Latest version of Cotic’s popular Reynolds-tubed, go-anywhere hardtail 29er. With a total of eight – eight! – bottle bosses on the down tube.

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Complete bikes from £2200.

The geometry remains optimised around 120mm forks. It’s more of an all round XC-trail bike. As Cotic explain, “it’s more about swinging through singletrack than rock smashing.”

The Solaris has always been a popular option for those who like a bit of bikepacking. Hence the large number of bottle bosses on the down tube. Plenty of water-, luggage- and spares-carrying options.

Cotic: “The new batch is broadly similar to the multiple award winning bike, with same head angles, reach, chainstays, and wheelbase. For the new batch, we have steepened the seat angle a little to suit the rangy nature of the Longshot geometry, and we have brought the head tube lengths for the medium, large and XL into line with the MAX droplink bikes, each size growing 10mm, which should be a bit more comfortable.

“There are some new bottle boss locations, with the downtube now lined with bosses at 64mm bottle cage centres. These give you the flexibility to run two bottles (as per the previous bike), or a bottle and an Anything Cage style luggage system. Or a tool keg, or anything else you can bolt to bottle bosses. As ever, they also double up for the neat and tidy p-clipped dropper routing.”

Orders are open now, and the shipment arrives at the end of June.