cotic-bikes

Hi there. Sorry, the wording isn't great on that bit. The frame price of around US$623 is correct with shipping including. It's £507.50 GBP exactly. But it does have to add shipping to the headline UK/Europe frame price. What IS shipping included is if you purchase a complete bike. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

@mtb-scotland: Ah, well, like I say, it's been a crazy month, and unfortunately due to production 'bumps' with the current situation, we're a few months away from a BFe restock too.

@mtb-scotland: Actually, I've just checked and we are out of stock of mediums aren't we? We have all the other sizes though. It's been a crazy month. I can barely keep up.

@just6979: I am very, very aware of front/rear centre ratio. That's extremely important. However, if those dictate a large wheelbase, I'm not going to shorten a bike just because some people get scared of a long wheelbase because a magazine 20 years ago said that was bad. I went down that road during Longshot geometry development as the bikes were getting very long. Got worried people would be scared off by it. Built a RocketMAX prototype with 'less scary' numbers. It was awful. Went for 1300+ wheelbase and 63.5 deg head angle like I originally got to, and it's awesome. Wheelbase is about the least important number on the whole bike.

Kenny got it right, but FS bikes sag more at the back than the front (typically 30% sag rear, 20-25% front), so our droplink bikes have 75.5-76 deg seat angles, which is actually more like 74-74.5 when you're on board (and actual measurement at saddle height), which is the same as what you have here. We're also not fans of the crazy steep seat angles. They work for short rides and on steep tech climbs, but here in the UK where we have a fair amount of access, but almost no lifts, most peoples' riding involves fairly long steady spins to the top of the hill, where a slightly slacker seat angle lets you "sit off" your wrists and not feel like you're in a half push up position for 30 minutes climbing.

We do have more 29ers than 27.5 these days, but it's all consumer/sales volume driven. We kept the BFe26 in production until last year, which was the point at which the sales dropped below where we could sustain it. Same with the Soul: It's an awesome bike and I love it, but if we can't sell more than one production batch per year, we can't afford to keep it in the range. We're a small company which was running 11 model lines a year ago. That's a lot to deal with!

@just6979: I think that's possible a little harsh, but thanks for the support on the point. You're right about chainstay length, it does need to be in proportion to the bike length overall. Wheelbase is not something I ever consider when designing. It's the thing that drops out the end when all the other important things are decided. As for stem length, that's not my experience. Even going up to a 50mm stem on our current bikes shows a significantly increased tendency for the wheel to tuck when you loose front end grip. Once your hands get in front of the axle on the steering axis, as soon as you loose grip your bars tend to accelerate the situation (tuck, then crash) rather than just transmit the information. I've lost the front end on my bike a few times, and with the short stem, you just kind of realise, then pick the bike back up. It's like everything happens in slow motion compared to the 'front wheel side tuck SMASH' of the old days.

As a rule I agree, but the blue bike is the medium, and this size and the small are tight on packaging around the tyres at this point so a small compromise on the lines had to be made.

Interesting you think the chainstay are short. We were berrated 3 years ago for "going up" to 442mm for the tyre clearance and a better weight balance on 29" wheels. It works because you use a 35mm stem to keep the handling sharp and the weight centred. They'll take way more load on the front than a shorter bike, because the short stem means they have almost no tendency to tuck the front wheel, so you can really get involved. They're ace on corners.

@Solozime: Good to know. Sounds like I need to get one in to have a go on.