Cy sent out a newsletter last week to cover a bunch of set up questions and ideas that he'd been posting up around various forums and in answer to a lot of emails from people interested in our hardtail frames. It's mainly centred around the simply things that you can do to improve the all round performance of your Cotic hardtail if you're running longer forks. Sign up to our mailing list for this and all sorts of other useful Cotic and bike related info. Read the article here.

Lynskey have just sent us some pictures of the new Sodas going through production. Very exciting, and you can clearly see the ring reinforced head tube and shaped down tube in some of those, plus check of clearance for HUGE tyres!

There's more on Flickr, and we'll be getting photos of the finished frames next week before they're boxed up for shipping.

We have some more firm delivery dates on the Sodas as we've just heard from Lynskey that they'll be ready for shipment on Friday 5th March. This is a little later than originally hoped as the schedule slipped a little as we had to thrash out the chainstay bends which resulted in a new forming die being needed, which had to be made. It'll take a couple of weeks to get them over the ocean, so we'll be delivering to people last week in March all being well. Sorry again for the delay, but it's all moving along quickly now.

We still have some unallocated frames from this first batch, so if you want to guarantee you get hold of one, order one today and leave us your 10% deposit and we'll make sure you have your name against one of the incoming frames.

Finally, for those of you who've been asking for pics, Lynskey are sending us some shots of frames before they go in the boxes which we're hoping to have early next week. As soon as we have them, we'll post 'em up here.

Firstly, apologies for the photos, but I'm good at designing bikes, not bending light so these'll have to do for now. Anyhow, a few people have been in touch wanting the inside on what I'm up to since my little testing story last week. Well first off, I was riding a Hemlock, nothing new or secret. Sorry to disappoint! I was working with some Fox shock setups, but also on some geometry changes using the K9 Industries Angled Reducer Cups, or ARC.

These fit in the Hemlock's 1.5 head tube and back off the head angle by 2 degrees. However, as the reduction in head angle effectively swings the front wheel up and out, what the bike actually settles down to is a 1.5 degree slacker head angle, 0.5 degree steeper seat angle and 10mm BB drop. This turns the Hemlock into a proper mini-DH bike, with static angles in the set up shown there with Fox Float 150 RLC QR15's of 66.5 degrees head/72.5 degrees seat, and a static BB height of 13.4" in long travel mode with 2.5" Maxxis DH tyres on. It's fun, stable and very, very fast. It's quite an extreme set up for general trail riding, but it's superb for getting your speed on. And, as it effectively steepens the seat angle a touch it still climbs well despite the now very long front centre.

The one down side is that it's very fiddly to fit because it needs to be accurately lined up so your forks run properly in the bearings, so you'll be needing a properly equipped bike shop to fit it or have a proper headset press and be very confident yourself. We're not going to be carrying K9 ourselves, but they'll supply direct and are setting up a dealer network. It's just another option for our very, very versatile suspension frame. If speed is your thing then it could be worth a look.

The other thing I've got on my Hemlock (although wasn't specifically testing last week) is the latest seatstay. These were a running change around Christmas time, and we've not had time to get proper studio pics of them yet. So, here they are in all their muddy post-ride glory! Main changes are the move to a stiffer, tapered tube and moving the disc mount slightly. This improves the stiffness of this area and the braking response with larger rotors. The top is simply tidied up with a neater spindle type arrangement and a larger, lower profile brace which is stiffer. As you can see, tyre clearance is still Cotic-like! These are on all new Hemlocks and are available as an upgrade for existing owners should they so wish.

Cy had a bit of brain fade last week and marked the Simple as out of stock. It's not, we have a few medium and large sized frames in stock in Espresso or Builders' Tea. Small is out of stock, and once these ones sell through (we're down to single digits on everything we do have) the Simple will be going away for a bit whilst we figure out where we want to go with it. Get 'em whilst you still can!

As an avid F1 fan I have been following all the tweets and news stories of the new F1 season kicking off it's first test down in Valencia this week. There was some photos from the Mercedes GP Twitter stream this morning showing a pristine engineers briefing room with tables neatly arranged with laptops and notebooks, and the team motorhomes. I can't help but raise a wry smile sitting here looking at those pictures with the feeling finally coming back to my toes, thinking of my experiences this week as I've out suspension testing on the Hemlock. Rather than pristine briefing rooms, I've been running the bikes off the rack on the back of my Focus, parked in a layby near Blacka Moor, with tools and notepads strewn about the interior for good measure. It may not be Formula 1 or the south of Spain, but I've been getting some good work done and it's certainly not a bad day at work as they go. I did wuss out when the snow started coming down hard just after 3 though! Still, lot's to do tomorrow when I'll be finishing up this bit of work.

What Mountain Bike had a First Ride write up on the new Soul in the latest mag, and it's just been published over on bikeradar.com. They loved it, and it had a particularly nice history in that the main rider was Steve Worland, who was the first journalist to publish an article on Cotic and the Soul in What Mountain Bike way back in April 2003 when we were first starting out.

Our wheels are back. 700c rims, ready for road/cross/29er tyres; 135mm rear axle spacing for use in mountain bike and ROADRAT frames; ready for rim or disc brakes; super neat QRs with removable levers; proper bearings; compatible with Shimano/Sram cassette or SS cog using spacers. These are real workhorse wheels and, as well as being available to buy in pairs, are part of our great complete ROADRAT bikes.

Due to the arrival of the Souls this week, we've had a flurry of enquiries about the new BFe. We're afraid that this delivery was Souls only, but the new BFe is in build right now and due for delivery in mid-March. Pre-orders are open, so check out the product page or framebuilder, make your order, and we'll get in touch as soon as we have firm dates for shipping.

Souls arrived yesterday and Paul and Cy spent a very busy day unloading, sorting, unpacking, checking and dispatching. They look superb, and we're so pleased with them. Finishing is even better than the pre-production frames we've already had, so you're getting something really special if you have one on order.

The first load frames are arriving with customers and dealers today. We're back off to the warehouse again this morning to get all the orders filled, now that we have Hope headsets and bottom brackets to install for everyone who's ordered them. You should have you frames on Monday.

Due to massive demand, the orange has sold through in all sizes straight away! We have lot's of stock in all sizes of the black frames, and it was nice to see frames going out with some of our ace sticker options on yesterday. Black/Orange and Black/Green looking particularly nice. More Souls are in build right now, for delivery in March. We've flipped the colour quantities for the next batch, so we'll be heavy on the orange, to keep the trails looking bright and cheerful. Cy's orange Soul has been looking incredible out in the snow and crisp winter light we've been having up here recently.

Happy New Year everybody! We have some particularly good news, because

SOULS ARE HERE....SOULS ARE HERE....WOOOP WOOOOP!

We've just heard from the port that Souls are clearing customs now and will be with Cotic on Thursday. That means we'll be shipping Friday for delivery a week today. We've got LOADS of back orders on these, so if you're one of them we'll be in touch today for payment details. We'll be running cards throughout the week as we simply have too many orders to run them all the night before as usual, but rest assured we'll have your new frames with you next week. If you haven't already ordered yours, we'll be clearing the backlog first, and dispatching 'new' orders a week Friday for delivery two weeks today.

As you might have noticed, we are VERY excited to finally be shipping our ace new frames out to people. We hope you will be too.

We're going to be closing for Christmas at lunchtime on Wednesday 23rd December, and we'll be back on Monday 4th January. Today is our last planned dispatch, but we'll be on email and the phone to help out next week.

It's all hands to the pumps as soon as we're back as the ship carrying the first batch of new Souls docks on 1st January, so if you have a frame on order we'll be in touch for payment details in those first couple of days. Have a great break everyone. Catch you in 2010.

Okay, you've seen the gloss "Bright Blue" 2010 BFe finish, with its under the lacquer wrap decal, but how about the other option: Gritstone? Well Gritstone is near as dammit black, you'll probably have to tell people that your frame is really a very, very dark graphite grey, for them to notice it's not black. The finish is satin, or semi-matte rather than the super gloss of the blue frame. Decals are super subtle as well, at least they are until you catch them with a flash or other light. Those of you that have ridden in the Dark Peak will know where the name comes from. We'll post photos as soon as the first batch of new BFe frames arrive, 'till then, hopefully the mock-up above will help you picture it (click on it to make it bigger).

You know you own a bike company when this little beauty is a 'bit box special'! Cy's been taking his daughter down to the local skate ramps on her little bike, and with all those benches, grind rails and platforms about he got all misty eyed of a youth miss-spent trying to ride trials on bits of Nottingham street furniture, so obviously a new bike was in order to do the job nicely. Cue small Soul with wheels and kit off one of the demo bikes, new Deore cranks and mechs, and some old Hope brakes which were 'just lying around'. First time out it looked ace and felt ace [but unfortunately Cy can't trials ride for toffee anymore; more practice required!]

Although we're getting a nice big shipment of new Souls into stock first week in January, we are now provisionally sold through on medium orange frames straight off the boat! We'll have plenty of black medium and the other two sizes in both colours, but the orange is proving really popular, which we're really pleased about. Hurrah for bright coloured bikes!

We have a second shipment of Souls already on order for delivery in Spring 2010, and we've gone heavy on the orange for that batch to ensure "The One True Colour" gets to as many of you as possible. [Can you tell the orange is Cy's favourite colour?]

We've just heard from our agent in Taiwan that we got gazumped in the paintshop queue, which means the Souls are delayed for 3 weeks. Unfortunately, because that puts the earliest ship arrival date at 22nd of December, we have to delay again because we couldn't get the frames cleared through Customs before they and we close for Christmas. So, we've put them on a ship this week, landing UK 2nd January for definite. This means we'll be in touch in the run up to Christmas and from 4th January onwards to everyone who has a frame on order to confirm you still want your new Soul, and for payment details.

We have a huge number of frames on back order, and we really appreciate your patience with this. We are as frustrated as you guys, and we will do everything we can to get all frames to back order customers by 8th January 2010.

After the success of Cycle Show, over the last 6 weeks I've been working really hard to get to a point where we could place an order with Merlin for the Sodas.

Unfortunately, 10 days ago Merlin stated that their OE production is sold through for 2010 and the solution they offered me as alternative wasn't acceptable. They certainly weren't able to give us a commitment to the long term which we really wanted for both ourselves and our customers. It's a shame, especially considering how much time has been lost when we have a lot of very patient and very loyal customers waiting for the Cotic Soda to make it's return to production. However, as things were beginning to look shakey with Merlin, I got in touch wiith Mark Lynskey about building us frames, and he's been brilliant. Lynskey can build pretty much immediately, have provided superb service and they've offered the level of tube manipulation, shaping and finishing we have seen from Merlin on the frame you all saw at Cycle Show, which will make the Soda everything we want it to be. The added bonus here is that the frame can be a little more Cotic in terms of final touches; the cowled dropouts are back for one thing! There is, of course, the full Cotic warranty back up, fully supported by Lynskey.

We have committed to an order with Lynskey, and will have 32 frames arriving in around 3 months with rolling orders coming in during the year. The price will be £1,500 including all the usual Cotic niceties such as a Hope QR, chainstay protector, vinyl down tube decal option should you so wish, and UK delivery. They will be available directly from Cotic, or from any of our official Cotic dealers. To reserve your Cotic Soda you need to place a 10% (£150) deposit with Cotic or your Cotic Dealer to be sure of receiving one of the first batch.

If you have any queries, please don't hesitate to drop us a line at info@cotic.co.uk,
or call 07970 853 531.

The brand new Dirt 100 was out yesterday, and the Cotic Soul has once again earned a place in this Best of the Best annual collection for the second year running. We are SOOOOOOOOOO pleased. And the best thing about it is that it's the existing frame design they voted in - we've just gone and made it better! We'll be heading down to see the Dirt guys with the new Soul and new BFe before long, so hopefully they'll be suitably impressed and we'll make it in again next year.

We've just heard from our test lab that the new BFe has breezed through its CEN test, despite having to resort to a dummy girder instead of a real fork for the fatigue test after the first pair of forks we supplied for the testing broke. So, the new BFe is double triple 'ard and we're ordering them today. On our usual lead times it's going to slide into February now for first batch, but we're excited that we can go ahead right now with confidence and a CEN certificate in the file.

Just realised we haven't updated here for a couple of weeks. Sorry, we've been quite busy. What's been going on then? Well, Kate's had her first competitive outings on the >X< and won. Twice. Unbelievable that girl. Find out all about it on her blog.

Stock-wise, we're down to the last of the beverage coloured ROADRATs, with Builders' Tea and Espresso in Small/Long or Espresso in Medium/Long. Catch 'em while you can; we're not doing these colours again. Proper Limited Edition. Mmmmmm, Espresso....

Also hitting the shelves this month, but not really shouted about was the arrival of the 2010 Hemlock. New super beefy chainstays, classy ano black and laser etched finish, 2010 Fox RP23 Boost Valve shocks. Same ace handling and mega-versatile set up options. Order your Cotic Hemlock now!

We also have 2010 Souls incoming in around 4 weeks, so make sure you don't miss them either.

We had ourselves some lovely soft organic tees made up to wear at the show, and got a few extras. These are now available to buy: men's in medium or large, light blue or olive. We also have some women's in light blue, in Kate's size only.

The cycling press helped make Cycle Show a very rewarding experience for us this year, so big thanks to everyone who made the effort to talk to us and find out about what our little company is doing. Here are some links to the online press coverage that came out of those chats, they're well worth following if you want to find out about the new Cotic range...

Flickr seems to have thrown a wobbly, so you can't see our photos here at the moment, sorry. We'll host the photos properly on this site at some point...

Low quality footage of our high quality new stuff...

More Peaks gorgeousness from the Vertebrate Publishing boys again last week, as they took advantage of the amazing conditions out there to shoot some more pictures for the upcoming release of the new Dark Peak guide book. The boys took in Cut Gate and got some late-in-day shots from Stannage. The pics were so gorgeous they gave us that "got to get out on my bike" feeling, which is too nice a thing to keep to ourselves, so here's the Peaky goodness

Cy didn't make it out this time due to being buried under Cycle Show prep, much to his chagrin, but Tom needed a bike so Cy's Soul got a spin out at least!

Only in terms of finding out what's been going on in her busy race schedule, not as in actually catch up with her on a bike, obviously.

Some brilliant news over the weekend from Cotic Bontrager racer Kate Potter; she came second in a sprint finish to the line at the last NPS at Newnham Park this weekend to secure the National Point Series Championship. What an end to the season, Kate! Having missed one round she had to beat title contenders Jenny Copnall, Jenn O'Conner and Mel Spath at the final race to become champion, which she did in fine style by riding away from everyone with Annie Last. She was unfortunately pipped on the line by 2 seconds by Annie, but it's still a brilliant achievement. What a year it's been? Top 30 in the World, 24th at the World Championships, NPS wins and now the overall NPS title. Just brilliant. Have a rest now Kate, you've earnt it.

Kate will be a Cycle Show in London next week with TORQ, and we'll have her 2010 race bike on the Cotic stand which is F12a, so drop in to see the bike Kate will be destroying the competition with next season.