New hardtail...Cotic BFe

[Mindmap3]

Took the BFe for its first ride today, sessioning some jumps, drops and DH runs in the local woods...it's got dust on it! It was absolutely bone dry which was ace (Cannock yesterday was a mix of snow, ice, mud, water and dust, all in the space of a 15 mile loop).

It rides pretty well. I can't tell that much difference to an aluminium frame if I'm honest, but it is certainly more forgiving than the Tazer was. It's harder to hop stuff than the Lopes was, but it feels much more stable despite being diddy. The brakes are a massive improvement too. Happy bunny!

The trails were nice too...it was nice following people down and seeing dust being kicked up in the berms! Having not done much mucking about on jumps for a while I was a bit out of practice but go better and more confident.

Here are a couple of better pics of the complete bike in daylight.

You'll have to exclude the angle of the saddle...on a new run I hit a drop that was bigger than I was expecting and I managed to just land on the back of the saddle which wasn't done up as tight as it should have been. All sorted now though.

 

[reanimation]

What stem length you running? I'm still getting used to suspension up front and soo much of it but I'm really thinking the stems too long on mine, really umm ing and arring about a 50 on the Bfe instead of 70, or narrower bars... I've been out dusting it up on our super local tight man made trails this morn, that was on the little 24" Rhythm, at first I thought it was too small, and pondered a longer stem, but after blasting round twice, no suspension, steep head angle, and 50mm BMX stem and tall 700 wide it really began to feel like a sharp tool! Snapping wherever I put it.

 

[Mindmap3]

I'm running a 50mm stem with 760mm bars.

50mm stems are all I'll use or recognise as a stem. Out longer is a girder! Even on my XS, it felt fine, no knees banged on the bars.

It felt a little bit odd at first after the SX yesterday (which in itself felt odd after two months of road riding only) but I got used to it pretty quickly. It's a hoot though and did well in the tighter berms.

 

[cyfa2809]

50mm stems are all I'll use or recognise as a stem. Out longer is a girder! Even on my XS, it felt fine, no knees banged on the bars.

Haha im pretty much the same.

 

[reanimation]

ah maybe it's just heavier to loft then!! Said before mine feels tad stodgy but that's to do with heavy build.

It looks ace by the way, those tarty hoses paid off!

 

[Mindmap3]

It is a little bit porkies than the other bikes, but I think it may be because its a bit slacker.

The wheels are pretty heavy and certainly account for quite a lot of the weight, but they're mega tough so probably good for some if my less than smooth landings! Riders have been busy with new ones all over the place, some of which I rode blind and got caught out by the size if some of the drops!

There were two guys on DH bikes who have built a massive gap jump. Was genuinely quite surprised how big it was...ont think I'll be riding that any time soon!

 

[Mindmap3]

Slight update...I've changed the grips because the old ones were killing my hands and I decided to change the pedals because the old Azonics that were on it before weren't all that grippy. Whilst doing so I decided to tweak the colour scheme, inspired by Reanimation's BFe so chose orange for both. Also added some orange rotor bolts.

I like it because it matches the orange logo on the saddle, the orange demon in the head tube badge and the cover on the top race of the headset. The pedals are gripper and the grips are loads more comfortable.

I've also got some new forks for it too...some all black 2004 Z1 Freerides with a boot through axle. Just need to arrange when to collect them.

 

[Mindmap3]

Few more changes to the BFe...

2004 Marzocchi Z1 Freerides with QR20 axle
Chris King headset
X0 rear mech in orange

I changed the forks purely because I wanted some black forks, it took a while to track some down a pair for sensible money. I had a 20mm conversion kit from some hubs that I bought from b7stards. I gave thema quick service before I fitted them and was glad I did because the oil was black as anything. These old bombers are super easy to service so it didn't take too long the only tricky bit was the oil heights because an old PDF from the Windwave website didn't tie up with the info on the Marzocchi website. Turns out the Marzocchi website was wrong because when I put their stated oil in, I got hydraulic lock out. Oil removed to the Windwave volume and they are now super smooth and working well.

I ended up changing the headset because the race for the Crank Bros headset is made from cheese. Despite removing it very, very gently from the previous forks it refused to set properly on the new forks. It seems to have stretched, do I poped in the Kint that I bought from another me begin here that was originally destined for the SX.

The rear mech was swapped because my old X9 is dead...it's lost all of its spring tension which means it flops about too much over the rough stuff. So much in fact that it was allowing the chain to flick forward, jump off the chainring and jam in the chain device. The jockey wheels were mega worn too; like ninja stars! I managed to source an X0 mech in orange to match the new bits and dropped it on the floor when cleaning it and I broke one of the jockey wheels so its now sporting some CNC ones.

Anyway, enough rambling here are some pics (excuse the fence, it's not ours and we keep whining at next door to sort it, but our words fall on deaf ears). The garden is also only part way through being reclaimed from the winter so is a bit of a mess.

Looking forward to riding it on Sunday to see if the new forks are any stiffer with the QR20 axle.

 

[reanimation]

Nicely done, Loving all the white and orange bits. Great quality bike despite the used bits off the old one. Very nice, plenty of new and nice kit.

See how ya get on next session.

 

[Mindmap3]

Another update...

In an attempt to she'd some weight I decided to treat the BFe to some new wheels - a set of heavily reduced Hope Hoops from Wiggle. U was a bit late to the party so all of the tubeless jobbies had gone so I settle for some EN521's on Pro II Evo hubs. The change shed just over 400g which is a reasonable amount. The noise of the freehub does my head in a bit though, especially when riding on your own.

Here are a few pics.

The bike does feel a bit more lively when pedalling so I guess you can say that the change was worth it. No other upgrades planned for it now, so it's a case of riding it and changing stuff when it breaks.