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TECH NEWS

Just In - Cotic >X< Weekday

Cotic's mud-plugger cum commuter lands at road.cc towers to admiring glances all-round

Regular viewers will have seen us get a quick grope at the Cotic >X< at the Cycle Show a short while ago, and now we’ve got one to play in the dirt with. Hooray.

First thoughts out the box are that it’s a real looker, in its alternative colour to the “Correct For ‘Cross” orange one we saw at the show this is a stealthy gloss black, and we like it, lots. This is the Weekday model, at the magic "Cycle To Work" price-point of £1,000, and straight on the scales sans pedals it's 22.1lbs for the size 56, lighter than we thought it might be.

The frame is made of Cotic FX double-butted steel pipes and it definitely wears its mountainbike heritage on its sleeve. Cotic started life with the Soul mountainbike frame, a steel hardtail that proved quite popular among the off-road types, this led to a range of other MTB frames and then to the traffic-busting and bit-of-everything Roadrat. The >X< definitely looks like a cyclo-cross bike a mountainbiker would want to buy, a radically sloping top-tube, skinny wishbone seatstays, a 135mm rear end to accommodate a mountainbike rear hub for the disc option, cowled dropouts, clearance for fatter than usual tyres and lots of seatpost showing are all a massive come hither eyelash flutter to the gnarly off-road boys to come mix up their pleasures a little bit.

Gussets at the downtube/headtube junction add strength without weight and a matching pair on the chainstays mean the >X< can get away without a chainstay bridge, which helps mud clearance. There's eyelets on the frame and forks for mudguards and/or racks for that 'cross bike adaptability thing and even double bottle mounts on the downtube for epic rides.

Hanging off the frame is a mix of Sora and Tiagra with Cotic branded hardware. The drivetrain is Tiagra with Sora 9spd STIs, a 34/50 Compact linked to a 11-25 cassette with a Shimano chain with a SRAM split-link snuck in there for ease of removal and cleaning.

The Weekday comes with Tektro cantilever brakes but for a £75 upcharge you can have Tektro cable disc callipers fitted as the frame and fork have all the fixings for cantilever, V or disc brakes. The rear brake studs are removable for a clean look if you swap to discs and there’s disc-ready cable-routing down the left-hand seat-stay and a brace between the seat and chainstay to cope with the extra forces, the Cotic Components carbon fibre forks have disc-mounts and canti-studs as standard, and there’s even a little cable-guide on the back of the left leg, which is a tidy touch. Cotic Components disc-ready hubs make the switch to discs easier should you want to, and they're laced to Alex R450 rims with fast running Continental Cyclocross Race 700x35c tyres.

So, in the true British style of using a 'cross bike for a bit of everything the >X< Weekday looks useful for commuting over trashed roads, a dose of off-road thrashing and some CX racing, even at UCI level with discs thanks to the recent rule change, we'll try and do as much of all that as possible and get back to you with our thoughts.
www.cotic.co.uk

Jo Burt has spent the majority of his life riding bikes, drawing bikes and writing about bikes. When he's not scribbling pictures for the whole gamut of cycling media he writes words about them for road.cc and when he's not doing either of those he's pedaling. Then in whatever spare minutes there are in between he's agonizing over getting his socks, cycling cap and bar-tape to coordinate just so. And is quietly disappointed that yours don't He rides and races road bikes a bit, cyclo-cross bikes a lot and mountainbikes a fair bit too. Would rather be up a mountain.

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10 comments

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kelvin | 13 years ago
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>X< takes a 140mm rear disc only

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STATO replied to kelvin | 13 years ago
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kelvin wrote:

>X< takes a 140mm rear disc only

and is a cyclocross bike not a tourer, if you want to fit a rack buy something else, a cotic roadrat if you must (tho i wouldnt, better options out there IMO).

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kelvin | 13 years ago
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The seat stay disc mount is for use with diddy 140mm discs, something that can be tricky if mounting the caliper on the chain stay (it was looked into).

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joules1975 replied to kelvin | 13 years ago
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kelvin wrote:

The seat stay disc mount is for use with diddy 140mm discs, something that can be tricky if mounting the caliper on the chain stay (it was looked into).

Depends on how it's done.

On one have sorted in on their Pompetamine Versa and in-bred frames. OK, with the inbred they do make it clear that certain calipers may not work with 160mm rotors, avid BB7 in particular, but the Pompetamine Versa comes with BB7 160mm discs fitted.

Anything bigger than 160 might be an issue, but I guess it comes down the the angle of the mount compared to the seat stay above it. The trick seems to be to angle to mount forwards, instead of it being along the line of the chain stay, and then dropping the chain stay to make room.

More faff for a frame builder yes, and I guess more expense as a result, but for someone fitting a rack to such a frame, an extra tenner or so on the frame will be made up for by the tenner or more saved on not needing a disc specific rack, and on the reduced faff factor when fitting said rack.

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joules1975 | 13 years ago
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Have Cotic missed a trick by putting the disc mount on the seat stay?

Surely having the disc mount on the chain stay would make the bike that much more versatile (or at least make life easier) by getting the disc calliper out of the way of mudguard and rack stays.

It's where everyone else is moving their disc mounts to!

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dave atkinson | 13 years ago
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yes, there's a special mudguard mount even though there's no chainstay bridge IIRC

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John_the_Monkey | 13 years ago
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Oh bums. Can you fit guards if there's no chainstay bridge...? One of these would make a super nice commuter...

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djtrax | 13 years ago
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Now it's a choice between this and the Kinesis; any recommendations?

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Trev Allen | 13 years ago
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Which road.cc contributor is going to race a Coupe du Monde on this then?

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gbzpto | 13 years ago
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want one

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