The 853 Soul hardtail is a deservedly popular bike, which made Cotic the natural choice when Reynolds wanted to showcase its magical 953 tubing in mountain bike form. This, then, is the one and only 953 Soul in existence, weighing in at around 3.5lb. 953 is a stainless tubeset, so it doesn’t need paint – this is it in the raw.

Looks nice, doesn’t it? Don’t hold your breath for a production model, though – Cotic’s Cy Turner tells us that it’s pretty unlikely to happen (they’d be more expensive than the butted titanium Soda). But never say never…

The frame is adorned with custom seat and head tube badges, and each one is individually numbered.

The Diva is the women’s specific version of the popular 5 full suspension bike. Lower weight, revised geometry and a great colour.

The ever-popular 224 DH chassis gets a couple of updates.

An all-mountain prototype that Orange is “playing with”.

224 gets adjustable head tube to go with the adjustable shock position, so you can now fiddle with the BB height but keep the same head angle.

New through-axle rear takes 135mm hubs but has super-wide axle clamps – Orange’s testing shows that this is where the extra stiffness comes from.

In the “things to watch out for in the future” department is this belt-drive prototype. It uses custom-made sprockets and a Shimano Alfine 8-spd hub gear.

The toothed belt is based on carbon fibre strands and promises zero stretch and long life. It certainly delivers an amazingly smooth and quiet ride.

Hope is working on an outboard-bearing BB. We particularly like the handy spacer-combination aide memoire on the bearing sleeve.

This finned piece of nylon is a mockup of Hope’s forthcoming four-LED light system, which should offer considerably more poke than the existing two-LED Vision.