In the first extract from a newsletter email from last week, Cy writes....
As you're a lovely mailing list subscriber, I wanted you to be the first to know about the new Solaris. The new product page is here:
http://www.cotic.co.uk/product/new_solarisThey are due for delivery mid-August, but you can pre-order yours now, in gloss green with the new style decals, or matte orange with blacklite reflective decals. If you'd like a bit more detail on why we have done the update and how the development went, read on.....
We've revised the geometry and updated a couple of features based on what you guys are actually doing with your bikes, and what we wanted ourselves.
Firstly, no one was using 80mm forks and very few 470mm rigids, and the original frame was designed to use these as a minimum. At the other end of the scale more and more people were using 120mm forks, but this was on the limit of the geometry and did present a bit of a compromise for all round riding.
Secondly, we had successfully developed the small size Solaris which diverged from the original geometry particularly with respect to head angle. As we were limited in terms of how short we could make the frame because of the wheels, we had to accept that shorter riders would use 50mm or even 40mm stems to get a good position, so we slackened the head angle to slow the steering down a little to balance this out. Fast forward 3 years and now most people are looking to run stems down to that kind of length regardless of how tall they are.
Both of these things put pressure on cockpit room. People want shorter stems, but when used with longer forks, the reach of the frame is reduced. Ally this to the widespread adoption of dropper seatposts which usually use an inline clamp and we felt we needed to re-optimise the frame for these kinds of things.
The great thing for this project is that we had applied solutions to all these problems when we developed the OFI geometry on the 27.5 wheel bikes, so it was a matter of applying those ideas for the new bike.
Firstly, OFI dictates that we optimise the reach for the longer fork (in this case 120mm travel) so the reach was reset to the design length we established for the original frame on 80mm travel forks, but with longer forks installed. Secondly, we tweaked the seat angle so it was in a good position for inline seatposts and saddle in the middle of the rails for 120mm forks, so it would still be possible to achieve a good position with 100mm forks but the 120mm setting wouldn't be too far rearward.
The final piece of the puzzle was establishing the new handling layout. Fork offsets have increased for 29er bikes. The 51mm offset that was the sole provision of the Trek Group was made available across the market 3 years ago. The original frame was designed at a time when 44mm offset was the largest available and some 29er forks were still around the 40mm mark, same as 26". This resulted in a steepening of the head angle compared to the smaller wheel bikes to compensate. Larger fork offset reduces trail and lightens the steering.
Having been instrumental in the development of the small frame with the slacker head angle, Paul was convinced this could work for the larger sizes, having tested the small bike with 51mm offset forks from X Fusion (all X Fusion 29er forks are 51mm offset). We have a series of anglesets for the 44mm head tube our bikes use for exactly these kind of situations, so I tried out the 1 deg (net effect 0.7deg slacker head angle, 3mm lower BB) and 1.5 deg options (net effect 1deg slacker head angle, 5mm lower BB) on my large Solaris with 120mm travel Magura TS-8 forks. These have a 46mm offset so would also show whether slackening the angles would have an adverse effect on the forks with a smaller offset. After some back to back testing we found that not only did all the people who tried it prefer the slacker option, it was also faster around our test loop. The geometry was measured and set from this layout, with the OFI rider fit principles applied to bring us to the final layout. Because you can use a short stem and wide bars without compromising the fit on the bike, it still has a lightness of touch in the singletrack which you might find surprising just looking at the numbers. It works better with 120mm forks than the previous bike and is much more at home on rough, high speed terrain. By tightening the window of operation to 100-120mm forks, it works better in both guises than the previous bike.
[ ...see the second extract to read all about the new 275plus option... ]
The frame price remains £499, and the complete bikes with 1x or 2x Deore XT(10 spd)/Hope builds will be available from £2350 with the X Fusion Trace fork, or our new BOS Dizzy option at 120mm travel and £2450 for the bike. The WTB 275+ wheel option is a £75 upcharge. We can also do you a 275 Plus rolling chassis for £1699 including frame, Trace Fork, WTB 275Plus wheels and tyres and Hope headset. Click on the link below to have a look at the options and place a pre-order:
Frames: https://www.cotic.co.uk/order/framebuilder/new_solaris
Bikes: https://www.cotic.co.uk/order/framebuilder/new_solaris/bike
As a result of the new Solaris coming in soon, as of today all remaining stock of medium and small original Solaris is reduced to £375 for the frame. If the original is the bike for you, then orders yours today to avoid missing a complete bargain:
https://www.cotic.co.uk/order/framebuilder/solaris
Hope you like the idea of the new Solaris. It's such a fast, fun bike to ride. As always, drop me a line if you have any questions.
Cheers,
Cy