock pumps on hand to make adjustments whilst you're out too.

1400 onwards - Open Demo

After lunch, from 1400 onwards is Open Demo. So, if you can't make the morning, or if you still want to try something after riding earlier in the day, you can still take a bike out for a ride. Use any of our loops on a first come, first served basis. You can take a bike out for a longer ride, or just try something else on the short loop. You'll need to be self-sufficient for these, and get yourself around the demo loops. We have maps and GPX files for you.

If you are on demo, a few things to remember:

• Please arrive at least 30 mins before your ride so we can sign you in and set you up on your demo bike.
• Bring photo ID and some collateral for us to hold against each borrowed bike.
• Bring pedals if you use clips, or bring your favourite flats if you prefer. We can swap saddles too if you want to take that variable out as well.

Please email demo@cotic.co.ukto book your free demo ride.

At 1015 we will be rolling out on a CC owners ride. If you own a Cotic, you're in! Cy will be leading this ride.

Rather than sticking to the local as with previous HQ rides, we will be striking out a bit further into the Peak District, going out to Curbar Gap and along the gritstone edges above our old base at Calver. According to Komoot it's 36km, 470m climbing and about 3 hours.

It's a route Cy knows really well, and he has ridden every centimetre many times before. There's some bridleway trails, linking sections of quiet roads, and the edges themselves are well surfaced, but with rocky outcrops along the way.

It's definitely more of a mountain bike ride, and too much for an Escapade. If you have a Cascade it will be fine for 90% of the loop, but be prepared to walk or scoot a few rocky sections up on the edges. Any Cotic MTB will happily get around the ride. It's much more XC, look-at-the-view, chat with some nice people kind of ride than anything gnar, but there are definitely some tech options and rocky bits along the edges to keep thing interesting if you want to challenge yourself.

The proposed loop is here: Cotic CC Edges Ride

If you're joining us for the CC Ride, email demo@cotic.co.ukto book your and let us know.

There will be a Women Of Steel group ride on our longer local demo loop. It will be no more than 2 hours, 20km, 340m climbing, sociable pace, no one left behind. Gravel bikes and MTB all welcome. Nice quiet trails and lanes, enjoy the views, have a natter.

Kelly-Jayne will be leading this one. You don't need to own a Cotic to get involved, and we would love to see you.

The route is here: Cotic Long Local Demo Loop

If you're keen, email wos@cotic.co.uk to register.

To make the most of the event feel, we will have our new coffee machine up and running, the tea urn steaming, and we will be brewing free beverages all day. We will have some snacks and cakes around as well and a few beers on hand for later in the day if you want to keep things going into the afternoon.

At lunch time our local food truck will be around between 1 and 3, serving chicken fajita, bean chilli (vegan), BBQ pulled pork and all sorts of hearty fayre to fuel you up. Comes highly recommended by Darren and Mat.

The showroom will be open, so you can have a look at the bikes, chat options, sit down with us and make an order, or do Factory Collection if you have a new Cotic on the way.

We have so many of our amazing photos from down the years on the walls now, it's worth dropping by just to have a look at those!

The Be More Cotic sale parts will be available at even lower prices on the day, and we will have all our remaining T-shirt stock on sale for £10 each too.

Cotic Bikes, Unit 1B Broom Business Park, Bridge Way, Chesterfield, S41 9QG

We will be open from 0930 to 1700 bringing festival vibes to our little corner of Chesterfield. Come and ride bikes, try out bikes, ride, hang out, drink coffee, beer, eat nice food.

Can't wait to see you. This is going to be so fun.

Following on from our announcement of the Taiwan Jeht Special Deal builds a few weeks ago, we are now offering the Taiwan Jeht as a frame only with amazing pricing.

The Jeht Taiwan is the Gen1 version of the frame, but shares a lot of its geometry with the latest Gen2 UK made bike. It has slightly different sizing and a slightly higher BB, but other than that, it's the same great Jeht trail bike it's always been.

Still Reynolds 853 tubing for our signature tactile and beautiful ride feel. Still fantastically balanced Longshot geometry. Still that supportive and traction rich droplink suspension. Still an amazing Cotic!

Today we introduce a frame only price lower than anything we have ever done on a droplink frame: Just £1,299 for the frame with Rockshox Deluxe Select Plus Shock.

As always with Cotic, you have some flexibility in your spec. You can upgrade your shock to the Cane Creek DB Air IL or Rockshox Super Deluxe for only a few hundred pounds, and you'll still have an incredible value Cotic frame to ride.

You can add headset or BB and we will fit them for you. If you have an older Cotic like a RocketMAX Gen1, the Jeht is very much the modern geometry, improved version of that. Maybe you have an older FlareMAX and want a little more travel? Or maybe you have a RocketMAX Gen2 or 3 and want something with slightly more all rounder sensibility? This is a great option, and all your existing parts will transfer across.

If you aren't confident with the spanners, we can do a frame swap for you. Just £150 and we will transfer all the bits from your old frame onto the new.

We can do this with other brand bikes too. You will probably need a headset, BB and maybe a seatpost, but everything else should go across. We recently did this for a customer who punched a hole in his carbon frame. He's now rolling around on a lovely looking RocketMAX.

We will have a medium demo bike at Ard Rock Enduro on 27/28 July for you to see the lovely paint finish in the metal, or swing by the Showroom at HQ if you want to have a look.

Over 15 years ago, Carsten Baelkner approached us to distribute Cotic in Germany. He became our voice on the MTB-News forum, and all through our development as a business Carsten has been with us. For the last few years, Carsten has worked as a commission agent, keeping up with the Cotic forum on MTB-News and answering the email and phone for our German and Austrian customers.

But, all good things come to an end, and Carsten is stepping back from Cotic to concentrate on family and his other work.

Everything comes to an end. After 15 years in sales, I am now ending my work for Cotic Bikes.

In future, the German-language MTB forums will no longer be supported. Paul and Sam at Cotic in England will be the contacts for Cotic customers. Whether in the new Cotic showroom in Chesterfield, by phone or by email, a personal exchange is always welcome.

Alles kommt zu einem Ende. Nach 15 Jahren im Vertrieb beende ich nun meine Tätigkeit für Cotic Bikes.

In Zukunft werden die deutschsprachigen MTB-Foren nicht mehr betreut. Paul und Sam bei Cotic in England sind die Ansprechpartner für Cotic-Kunden. Ob im neuen Cotic-Showroom in Chesterfield, per Telefon oder per Email, ein persönlicher Austausch ist immer willkommen.

Thanks to Carsten for 15 years of service to Cotic. You built an incredible community in Germany for our British steel brand, and we are so happy and proud of our German family of Cotic riders.

Thanks

Vielen Dank an dich, Carsten, dass du 15 Jahre im Dienste von Cotic aktiv warst. Du hast für unsere britische Stahlmarke eine unglaubliche Community in Deutschland aufgebaut und wir sind so glücklich und stolz auf unsere deutsche Familie von Cotic-Bikern. Wir hatten immer eine großartige Beziehung. Du hast die Veränderungen, die sich für uns ergeben haben, mit so viel Humor aufgenommen. Und uns immer das Gefühl vermittelt, dass du einfach dafür sorgst, dass die Dinge funktionieren.

Wir denken aktiv darüber nach, an zwei der Fahrradmessen in Deutschland für 2025 teilzunehmen. Ich hoffe wirklich, dass wir euch dann sehen!

We have some updates to share about our special deal bikes. First up, they can all be browsed in one place, with full details of spec, pricing and finance. If you're bargain hunting and not sure yet which model you are after...

Secondly, you now have the option to upgrade the fork on any Special Deal Bike. After the awesome Cotic frame, the next component that matters the most on your bike is the fork, and you can now buy a Special Deal Bike with top of the range Rockshox SID Ultimate on Solaris and FlareMAX, and Lyrik Ultimate on Jeht and RocketMAX.

It's been a busy few weeks with events for us recently, and we wanted to share a bit about them. Mainly because they were great fun, and we'd love for you to come to future ones.

A couple of weeks ago, we had Abby over to talk us through her African adventure aboard her trusty Cascade. We decided to make a day of it, so we had a group ride on our local in the afternoon, fabulous pizza from Pream Pizza in the sunshine, followed by Abby's incredible slideshow. It was such a fun thing to do, and great to be able to use our Showroom space to do a special thing. We even had Lorraine come from Dublin for the event, and folded it into a Factory Collection of her beautiful new RocketMAX. She joined us for the ride for the maiden voyage.

Our semi-regular HQ CC rides start and finish here, so whilst we can't promise top notch pizza every time, we can promise mint trails, sociable pace, demo rides and great coffee.

In the middle of June we headed to Peebles for Tweedlove Festival. Despite the distinctly 'British' weather of heavy rain a lot of the weekend, the stoke was high and the love for Cotic was clearly in evidence. It's so nice to go to these big events and get such warm feeling from people. Thank you if you were one of them.

The demo was hectic, and we had plenty of people out. The biblical conditions clearly didn't stop the bikes from shining either, as we've picked up a fair few orders this week from people loving the Cotic ride. The Solaris in particularly barely stood still all weekend. Our Mat proved it's incredible handling and versatility by racing the arena cyclocross on it on Saturday night, then taking it up the Golfie on Sunday and getting a hot lap of Wardell Way in. On a SID equipped hardtail running XC wheels! That's some breadth of ability.

Back in May, Brand Ambassador Gareth from A Line Coaching ran a women's only coaching evening up at Greno for our Women Of Steel riding group.

It was a really fun evening and lots was learned all round. The Women Of Steel group is not just for Cotic owners, it's for any women riders to get involved and ride together.

The events continue on this weekend, with our Forest Of Dean Demo Tour rolling into Gloucestershire on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th July. Email demo@cotic.co.uk to book your free demo.

After that we are Ard Rock Enduro on the last weekend of July, where you can also book a demo with us. It's like Glastonbury for mountain biking. You really should come along! We'll have a Cotic CC owners ride as well.

Later in August we're back in the Tweed Valley for our own Demo Tour event at the Glentress Hotel. This was super popular last year, and it's a great location. Again, email to book, or hit the DEMO tab for all our contact details.

We have recently built up a load of new demo bikes to show off our latest UK colours; Amethyst and Moonstone for FlareMAX, and Golfie Green and Copper Orange on RocketMAX.

To make room, some of the previous demo bikes are now available at low clearance prices, check them out on the outlet page, or pop in and see them at our showroom.

Today we're super excited to announce a Limited Edition Jeht.

We've done a one-off run of our goldilocks trail bike, made in Taiwan, and it's fantastic value.

The Jeht is our super versatile, do-it-all model. Fast and lively enough to keep you ducking and weaving through the singletrack, but carrying enough travel and capability in its Longshot geometry to totally have your back when it gets steep and deep.

Reynolds 853 tubing for our signature performance and sleek aesthetic, this one-off batch of frames has been manufactured in Taiwan so we can offer you a Limited Edition complete bike at a very attractive price.

The bike features our older sizing; Small, Medium, Large and XL as we've reused the existing jigs in Taiwan, helping to keep costs down for this small batch.

Special Deal Build is an incredible £2699.

That's right, you could be riding a brand new Cotic full suspension bike for as little as £2699

This is your last chance to buy a Cotic full suspension bike at this bargain price point; once they're gone, they're gone! All droplink bikes will be UK made after this.

Available in the stunning Dark Crystal Malt colourway (named after one of my favourite home-brew ingredients!) and boasting 140mm of droplink rear travel and our proven Longshot Geometry; Jeht is the perfect all rounder for everything from ripping round trail centres to conquering big mountain days.

The Special Deal Build Jeht is all the bike you're likely to need. 150mm Rockshox Revelation forks, Shimano Deore 1x12 groupset, Shimano MT620 wheels, Sram Guide G2 brakes. Incredible value.

Of course, you could use one of these frames as the basis of a custom build too. XT? Yep. Hope brakes? Absolutely.

We have these Limited Edition Jehts in stock now, ready to go.

Lead time on complete bikes is currently around 4 weeks, so you could be shredding on one of these for your summer holiday.

We do of course have the awesome UK made Jehts available too, manufactured in Scotland by Five Land Bikes.

As always, any questions about any of our bikes, please get in touch with us. We're happy to help.

We'll have one of the Limited Edition Jeht beauties on display on our stand at Tweedlove Bike Festival this weekend so please drop by and check it out if you're around, hopefully see you there.

Sam.

We are heading up to our favourite riding area in June for Tweedlove Bike Festival, and we're bringing a fleet of demo bikes.

Tweedlove Bike Festival is a huge celebration of riding bikes, in one of the best places in the UK for two wheeled activities.

Taking place on the Village Green in Peebles, Scotland from 14th - 16th June.

We'll be bringing a range of demo bikes for you to try. All bookings must be made via Tweedlove's booking system.

We are bringing the following demo bikes:

• C2 Solaris.
• C3 Solaris.
• C2 FlareMAX.
• C4 FlareMAX.
• C3 Jeht.
• C4 Jeht.
• C5 RocketMAX.
• Medium Cascade.
• Large Cascade.

As well as demos there is riding, racing, food, drink, music and a big expo to explore.

We'll try and squeeze in a Cotic CC ride while we're there too. Look out for a newsletter on that soon.

We absolutely love the Tweed Valley, and can't wait to be back up there.

Get yourself booked on via the Tweedlove website, and if you've any questions please don't hesitate to contact us.

Hopefully we'll see you there.

Cheers,

Sam.

We've got some lovely photos for you today, the new Escapade photo frames have arrived and we threw them straight in front of Darren's camera lens.

Escapade available to order now in Supernova Orange and Froggatt Green.

Super versatile, the Escapade is a road bike without limitations. A gravel bike for the lighter side of life. Disc brakes all round. Drop bars. Tyres big and floaty, or small and fast. All the fittings for bottles, rear rack, anything cages on the fork and full mudguards are included. Why limit yourself and your bike to just one thing?

The full batch of these frames is due into stock later this month. We have lots of pre-orders to work though, so get yours ordered today for delivery in June.

UPDATE : FRAMES NOW IN STOCK : ORDER YOUR BIKE NOW

Just in time for summer gravel adventures, or taking the scenic way home from work on a sunny evening.

Escapade frame and fork just £999.

Complete bikes from only £1699 with our Special Deal Build, the Supernova Orange bike pictured. Incredible value.

Silver Build is the Shimano GRX600 2x11 at £2399, the Froggatt Green bike pictured.

Shimano GRX800 12 speed Gold Build £2799.

Ultra cool Platinum Build with Sram Force AXS 1x12 £3849.

The Escapade can run either 700c or 650b wheels for extra comfort and capability off road.

As always, every Escapade bike is built to order in our Chesterfield HQ, with lots of options on finishing kit, wheels, tyres etc. to tailor the bike to your riding.

If you have any questions at all about the Escapade, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us.

Sam.

Chris has been a Cotic Brand Ambassador for years, and we've been avid followers of his podcast from episode 1 onwards, and have known him far longer. In a bit of a twist, Neko Mulally is interviewing Chris on his own podcast... a great opportunity for you to find out who Chris is and what makes him tick, and the podcast work. Warning... contains plenty of car nerd content...

Whilst we were cowering inside against the wettest winter in years, our Ambassador Abby Popplestone (@abby_popplestone) was on the adventure of a lifetime, riding her Cotic Cascade across Africa. It was an incredible trip, and now she’s back, we wanted to celebrate her journey and let her tell the story.

On Friday 7th June 2024 we are having an Abby’s African Adventure day here at Cotic HQ in Chesterfield.

It starts with a late afternoon gravel ride on our local, for a nice, sociable 15-20km or so (around 1.5-2hrs) on our local byways and lanes with Abby and some of us from Cotic. Any gravel bike or XC mountain bike will be suitable.

Once back from the ride around 5ish, we’ll have pizzas for tea and a few beers or ciders laid on as well.

At 7pm we’ll head into the Cotic Showroom and Abby will talk us through a slideshow of her incredible photos of her ride, with a Q and A afterwards. This will be wrapped up 8.30-9pm, but if it’s a nice evening we’ll probably hang out for a while for another couple of drinks and chat.

This is open to anyone, not just Cotic owners. If you want to hear Abby’s story, come for a nice ride and eat some good pizza, you’re more than welcome.

The full do, including ride, pizza, drink and talk is £15. If you can't make the afternoon ride and pizza, then you can get a ticket for the talk and Q and A only for £5.

There are just 30 tickets for this event. Sound good?

Where?

Cotic HQ is here...
Googlemaps : maps.app.goo.gl/h8G9iqHzxjob2gYk9
what3words ///ramp.rails.taps

Address is:

Cotic Bikes
1B Broom Business Park
Bridge Way
Chesterfield
S41 9QG

Phone number is 07970 853 531.

We have parking on site for about 20 cars, and on the estate roads round and about too.

It's about a 10 minute ride for Chesterfield train station.

When?

Friday 7th June 2024. The ride rolls out at 3pm, so if you’re riding, please aim to arrive by 2.30pm latest so we can roll out on time. It’s not a supported ride, and we aren’t qualified guides, we’re just showing you around our local trails. Bring spares, water, clothing and food as appropriate for riding for a couple of hours.

If you can’t make the ride, pizzas will be from around 5.30pm, talk starts at 7pm, and will be wrapped up 9ish.

Demo?

We have the Cotic demo fleet available, so if you’d like to demo, you’re more than welcome. Please book in by emailing demo@cotic.co.uk with the bike and size you would like to try.

If you would like to demo, but would prefer to ride your own bike on the group ride, that works too! The Cotic Showroom will be open from 10am so you can go for a spin on our 45min demo loop earlier in the day if you would prefer. If you want to make a day of it anyway, pop in for a coffee and you can head out on the demo loop before the event starts. We’d be happy to see you.

This is going to be fun!

Tom's been a friend to us at Cotic for a long, long time. We're so proud to have him as our newest ambassador. He's just picked up his new Jeht for some European mountain adventures. That lines up alongside the beautiful Hope equipped Cascade he bought about 18 months ago.

To save us having to big him up and explain what's he's about and what he's up to... he's given some nice long answers to the tongue in cheek questionnaire we get all our riders to fill out... read on below...

We're so excited that Tom's now officially along for the ride. We know he's going to help us experience the big and far, and appreciate the small and near.

Another week, another drop of stunning new paint jobs!

This time its the turn of our shortest travel full suspension bike, the FlareMAX.

Introducing the brand new colours; Amethyst and Moonstone.

In case you were wondering, yes that is the Ford Sierra Cosworth Moonstone!

How stunning are both of these? We're all struggling to pick a favourite.

The FlareMAX, like all our droplink full suspension frames, is made in Scotland by Five Land bikes. 125mm rear travel, 120-140mm fork range, longshot geometry and Reynolds 853 steel all add up to make our lightest, poppiest and most engaging full suspension bike.

FlareMAX frame and Cane Creek Air IL shock just £2399.

Complete bikes from only £3399 with our incredible value Special Deal Build.

The Amethyst bike pictured is our Downcountry Gold build with 120mm SID Ultimate forks. That bike is £5425.

For the Moonstone bike we started with the Trail Gold Build and raided the Hope catalogue, a great example of what you could do with your FlareMAX build for something totally unique and dripping in UK made parts. This one would be around £5700.

As always, every FlareMAX bike is built to order in our Chesterfield HQ, with lots of options on suspension, finishing kit, wheels, tyres etc. to tailor the bike to your riding.

Get in touch to discuss yours.

With rolling production of these frames, they are available to order now.

We have a C4 Amethyst and a C2 Moonstone in stock now, with all other colours and sizes in the build schedule. If you order yours with a 20% deposit today, we can juggle the schedule to get your choice of size and colour further up the queue.

There are also the last handful of the outgoing colour frames in stock:

Limestone frames in stock now in C1 and C2.

Teal frames in stock now in C3 and C4.

Once these are gone, they're gone.

Let us know what you think of these new colours, do you have a favourite?

Sam.

Over the last few months, The Radavist have been testing a FlareMAX, and the review has been published. John wanted to buy the bike, so its fair to say, he liked it!

I guess it follows on really nicely from my "In Praise of Little Bikes" email/blog a few weeks ago, and John has even taglined the review "Less is More".

There are a bunch of lovely things said about the bike during the review, but a couple hit the nail on the head for me:

The FlareMAX is our 125mm travel short travel ripper. Set it up light 'Downcountry' with 120mm SID fork and lightweight wheels and speed across country. Or you can Trail it up with a more stout 130mm fork and tougher wheels and just go and do anything. Or mix up it somewhere in between like my bike, which has 130mm forks, Air IL shock, but super light wheels and fast tyres.

It's a really Swiss Army knife of a bike, and so much more than the travel suggests. Want to know more about our UK made short travel fun machine? Of course you do!

British Made, Small Batch.

As with all our droplink full suspension frames, we produce the FlareMAX in the UK, in batches of 4 per size per week. We have some stock of FlareMAX right now, but rolling production means that we often don't have every size and colour option in stock.

However: if you order it we will build it! If the size and colour you want is on pre-order, place your order and we will build it for you. We prioritise building the product/size/colour that we have orders for, and can adjust the production schedule accordingly. You can secure yours with just a 20% deposit today.

Your dream bike is never more than a few weeks away

Cheers,

Cy.

Founder & Director.

New colour day! The original Fast Bike - the RocketMAX - has a new colour. Today we launch it in Golfie Green; an homage to one of our favourite places to ride, and the bike's spiritual home.

The RocketMAX is our British made enduro bike. 170 fork, 160 rear, as fast as you like.

Alongside Golfie Green we have Copper Orange to make one hell of a pair of options for you. We have the last few Light Metal and Gritstone frames too in smaller sizes too if those are more your speed.

We produce droplink frames in the UK in batches of 4 per size/colour per week. This means that we often don't have every size and colour option in stock, but we are never more than a few weeks away from making more. If the size and colour you want is on pre-order, get involved and order it and we will build it for you. We are building RocketMAX, Jeht and FlareMAX now, so we prioritise building the product/size/colour that we have orders for.

These gorgeous frames start at £2,199 with a Rockshox Deluxe Select Plus shock, up to £2,649 for the wonderful Cane Creek Kitsuma Coil.

Bikes start at £3,299 for the Special Deal build.

Platinum builds are available with all the Hope bits and XTR drivetrain at £6,899.

Cy.

Founder & Director.

Yep, you read that right.

That's over £200 off our 650b hardcore hardtail frames. The last batch of dedicated 27.5 wheeled hardtails we'll ever make, now on sale at £399 frame only.

The BFe is a legendary Cotic product, having been introduced as the third model (after the Soul and Soda) in 2005. The current BFe is the latest in a long line of rowdy, fun hardtails. 27.5 wheels keep things fun and flickable, and make a great option for shorter riders too. That's why Esme (up there) runs one when she's not racing BMX's. Although she will be putting a number plate on hers at the Afan 4X in June.

It's not just for shorter riders though. Chay is 6ft 3in and loves a BFe for "razzin about on" as he puts it. Anything from big pedally days in the Peak to the local BMX track, it covers a lot of bases.

We are fully stocked on BFe 275 in all sizes and both colours - Army Green or Gloss Gunmetal. Just £399 for the frame. Bargain. Get one!

Whilst it's sad that this will be the last BFe 275, the BFe vibe lives on in the BFeMAX, and these will be re-stocked later in the summer. We'll have more information on that when we have firm delivery dates.

Cheers,

Cy.

Founder & Director.

Last weekend Paul, Sam and Mat headed down to the Surrey Hills to bask in sunshine, run a weekend of demos and a Cotic CC ride.

The CC ride on the Friday was a highlight of the weekend, with a great bunch of riders taking time out to come for a spin with us on some classic Peaslake trails in the sun.

Here are some of Mat's awesome shots from the ride.

Once we were gathered and set up we climbed out of the village on trails which were already pretty much dry, even from just a couple of dry days. It drains well in these sandy hills.

Great views before dropping into Yoghurt Pots, one of the classic local trails.

A bit of local knowledge from Chris, who was loving the demo RocketMAX he was riding, took us onto a lovely tight, rooty singletrack called Secret Garden.

Barry Knows Best is probably the most famous and often ridden trail in the area, and with good reason. It was running really well, having clearly had some work from the busy local trail builders.

There was some technical climbing too, this gulley caught a few of us out!

Then it was a fast razz down Supernova, one of our favourites, before a couple of cold ones and a good natter outside the pub. Hopefully a nice hint of summer to come.

We had a great time, it's always lovely to ride with you guys and share the stoke for all things Cotic. Thanks to everyone who came along.

Look out for more Cotic CC rides coming soon.

If you own a Cotic, you're in the Cotic CC. Hopefully we'll see you on the next ride.

Cy writes....

This one is going to be a bit stream of consciousness and hand waving. I hope you follow along, but do bear with me.

This idea has been swirling around in my head for a while now, about why people choose to ride steel bikes, and Cotic's in particular. Why I choose to use this wonderful material, flying in the face of the industry 'received wisdom'. Some things I have read and heard recently began to help me get a handle on what I was feeling.

First thing I heard recently that helped crystallise these thoughts and ideas and feelings was a, rather randomly, a paraphrased quote that they were talking about on the Russell Howard Wonderbox Podcast,

"It takes guts to be [this bands] fan. A lot of people don't like us, so we have to make the best music we can for our fans so they can be proud of that".

Another thing that provided the context was overheard at the Surrey demo as a group of guys on ebikes rode by:

"Rider 1 - What's all that then?

Rider 2 - That's Cotic. They're heavy, flexy steel bikes"

These really struck a chord with me. Not that people don't like Cotic generally, but it made me realise that it probably takes some people a bit of courage to buy a Cotic. To stand out from the crowd and to maybe deal with some ribbing about their steel bike. Especially if you have a gobby, know-it-all mate who's got prejudiced and entirely wrong-headed views about what we do. (No they're not that heavy. Yes, there's some flex engineered in. That's what generates grip. That's A Good Thing). And, not to hate on ebikes, but the irony of a guy on an ebike calling our bikes heavy is not lost on me!

But all this drives me. I don't just build our dream bikes and share them with you. I aim to build bikes so good (and the team here aim to get your perfect spec and amazing customer support) so that if you do get stick about 'that old gate' you're riding, you're having so much fun, riding so well, and loving your bike so much that you just don't care.

The other thing that helped me get a handle on this was a CHPT3 campaign I saw. I have been a fan of CHPT3 since before I did our collaboration with David Millar on the Never Strays Far x Cotic Escapade. A beautiful bike, a fun project, and resulted in a slightly chaotic podcast!

It's one of the great, bizarre, wonderful things about this job that I got to meet and work with David, who is something of a hero of mine. I like what he does with CHPT3 and he is a thinker. I appreciate that. One thing they did recently that struck me was their Unfollow campaign. At the risk of blatantly cribbing their work,

"[It is] being someone, not everyone. It will mean something to those that know."

That really struck a chord with me. We're not the crowd, not the swoopy-carbon-internal-headset-cables mainstream.

We're iconoclasts.

We love the old school made modern.

We love the many qualities of steel as a material that transcend the latest trends or marketing led bullshit. We love clean lines and hand made joints.

Bikes that are easy to live with as well as a joy to ride.

Bikes that are built just for you. The parts just so. The little touches exactly as you want them.

Forward thinking engineering laid over centuries old tradition.

Inclusion, and bikes as the solution, and hopefully leaving our planet a little better than we found it.

It's about performance, sure, but it's also about soul (Soul?), feel, interaction, love of the outdoors, a great bike making things that little bit nicer.

I've been emersed in steel for over two decades, and I chose to lead a brand that designs, builds and promotes steel bikes, so I am clearly somewhat bloody minded about the subject. I had missed that for some people it might be a bit tricky to step away from the norm and make the choice to ride a Cotic. If that's you, have courage my friend. It might be made of steel, and look a bit different, but it's just a bike. It's a great bike.

If you have got a Cotic, thank you. If you haven't yet, we've got you. You won't regret it. Get some steel in your life, and unfollow.

Thanks for reading.

Cy

This was first published on our email newsletter. Sign up on the Contact page.

Now the clocks have finally gone forward and lighter evenings are here, join us for a Cotic CC ride in the Surrey Hills.

While we are in Surrey for a weekend of demos, you can join us for some sweet Spring singletrack on Friday 12th April from Peaslake.

If you own a Cotic, you are in the Cotic CC, our owner's club.

Paul, Mat and myself are hosting a social ride from 14:00 at the Walking Bottom Car Park in Peaslake in the Surrey Hills, and we'd love for you to join us. Everyone who owns a Cotic is welcome.

Your ticket to ride is £5, which covers your first drink in the pub afterwards. We'll ride at a sociable pace on a variety of the lovely singletrack trails in the area, for 2-3 hours, session some bits and grab a few photos before finishing in the Hurtwood Inn.

If you'd like to come along, drop an email to demo@cotic.co.uk with your billing address and phone number.

We will be set up outside Peaslake Village Hall on the Saturday and Sunday for a weekend of demos.

We still have spaces available to demo a Cotic on both days, so get in touch with us on demo@cotic.co.uk or call 07398 189114 to book in.

There will be a range of bikes from Cascades to RocketMAXs available to test out. You can ride each bike for up to 90 minutes, compare models and sizes and chat through all the options with us.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Cheers,

Sam.

Cy writes....

I have just had one of the most fun weekends' biking for ages, and whilst I'm still buzzing, I wanted to write in praise of the little bike. The mountain bike of the lighter, shorter travel variety, because I am convinced that a lot of why I loved riding my bike this weekend was due to the choice of bike.

Over the last few months, my main mountain bike has been of the shorter travel variety. At the tail end of last summer I needed to do some setup and kit testing for our downcountry style builds, so I got on a FlareMAX with some light wheels, fast tyres and shorter travel. It was a LOT of fun. Zipping along on fast rolling tyres felt like cheating, and just the shear vivacity and liveliness of the shorter travel, lighter bike made me smile.

As the autumn turned to winter, I got more and into rallying the little bike. I found I was seeing trails in a new light, changing up my rides a little. As the weather turned the trails sloppy and wet, my fast Wolfpack Race/Trail combo wasn't really sticking to the floor, so they got swapped out for something toothier, but still reasonable weight.

I'm going to level with you here, running Cotic at the tail end of last year was very, very hard. When your work is bikes and it's tough, riding a bike with my company name on it is sometimes the last thing I want to do.

For years my bike of choice has been a RocketMAX built pretty enduro, with big sticky tyres. Across three generations I have loved riding and racing those. But, riding something a little bit different helped up the fun factor on local trails I know well. Gave things a different feel, and as I wasn't riding much at that time, the lighter bike was flattering on the climbs rather than a chore. I even fitted a 28t front ring when I changed my chain. Sometimes you just don't want to 'man up', you just want to be looked after and have a nice time. My lightweight little bike with easy gearing did just that.

Thankfully things are a little easier now, and my will to ride - and my fitness - have improved again, but the little bike has been the constant thread of encouragement and fun through it all.

I took apart my RocketMAX before Christmas and transferred all my lovely bike-industry-idiot build kit across, but kept the light wheels and tyres right where they were. I ditched the SIDs and bumped the fork up to 130mm and swapped in my favourite Cane Creek DB Air IL rear shock. I have the 4 pot Maguras off my RocketMAX on there with 38mm rise bars. It's a right mashup, still a good weight, but NOW we are rallying!

As I said, the move to the little bike has mostly been to switch things up and keep things fun on my local, but as my capacity and desire to ride has come back, so has the variety of locations I ride in. Then the doubt creeps in. The FlareMAX is my only mountain bike currently. Is it enough for everything I want to do? Will it deal with the spicier end of things? One of the luxuries of riding a RocketMAX is that you are never, ever under-biked. It's as happy zipping through some trail centre singletrack as it is at the Golfie, or uplifting on gondolas in the Alps. Wherever you are, that bike has got your back. And here is where we circle back to last weekend......

Last weekend I had a bunch of old riding buddies up for visit, and we did a big ride at Wharncliffe on Saturday. Now, this is the place that helped make Steve Peat the rider he is - we actually bumped into him and Laurie Greenland on the ride - and it is mostly not for the faint hearted. It is steep, janky, technical, and on that particularly day it was very, very wet and slippery.

I don't ride there much because it's right the other side of the city, and the Peak District is much closer for me. I have also never really gelled with the riding there. It's quite a particular style of riding; technical, committing, sometimes high consequence. I like techy riding, but Wharncliffe is almost wilfully awkward in places.

I rode there a few weeks ago with a few mates on our ebikes, and despite it being lovely to be out and ride with friends, I'm not convinced I enjoyed the riding that much. The ebike made light work of the big, steep hill that Wharncliffe sits on, but wrestling 25kg of bike through those peculiarly janky, tricky, rocky trails was very high effort and not especially rewarding. Not helped by the fact I don't know the trails well enough to find those little 'unlock' moves to open them up a little. My shoulders hurt more than my legs by the end of the day!

As a result of that ride, and despite there being a few ebikes in the group this weekend, I committed to riding the little bike. And you know what? It was FLIPPING BRILLIANT! The easy pace of the big group combined with my ickle chainring meant climbs weren't too tiring, but my goodness it was brilliant on the main trails.

It was easy to make trialsy moves through the jank, a pleasure to pop up rockovers. It carried speed across the faster sections. It definitely wasn't holding me back.

In the steep stuff it was great! It might not have a 63.5deg head angle, but it's still got that lovely Longshot geometry front centre and I have my bars set pretty high. My brakes are brilliant, so riding with poise and precision down some really steep trails was no problem at all. It was just fantastic.

As I hung it up (after the worst/hardest/longest post ride clean of the winter) that evening, I involuntarily said out loud "Bloody love this bike", to no one in particular.

Now at this point Paul - if he's reading this - will be rolling his eyes and making 'told you so' noises, as he has long been an exponent of riding light, short travel bikes very fast everywhere. It taken me a while to come around to it, and it might not last forever, but for now 2024 is the year of rallying little bikes. You heard it hear first.

Want a little bike like mine? Start with a FlareMAX Trail build and spec it up as you like it. Your Bike Built For You.

I've got HUNT XC Wide wheels and run the 2.25" Wolfpack tyres for SPEEEEEED in the summer, so you could pick those to keep the weight off. For right now UK conditions the Vigi/Boss combo will work well. Closest spec to my actual bike is the Platinum build, but you don't need to go nuts unless you want to. Any of the FlareMAX bikes with fast, light wheels and tyres will be brilliant. If you have any questions on specifying your bike build, just drop me a line. Otherwise, hit the button and let's get rallying!

See you out on the trails. I'll be the one popping off every trail feature in sight with a silly grin on my face.

Cheers,

Cy

Founder and Director, Cotic Bikes

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Neither Kelly or I have much bikepacking experience, let alone through mountains higher than anything in England and Wales and miles away from the nearest civilisation; but New Zealand is famed for it's multi-day adventures. Tramping (or Hiking if you aren't a Kiwi) is big scene there, with several routes perfect for escaping to the backcountry carrying everything you need. The Old Ghost Road is one of a few routes which are open to mountain bikes as well. 85km of singletrack, one-way, from Lyell in the Upper Buller Gorge down to Seddonville just set back from the wild West Coast. It seemed daft to visit this incredible country with our bikes and not tackle a multi-day ride.

We were fortunate enough to spend five weeks road tripping around the South Island for our slightly belated (thanks Covid) honeymoon in December and January, and while the riding hit-list was mostly bike parks and shuttle days, we were both really keen for a bit of wilderness too. It didn't take much researching to stumble across the Old Ghost Road, mostly aimed at mountain bikes, this trail was only completed in 2015 and has well stocked huts to break the journey. This meant we only needed to carry food and clothes with us, helpful for keeping the hold luggage within the airline's limits and also not loading the bikes down with too much gear. We both opted for a handlebar bag and a rucksack; Kelly on her FlareMAX and me on my RocketMAX. Yes you can go bikepacking on an enduro bike!

We tackled the ride about half way through our trip, between Christmas and New Year, so we were well settled into holiday mode and comfortable on the bikes by this point having done plenty of varied riding already. Certainly more in those two weeks since arriving in NZ than we'd managed in the 3 months before the trip! We opted to take our time, and do the ride over 3 nights, so 3 and a half days riding. Leisurely pace for sure, but it still felt like we had a challenge ahead.

I'll admit to it being a fairly restless night before the first day. The weather forecast for later in the trip was sounding pretty serious, the kind of weather that would be sort of fun to endure for a day out when you're never too far away from your car or a warm pub. Not the sort of weather to be out in the proper wilderness for the first time. But we figured we'd crack on for the first day, and we could always turn back if the second day started off dangerous. A short, and very scenic, drive from our digs to the Lyell car park and we began assembling bikes and attaching bags. As I say, we aren't experienced with bikepackers, I'd done the Sandstone Way back in 2019 and really enjoyed it, but so much has happened since then that it feels a lifetime ago. Kel has done a couple of trips with panniers on her Escapade, but never a mountain bike ride with bags and overnight stops, so we'd adopted the attitude of “let's just jump in and have a thrash about”.

If you've ever been to New Zealand, you probably know about the Sandflies. Their bites are quite nasty and they are belligerent little buggers. Boy were they out in force in the Lyell car park! Not ideal for standing around faffing about with bag straps and bike setup, but the deet spray does work. Rental car keys nervously dropped in the safe box for the car relocation service, photos by the start arch and we set off. Immediately having to dismount to get through the gate and over the first suspension bridge. Day one was all uphill, and the dense bush made the air close and sweaty. The gradient was never steep though, and the trail is littered with interest. You'd never know it now if it wasn't for the odd scrap of rusting metal and slightly haunting old rotten boot at the side of the trail, but there was once a thriving town here. The 1860s gold rush had brought several people hoping to make a fortune to New Zealand, and the town that once stood here boasted a hotel, schools, post office and housing for several people employed at the gold mine. Once the hill had been mined of the majority of it's gold though, the mine closed and the town died almost instantly as everyone moved away in search of work. It amazed us how the native bush has almost entirely erased the evidence of settlement in a relatively short period of time.

The nature in NZ was one of our highlights of the whole trip in general, and the Weka became instant favourites. A cheeky, flightless bird about the size of a chicken, they are very inquisitive and will steal anything that vaguely resembles food the minute you turn your back. They know when you are watching them! While we sat and ate lunch, a particularly brave one tried to untie my shoelace.

Mentally we had prepared for a difficult day of climbing, but as we pulled up to Lyell Saddle Hut neither of us felt too tired, sore or demoralised. We were definitely glad to see the hut, but we arrived early enough to get settled in and soak up the incredible views. These kinds of hills in the UK have all been clear felled years ago for farming or shooting, so to see hills absolutely covered in dense trees was quite a difference to the usual views. Quiet too, other than our wooden hut and the slither of singletrack we'd been riding, there is no evidence of people at all. Drinking in the views in the evening light with Kaka, a native and increasingly rare parrot, flying past squawking overhead made a lovely relaxing end to a day.

On the morning of day two we awoke to the sound of rain on the roof, the forecast had been accurate. However we were relieved to see it didn't seem anywhere near as heavy or as windy as predicted, so we decided to layer up and crack on. The first part of the day was more climbing, and the gradient kicked up a notch or two making it hard to tell if the not particularly breathable waterproofs were helping or hindering. As we eventually emerged out of the tree line and onto open hillside, we realised how sheltered we'd been in the bush. It wasn't dangerously windy though so we pressed on to the top shelter. A basic shed providing respite from the elements. This whole next section of trail was littered with features, views, exposure and more. However we experienced almost none of it! Visibility was about 4 bike lengths at best, so we'd climbed for a day and half for no views at all! Frustrating, but there was an eerie vibe and definite sense of being out in the wild that was pretty special. We began to descend as rivers ran down the trail and visibility worsened further. Ghost Lake Hut was a welcome sight for a lunch break. Kettle on and a tactical base layer change to something dry was a reviver.

The section that followed was the gnarliest of the whole ride; Skyline Ridge. A good sprinkling of spice immediately after Ghost Lake Hut, before a difficult switchback climb with some tricky steps took us sharply uphill and into even thicker fog. Up until this point the riding on the Old Ghost Road had been fairly safe; fun singletrack, but nothing too hectic. Skyline Ridge was a sudden change of pace. Tight, steep and rocky with no margin for error and some seriously sharp hairpins. I suspect the exposure would have added an even harder dimension had we had any visibility beyond the edge of the trail too! I was managing to keep it together despite rain, gnar, fog and more bags than I'd like to have been carrying in such technical terrain, until I clipped my hand on the exposed bedrock at the side of the trail. It properly shook me, wobbling the bars and forcing me to stop right before a particularly narrow and committed rock garden. Toys came very close to leaving the pram, and I walked that next part with my tail somewhat between my legs. Discretion is the better part of valour, but I will admit to feeling a little frustrated having cleaned the rest of the ridge in the very challenging conditions.

The next section however was never going to be ridden. As the ridgeline comes to an abrupt end, the only way off the hill is down the Skyline Steps. 60 vertical metres of uneven, unrideable wooden steps through dense bush. I opted to hoist the bike onto the back wheel ahead of me, and cover the rear brake as it bumped down each step. Kel went for a bike at the side approach. Neither was easy, and descending the stairs required more concentration than we expected. Rain continued to pour.

Once we'd reached the bottom, after what felt like much longer than it actually took, we saw evidence of a new section of trail under construction which will bypass the steps and be rideable all the way. The day's poor weather, my 90% success rate at riding the Skyline Ridge and this new section of trail were all combining to suggest we'd have to come back to the Old Ghost Road again at some point to settle unfinished business.

While on the one hand I'd like to return to settle some scores, I would also very much like to go back to repeat the section which followed again. It was probably the highlight of the entire route. The roughly 10km of trail which followed the Skyline Steps was simply sublime. A few cranks to get moving and the flow kept coming in gallons, despite the equal amounts of surface water. Never too technical, never dull, the singletrack went on and on and on. We carved, flicked, flowed and giggled for what felt like forever. After each switchback corner there came yet more inviting trail through achingly pretty forest, it felt like it would never end. When it eventually did, we'd reached our hut for the night; just tired enough and ready to get dry, but with uncontainable grins following one of the longest and most fun descents either of us had ever enjoyed.

We entered Stern Valley Hut to find the log burner roaring and some cheery walkers drying their gear. A very welcome sight, as I don't think I've ever had a wetter day on a bike. Dry clothes on and all the wet kit hung up, we tucked into another surprisingly tasty dehydrated meal and supped a warming miniature bottle each. A tiny Whisky for me and a Port for Kel. Well earned. Each hut sleeps around a dozen or so people, and we whiled away the evening chatting with everyone, a varied group ranging from seasoned solo travellers to a young lad of 8 who was hiking the route with his mum, putting us all in our place! What was really refreshing was everyone's interest and understanding of our different methods of transport and ways to enjoy the wilderness. No conflict between walkers and bikers here, just a healthy mutual respect and shared appreciation for what a few days in such a remote and beautiful place does for you. I've met plenty of so called 'outdoor enthusiasts' who could take a lesson from not just this group, but from Kiwi's in general.

As with the previous night, we were sound asleep before 10pm, and slept like logs! The walkers had got up with the larks as they were in for a long day. From the profile of the route for the day ahead we knew we'd cover the distance fairly quickly, so had a more leisurely start and made the most of the morning sun. Loaded up again, we set off to steadily climb on pretty singletrack, grateful to have swapped waterproofs for sunglasses. It wasn't long before we reached the ominously named 'Boneyard', a switchback climb through a recently created eerie landscape brought into existence by seismic activity just a few years ago. The landscape in the UK simply doesn't change that quickly, and this was one of a few instances in our NZ trip we came across landscapes which had had such a significant and recent natural alteration. Quite a hard thing to grasp given the scale as well, I wouldn't have wanted to be in that valley when it happened, let alone pedalling slowly up the side of it! A warning sign indicated the risk was still very real; “No stopping or lingering for the next 1km” which happened to also be a pretty stiff climb with no shelter from the increasingly warm sun.

We stopped to admire the view once we'd passed that kilometre, it was very nice to see some hills after the previous day's grey-out, and a great sense of just how far from civilisation we were. The climb re-entered the trees and their shade was welcome, and it wasn't long until we hit Solemn Saddle and left the valley for the next one. What followed was another awesome, long descent littered with tight turns, water splashes and flowing, grippy singletrack. This eventually dropped us alongside the south branch of the Mokihinui River, which after the previous day's constant rain was in full spectacular flow. After crossing a large suspension bridge the trail followed the river through yet more, slightly different, forested scenery for several beautiful kilometres. Mostly flat, but slightly downhill meaning we could enjoy the sun rays beaming through the canopy. Very pleasant indeed.

The North and South branches of the Mokihinui meet at the appropriately named Mokihinui Forks, if we thought the South branch was lively, the forks were absolutely raging. Really spectacular stuff, some of the biggest rapids I've ever seen. It wasn't long until we rolled into the last hut of the trip, Specimen Point. This place was stunning and the large decking, despite being covered in everyone's drying clothes, had some incredible panoramic views over the river; which didn't appear to drop in level for several hours. I braved the Sandflies for a swift rinse in the lo-fi bush shower, a simple wooden shed with no roof and a bucket to fill. It would have been refreshing, but as we'd lost altitude and gotten closer to the river, the flies were out in force which meant funky dance moves and a very quick shower!

We caught up with the same people we'd shared the hut with the previous night, we'd gradually overtaken the walkers throughout the day, as the flatter gradient after meeting the river meant we covered ground much faster than their increasingly tired legs could. We spent another lovely evening discussing the day and occasionally zoning out to stare at the views. It was another early night, with talk of more rain to come from those who had walked out from the Seddonville end that day, and had seen more recent forecasts than we had.

Lo and behold, we awoke to the sound of more West Coast weather on the hut roof. It was warm though, and with only half a day's ride ahead of us we opted for just waterproof jackets rather than overtrousers as well. We regretted this minutes after setting off, as water flowed down the trail and sprayed back up at us by the gallon. Too late, we were already soaked but thankfully not cold. This section of trail clung to the steep sides of the valley with several suspension bridges and some pretty exposed parts. A few techy bits kept us on our toes, and the stream crossings were pretty sketchy with the amount of water around. The final sting in the tail was a 400m section marked 'steep climb' just as we neared the last couple of kilometres. Despite tired legs I wasn't letting this one get away, and the sign wasn't lying! A few minutes staring at my stem cap and it was done, all downhill to the finish line. Even the very last few hundred yards stayed true to the Old Ghost Road's habits of constantly changing scenery, we passed through different, younger trees on wriggly singletrack and suddenly burst into the car park and over the line.

Sensibly, we had booked into the Rough & Tumble Bush Lodge for the night, a touch of luxury which we very much enjoyed. The best shower of my life, one of the best pizzas of my life, a couple local beers and both asleep by 10pm on New Year's Eve! Rock n Roll. The family of the young lad and his mum had met them at the end of the trail, and were surprised to see them complete the trail on time. Not because of little legs, but because of the amber weather warning for rain which had been given out while we were all out in the mountains! That definitely added to the sense of accomplishment.

While planning for the Old Ghost Road, I had wondered if maybe we were taking our time with it a bit, should we have planned to do it over two nights rather than three? While we could have managed it in two, I'm glad we opted to take it at a more chilled pace. The weather was definitely an added challenge, and given our lack of riding over the few months before the trip, taking our time a bit meant we never had to dig too deep or fight the clock. It was a holiday after all, and bike rides should be fun whether they last an hour or several days!

Escaping the world for the wilderness was a real tonic. It felt very refreshing and reinvigorating as well as being heaps of fun. A holiday within a holiday, good for the soul.

Chatting with other riders who had done the Old Ghost Road before, lots of them had done it more than once, some more than twice. With so many routes and riding potential in the country, I'd wondered why they'd done it several times. It's only been open a few years, so they can't have left it too long before repeating it. Having done it though, I can totally see why. The constantly evolving views must be different every time and in every season. Even if we'd had the amazing views and perfect weather, I would be well up for doing it again; but given the fact we missed out on the 'top of the world' feeling, spine tingling exposure and I didn't quite clean all of Skyline Ridge, I absolutely have to back for another go.

The huts were all great, the people so friendly, the trail well maintained and the landscape simply breathtaking. If you find yourself in the Southern Hemisphere, get yourself to the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island and ride the Old Ghost Road.

We are already looking for similar adventures closer to home for the summer, any suggestions?

Happy trails,

Sam.

The first of our European built Solaris frames have now been assembled into bikes at Cotic HQ in Chesterfield and dispatched to our most patient customers. Those of you that held fast and waited for these... we can only thank you. For those still thinking about getting on board... we've taken some fresh studio photos so you can get a closer look...

More frames arrive in March... but don't wait, some options are already sold though completely, and other options are running low. This is especially true for options for taller riders... if you've after a C5 (our largest size), get your order in as soon as possible to avoid missing out.

This one came out of a conversation I had with a very good Cotic customer last week when he dropped by the showroom. This guy has bought a few Cotic's (for which we are very grateful!) and had bought a couple of used examples of the recent titanium frames we have done; the SodaMAX and the Tonic. Over a coffee he was asking me if we had plans for a ti Cascade, and my answer took me by surprise!

I think what surprised me wasn't that I said "no, we're not doing a ti Cascade", but the reasons I gave. I have come to realise a lot of why we aren't doing titanium anymore isn't commercial, or quality assurance (although both are issues), it's that it doesn't sit well with Cotic anymore.

We've always used steel because we love the fact you can build really durable, long lasting frames out of them. Before we even did a Sustainability Statement for the business, we intuitively knew and liked the way our bikes aren't "disposable", which had to be better for our planet.

Once we realised - through the great work of Reynolds and Trek's sustainability reports - that steel is the lowest impact material you can make a bike out of, it all clicked. Add to this the fact that as offroad cyclists we are very aware of our surroundings and the changing climate, it left us wanting to run Cotic in a way that consistently strives to lower our environmental impact.

Steel has three key attributes which help us keep our impact low:

• It's low carbon impact in production and Reynolds use 100% recycled iron so very little new material is mined to produce our tubes
• It's got high fatigue resistance, so designed carefully and looked after properly it will last ages, and can be repaired if cracks do appear
• At the end of it's life it can be fully recycled and used again in high quality material with very little carbon impact

If you're interested, our Reduced Impact Statement is over on the website.

Cotic Reduced Impact Statement here

But when you consider titanium, it misses two of steel's big attributes, and is marginal on the third.

• According to the Reynolds report, titanium produces 3 times the CO2 of steel production. It's almost always made from virgin material; mined ore. Cross referencing this against the Trek report, this makes it almost as polluting as carbon fibre.
• Titanium does have high fatigue resistance and is also completely corrosion resistant too, which is great. However the difficulty in welding it completely cleanly and other difficulties in processing does mean titanium frames tend to have a higher failure rate than steel over time.
• Whilst titanium can be recycled, it's rarely done. Even when it is, it's a very difficult, high energy consumption process compared to steel and aluminium. It needs a lot of heat, and a vacuum furnace to stop it disastrously interacting with oxygen during the heating process.

As an aside, it's worth noting carbon fibre is:

• Very high CO2 impact (a little higher than titanium and about the same as stainless steel)
• Made from crude oil which has to be extracted from the earth
• Impossible to recycle sustainably and ethically, therefore mostly ends as landfill

Titanium might not be quite a dirty as carbon fibre, but it is a very high environmental impact material. As a result, it simply doesn't fit with what we want a Cotic to be anymore.

It you have a titanium Cotic, we're not berating you though! Hey, we had them made and sold it to you in the first place! But we've learnt a little more now, and decided that it's not for us anymore. The best thing you can do to minimise its impact - now we have built it and you have it - is to use it as much as possible for as long as possible. They are lovely things that will last years and years.

Ultimately we won't make another titanium frame - or stainless steel as it leaves a similarly large dent in our planet too - but we will continue to make amazing, beautiful, tough, long lasting steel bikes you can love for ages.

Get your lovely low impact Cotic here

I know lots of my riding buddies who take the view that "it's just one bike, what's the harm?", but it's one of tens or hundreds of thousands of carbon or titanium bikes and parts that are made. If people didn't buy them, brands wouldn't make them. But by the same token, I think brands are being disingenuous to hide behind "it's what people want". Sometimes you have to do what you believe is right and take the lead.

We're not perfect, and I know we have a carbon fork on the Escapade, but we're trying to be better every time we make a decision. As we continue to learn and develop as a company, we will continue to work towards building the best bikes with the lowest impact.

Thanks

Cy Turner

Founder and Director