Right, you can forget your carefully crafted testing here, because I’m not a carefully crafted tester. I don’t have mad skillz, superhuman fitness, or even claim to be anything other than a very average keen mountain biker.
Instead, BM editor, Dave, asked me to ride about on Cotic’s >X< cyclo-cross bicycle from the point of view of a mountain biker who might be wondering if he or she should consider a cross bike.
Which kind of makes sense as the >X< – what are those funny ‘><‘ things for fercrissakes? – is a cross bike desiged by a steelcentric mountain bike company run by a fella, Cy Turner, who readily admits he doesn’t really get on with drop-bar bikes…
Sounds like a recipe for disaster right? Well, maybe. And maybe not. It might just be spot on for mountain bikers. Anyway, here are some first impressions, with a full brain dump to follow.
Rose-tinted Specs…
First, the >X<, oh soddit, the X, in my kitchen is a weekday spec build-up with a couple of upgrades, Cotic’s carbon fork complete with ‘C’ or it ‘S’ logo and Tektro Lyra disc brakes.
You can check the full spec in the BM just arrived article, but obvious bits are that it has pedigree Cotic heritage with skinny steel, ‘almost as good as 853’ FX Cromoly tubes, neat Hexten gussets, a neat ovalised top-tube, and a mix of Sora and Tiagra road bits.
It looks glossy, black and shiny and, well, even for a mountain biker, kind of, erm, sexy.
First Ride… On Road
First time out I noticed the following things – on the road, compared to a mountain bike it has a proper, fast turn of ‘weeeeeee…. here we go’ speed, though it’s not as fast as a slicked-up road bike.
The front end’s quite high and the standard bars, ergo ones, I think, make it hard for inflexible oafs like me to ride in the drops. The steering felt a little lethargic to me, it sort of did nothing intitially then flopped in slightly alarmingly. Some of that might be down to my occasional forays on a fast-steering road bike, but some is deliberate.
Cotic has kept the steering on the slow side because Cy – a time-served mountain biker – liked it that way. Maybe if you’re quicker than me, the slower, more stable steering seems more natural? I don’t know, I just didn’t really like it as standard.
And Off…
So, after a quick tarmac bimble, I took the X onto some easy trails. As a mountain biker you’ll notice a few things, one is that the ride is amusingly springy and the carbon forks make a noticable difference to the ride compared to the harsh, steel ones on my RoadRat.
The second, if you live anywhere hilly, is that the 11-25 cassette combined with a 34-50 road compact crank-set is a bit high for riding up things. It makes it all a bit like a singlespeed, which combined with any sort of looseness and the narrow Conti Race Cyclocross tyres, leads to instant wheel-spin and cessation of upward movement.
It ain’t no mountain bike, that’s for sure, but it fair whizzes along on smoother surfaced stuff and, with some encouragement, will go through anything short of Peak rubble fests. And it makes you think about lines and traction and speed on familiar trails, which is nice. In short, it’s a bit of a game changer.
The third is that while those Conti tyres manage to combine surprising grip with surprising speed on and off road, they’re also surprisingly easy to flat, as in seven punctures on three rides – and that was with constantly increasing tyre pressures.
Tweaking…
I suppose I could have lived with the bars, the gearing, the steering and the ever-flat tyres and grumbled about them, but instead I decided to see if I could tweak the bike to make it work better for me.
That meant some 44cm compact drops – the drop bits are a lot shallower making them easier to use – an 11-32 rear mountain bike cassette, the trusty Maxxis Raze tyres from my Rat and a 20mm shorter than standard, 80mm stem in an attempt to speed up the steering a little.
Of course, that means it’s no longer a standard build, but I figured that’s what an owner would do and while the standard spec might work well for a fast, strong rider like Cy, something more conservative might allow a slower, less skilled bimbler like myself to get more out of the bike.
Sort Of…
Did it make things better? Ha, see the next installment folks, but the short answer seems to be yes, for me anyway, you may differ or have really, really big legs.
And as a mountain biker, what do I make of the whole cross thing? Well, if you ride regularly off road, you’ll probably find yourself taking the X onto your normal trails at first just out of curiosity.
And when you do, you’ll find it, erm, ‘interesting’. I haven’t ridden rigid for years and the combination of that, even with springy frame and fork, and drop bars and skinny tyres freshened-up routine local Peak District trails in an occasionally frightening, but mostly just committing sort of way. I found it would tackle most things short of downhill rubble fests where fat tyres surf but cross ones, well, don’t, but don’t expect a feather-bed ride.
You have to choose lines more carefully, mind the rocks, look out for traction, ride within the limitations of the Lyra brakes, which are okay, but not as good a full-on hydraulics or BB7 mechanicals.
All Mixed Up…
After the novelty’s wore off, what I found the X best for was a mix of back-lane road riding, stringed together with sections of off-road. The relatively big tyres live easy with pot-holed, Martian back lanes that make road bikes wince and swallow things like canal tow-paths and disused railway lines whole.
It’s also a great way of avoiding vile death roads, like the Woodhead Pass with some carefully-chosen off road detours. And you could bang some slicks on and have a perfectly capable winter or summer road bike, if that’s what you want. And it would make a brilliant mixed-up commuter.
Converted? A mountain bike’s more capable off road and a road bike’s better for pure, blurry, tarmac speed, but there’s something quite liberating about being able to combine a bit of both on the same bike and I do really like the way it made trails that are bimbly on a capable mountain bike interesting again and I have the grazes to show for it…
Anyway, that’s an initial take on the thing. More to follow once I’ve ridden it tweaked. Right now, it feels a bit like having taken on someone else’s affable mongrel, with some habits that might be okay down the dog pound, but don’t quite work about the house…
Footnote for proper cross-heads
You’re probably shaking your head pityingly, so a few bits for you. Could you race it? You can race anything, so yes, but as built up, it weighs a whisker under 24lb, so it’s not light for a crosser, but it could be lighter.
Cable runs avoid the oval-shaped top-tube, so you can shoulder it more comfortably. The Sora gear/brake levers on the weekday spec bike mean you can’t up-shift in the drops unless you have hands like a Premiership keeper or weird extended, prehensile thumbs.
The Cotic >X< is available in two specs, the Weekend for £900 (carbon fork is a £100 upgrade) or the £1200 Sunday.
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