Fresh off the launch of the new Cotic Flare, we caught up with Cy, Richard, and Hannah from Cotic Bikes to discuss the brand’s “Sweet 16” years in operation, their history with Cane Creek, and some exciting new initiatives…
What would you do if you wanted to ride a bike that didn’t yet exist? If you’re Cy Turner, you design your own.
In 2002, Cy was a young engineering professional with few “adult responsibilities”: no kids, no mortgage – just a wife and a few dreams. Cy combined his love of cycling with his knowledge of engineering principles and designed the frame he wanted to ride, what would eventually become their legendary hardtail the Soul. Through a little bit of chance and luck, he ended up ordering 100 of them. He sold enough to repay the loan, and poof! Cotic Bikes was born.
Cotic is headquartered in the UK in the heart of the beautiful Peak District, just 20 minutes south of Sheffield, England. The brand was born in 2003 with the Soul, but Cotic now designs and sells hardtail and full-suspension mountain bikes, as well as drop-bar/straight-bar road/gravel/cyclocross utilitarian bikes. Almost their entire range is steel, and each of their products are anchored in five key attributes: fun, durable, clean lines, interactive, and confidence inspiring. Cotic sells consumer-direct globally, and they’ve seen their frames travel to all corners of the globe. Almost every single bike features Cane Creek products including headsets, forks, and shocks, and consumers are able to customize build specs mixing and matching parts to their heart’s content. Cy recalls the beginning of Cotic’s relationship with Cane Creek,
“Cotic started working with Cane Creek on a small scale for headsets in 2011. As a very small brand back then, we appreciated [Cane Creek’s] open, friendly attitude to having our business and treating us as a valued customer despite our small size and modest ordering. This is very much in contrast to the ‘unless you’re ordering $250k worth you aren’t worth my time’ attitude of one or two of the larger suppliers in our industry. I have always appreciated that, and it’s always nice to work with people who respect what you’re doing. Cane Creek have always been that way. When we were coming back into production with the Rocket in 2015, we needed a high end suspension offer to compliment our other options. Cane Creek were the go-to partner. I had been testing the DB Air, and when the DB Inline became available it was the perfect partner for our new bike. Cane Creek were again more than happy to work with a small, but growing business, with very small volumes to start with. However, we were still granted our own part number for the shock, our own base tune and tuning card. This gave our bikes a premium feel when our customers specified the DB Inline shock. It helped us sell the bike. [Editor’s note: Cane Creek works hand-in-hand with select OE manufacturers to achieve a bike-specific tune. Cotic customizes all of the Double Barrel tunes for their bikes – their custom tunes can be found here]
Over the next few years our suspension offering grew and developed out of all recognition, and with now DB Air IL, Coil IL, Air CS and HELM, we have awesome suspension offered on our bikes, which sets us apart from the crowd both in terms of performance and image. Last season Cane Creek took another step of trust with us and become a sponsor to our race team, which has carried through to 2019. We like to race on what we sell, so the fact our biggest selling bikes are equipped with Cane Creek suspension made it a perfect partnership to have the HELM and DB Air CS on the team bikes. Along with this, we are now actively consulted by their engineering and sales teams regarding our needs and preferences, which makes us feel very much appreciated. My highlight of the last Eurobike show was sitting down at the end of a long first day and having a yarn with TR, Luke and Ian. Add in the sales and tech support we get from Bryan and Andrew, we love working with you guys!”
As it turns out, their customers love Cane Creek too. Cotic’s customers get to experience Cane Creek products for the first time on Cotic’s demo tour. Then, when it comes time to order their bike, most of them choose to build or upgrade their bike to Cane Creek because of the products’ performance.
There’s more to Cotic than just developing bicycles. Cotic’s team of professional riders, the Cotic CC, and the Cotic Women of Steel are heavily community-focused initiatives with the goal of promoting and supporting their local riding communities. Richard Baybutt of Cotic notes, “The team will be out on the road this year at the Scottish Triple Crown events, [Enduro World Series] rounds, and other awesome events. The Cotic CC (cycling club) is running and hosting events all over the country exclusively for Cotic owners, hoping to get people riding things they wouldn’t normally get involved with – skateparks, uplifts, ride with the pros, bikepacking, etc. It’s always fun getting out of your comfort zone.”
