The short travel Cotic Flare is the latest bike in their range to get the longer lower, slacker Longshot makeover. A great do-it-all UK steed?

>>> The new wave of steel frame full suspension bikes

Cotic Flare longshot need to know

• 125mm of Cotic droplink suspension
• Optimised around 140mm forks
• Longshot geometry is specifically designed for 30-45mm stems
• Reynolds 853 Ovalform and DZB tubed front end
• Exclusive Cotic 35mm seat tube
• Internal ‘Stealth’ dropper post remote routing
• Regular threaded bottom bracket
• Rear mech cable routed internally through the steel seatstay
• Dedicated 1x drivetrain design
• Integrated One Up Components Top Guide
• 6066-T6 aluminium swingarm with Syntace X-12 BOOST148 x 12 rear axle
• Bottle mount
• Clearance for 27.5 x 2.6″ tyres
• Sizes – Small (390mm), Medium (425mm), Large (460mm)
• Claimed weight: Gold Spec 29.7lbs

Cy Turner from Cotic sez

For those of you that follow us here at Cotic you’ll have noticed that there’s been a hole in our droplink range of bikes for a little while. After a long wait that hole has finally been plugged with the arrival of the Flare; the final bike in the range to get the Longshot treatment.

We’ve actually been working on the new Flare for around 18 months, with Paul leading the development. However we realised last summer that, although the geometry was sorted, we needed a particular linkage rate for this bike that we simply weren’t going to achieve without a fairly major re-design and re-approval frame. Rather than release a bike simply because it was currently off sale, we worked the extra few months designing and developing and lab testing the new design. And here we are now.

The Flare runs 27.5″ wheels with up to 2.6″ wide tyres, has 125mm rear travel and 140mm front. Splicing the DNA of the Rocket enduro bike with the swift and subtle feel of our legendary Soul hardtail, it’s a lively trail bike, and a brilliant all rounder.

Longshot geometry ensures it’s confident and calm in pretty hectic situations, but where the Flare excels is tight, close quarters technical trail work. Wiggly singletrack, rooty tech, trialsy manoeuvres. The Flare is a technical trail tearaway. Lighter and easier to move around than our MAX 29er bikes, with more compact dimensions than the enduro focused Rocket, and droplink suspension brings more capability than our hardtails. The Flare ducks and weaves, pops and wheelies, scrabbles and clambers in and out of the tightest spaces.

As a droplink bike, it shares all of the clever features we include across the range including the integrated One Up top guide and double duty seatstay pivot / brake bolt.

Like the RocketMAX, the Flare front triangle is made from Reynolds 853 tubing right here in the UK by Five Land Bikes, where the complete frames are also finished.

Frame pricing starts at £1749 with a Hope seatclamp, delivery and the X-Fusion O2 RCX shock. DB Air IL is available for £1999. Bikes start at £2999 for the Silver build, going up to £6099 for the full dreamer Platinum Eagle eeWing build. We have limited stock available now, with more in build due for early May.

All the product information is over on the product page.

The Flare is going straight into demo, so people can get on a bike to try from this weekend in the UK. You can catch up with the dates for demos over on www.cotic.co.uk/demo.

If people know they want a Flare, they can order here and if it’s just a frame they will get it by the weekend:

If you are at London Bike Show this weekend, our friends, suppliers and team sponsor HUNT bike wheels will have a Flare on their stand LB842 with some rather special wheels on it, so get over and see it in the metal.