sorry, modern content: cotic soda (picture heavy)

Hi, here's my cotic soda.

It has a little story to it.

My previous bike (barracuda a2r 1996 ) was damaged by a car crashing into me, my brother, and a friend on the next to last training for 'les chemins du soleil'.
The cuda now has a couple of 'nice' dents, and the hanger for the derailleur is bent. Several other parts are damaged too.
I broke my collarbone and injured my knee. That friend of mine was the least lucky, his knees are terribly damaged, disabling him to walk around for more than 30 minutes. My brother was still able to ride in the 'chemins'. The lucky bastard.
I've hated people in cars ever since the accident happened, ignorant asses, get a bike!
After revalidation, and saving up some money I could buy a new frame.
I bought it from nick on this forum about a year ago i guess, it has taken a while to finish the bike, being a student and all. Here it is, hope y'all like it, and yes, I'm a sucker for gold .

The setup of the bike is as following:
handlebar: syntace duraflite
stem: tune
seatpost: tune
clamp: hope
saddle: tune speedneedle
headset: chris king
fork: fox r100
crank: middleburn rs7
chainrings: middleburn
shifters: x0 gripshifts
pedals: xtr
wheels: hope hubs, ztr olympic rims, dt swiss competition spokes
QR: tune
tires: conti mountain kings
derailleur: x0
front derailleur: xtr
bottom bracket: lx
chain: xtr
cassette: xt
brakes: hope X2 with floating discs
bottlecage: topeak alu

Thanks to fingers for helping me out getting the pics up!

The cuda after taking a beating:

The hanger:

My collarbone:

The new bike:



Yes I need a bleeding kit:

You gotta love those floaters:

Gold - love to see it!

I link to the photos I have in photobucket, using the Img button when composing a message. Any picture hosting service should work the same...

It will look like this



See how you get on

it is certainly very nice....can i ask how those tune saddles fair up off road?

I dont normally like 'new' bikes, but this one has been tastefully built.

Nice.

These saddles are the best i've ever had, they fit me just great. Other saddles have always been a pain in the ass for me. The speedneedle is more comfy, lighter and nicer to look at than any other saddle.
My brother has the marathon version of the saddle, which is claimed to be more comfortable. I've tried it once, but it seemed to wide for me.
But off course that's just my experience on it, other asses than mine might require an other saddle still.

that is so sweet! i'd decided to start saving for a soda frame the other day.

Good for you, I am very pleased with the soda, it's a trailriding machine, has awesome handling to it and has sexy looks. A great bike!

That is very very nice! I wish I had the patience to "buy and build" over an extended period - if I can't finish a bike in a few weeks my attention fails. Mind you, at my age I don't plan far ahead!

very nice. oh, you dont need a bleeding kit to shorten the hoses.

Seriously nice (and tasteful) bit of kit

How do you get on with the Mountain King 2.4 tyres. I've just started using them, despite some bad reviews, and personally find them very good.