COTIC FLAREMAX GOLD GX EAGLE

British steel specialist Cotic forges ahead again with upgraded geometry and flexible speccing

- Jamie Darlow

Longer, lower, slacker. Three words that have come to define the development of mountain bikes over the past five years, describing in one pithy phrase the great leaps forward modern bikes have made.

The latest buzz word though is ‘steeper’, with brands pushing hard to make their seat tubes more vertical — Norco, Evil, Calibre, Nukeproof, Specialized and more have all steepened up the actual seat tube angle on their latest bikes. The FlareMax is now in its third frame generation, and it too has that vertiginous feeling, adding two degrees in actual terms to that seat tube angle.

We’ll come to the details later though, because the bike needs something of an introduction. The FlareMax has 125mm travel delivered through its linkagedriven single-pivot suspension design; that’s an increase of 5mm from the old bike and a change Cotic says is down to a shock position tweak.

Made from a blend of Reynolds 853 steel tubing combined with an alloy swingarm, the bike looks unpretentious and workmanlike. Cotic hasn’t tried to hide all the cabling inside those tubes either, something that appeals in the workshop if not the showroom floor.

Max means it runs on 29in wheels, and you get 130-140mm travel up front, depending on the specification options, delivered either through a Cane Creek or X-Fusion fork. There are three basic builds, Silver, Gold and Platinum, but delve into each of these and you can specify either a SRAM or Shimano drivetrain. That’s not the end of the fettling though; you can change pretty much anything and Cotic will automatically price it up for you — even to the point of sending in your own parts and having Cotic build them into your bike.