Cotic X - anyone got one ?

DeVlaeminck

Got an option to buy a used one of these - disc brakes. Looking at something for a mixture of road and trail type rides rather than a racer. Anyone had one and got an opinion ?

ddraver

I don't but I have a Cotic MTB. They re great bikes in a traditional British way. I guess it's similar to the gravel/cross discussion we ve had too eh?

I have seen them in the flesh and they look gorgeous too.

DeVlaeminck

Yes looking at gravel bikes I decided the one I wanted was a Rose DX 2000 with hydraulic but it's £1400 and then if I want to go on a cross type blast I need to take the mudguards off.

The alternative which I'm thinking makes more sense is to buy this Cotic second hand and I have a chorus 11 spd groupset in the garage which I could stick on my old Principia AS winter bike and give it a new lease of life and spend the grand on something else like a track bike !

ddraver

Sounds good - the only thing I can think of is that it looks likley that it would have cable disc brakes ratehr then Hydraulics (unless the owner has upgraded them)

DeVlaeminck

No you are right it is cable discs and ideally I'd have hydraulic but they should be many times better than cantis at least.

veronese68

The only problem with the Cotic X is it has canti bosses on it which spoil the look a little. As with Ddr I highly rate my Cotic MTB. The cable discs should be a lot better than canti's. I used to have BB7's before I got a Parabox at a bargain price. They were vastly better than canti's, but the semihydraulic just feel better. Hard to explain how.

mattsccm

Had one since Jan 2011
Canti bosses unbolt and the bracket left on the left is a great place to run the brake cable through. I used a bit of Mechano and a cable tie. Better line than the factory one which goes under the seat stay.
Early ones have no thread in the BB shell for mudguard mounts. Well mine hasn't and Cotics answer was "tough".
Tyre clearance isn't huge. I have a 40mm road tyre in the back. A knobbly of that size wouldn't fit.
Paint lacquer is censored . Scratches/goes matt very quickly. Carbon forks are fine but steel ones less so. An Identical brake set up is silent on carbon but squeals on steel.
Handles ok but is definitely a cluncker.
As far as I can see most of these modern steel tubesets that are "unique" to a bike builder as not much more than gas pipe. Clever names hide nothing. Mine is heavier than my 531 Raleigh F&F which is a good size bigger. Maybe a bit stiffer round the BB but that's not an issue with this sort of bike.
Over priced from new, knowing what I do now but there was less out there when I bought it. Had several Kaffenback's and they ride much better. Original Tektro Lyra brakes are awful. Bin them.
It served well as a heavily laden tourer and I doubt I'll sell it but wouldn't miss it.

DeVlaeminck

Thanks - they seem to get mixed reviews. He is looking for £350 for it with 105, it'll be well used but well looked after. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of these kind of bikes (disc braked big tyre road/cross) probably because their popularity is recent.

ddraver

For sure - Cotic were ahead of the curve on this one. It was almost designed as a road going MTB than a 'cross bike...

veronese68

I suspect you won't get much with discs for that price. Might be worth looking at used Croix de Fers as they've been around for a while, or Kaffenbacks as mentioned above.

DeVlaeminck

Yes to be honest I think I'm going to have it - I sold my cross bike for £220 at the weekend and I reckon this is a better bike for what I want to use it for - going out on my own and turning down any bridal way or tow path I fancy. I like the orange anyway and if a bit of patina just means I don't have to worry if I drop it.

DeVlaeminck

Didn't get it in the end - nice bike just didn't feel the braking was as good as I'd hoped.