26 ain’t dead – Cotic’s new BFe26 redesign

Cotic has announced a complete redesign of their much loved BFe26 hardtail – so they’re resolutely sticking with the 26″ wheel format, which we suspect will make many people very happy.

Like the BFe275 bike, the new BFe26 gets the longer reach and slacker head angle which makes short stems and wide bars soooo much fun to play with. BB drop is 10mm lower than the previous iteration, too. It’ll work as a jump bike with a 100mm fork, or as a trail bike with 120 or 140mm. Cotic even thinks it’ll work as a full-on gnarbike with a 160mm fork…

It seems that the idea is that you can grab one of these and swop the parts from your existing bike over, if you so desire. The press release even says “You can even plug in 27.5″ forks if your 26″ forks are worn out, so long as you keep the 26″ wheels in there.”

A 140mm 26″ fork will net you a 67deg head angle and a 73deg seat angle, 420mm chainstays and a reach of 424.1mm on the medium. You can see the rest of the geometry data with different fork lengths (including 27.5 forks running 26″ wheels) by clicking here.

For more details on the BFe, click here.

Barney Marsh

Barney Marsh takes the word ‘career’ literally, veering wildly across the road of his life, as thoroughly in control as a goldfish on the dashboard of a motorhome. He’s been, with varying degrees of success, a scientist, teacher, shop assistant, binman and, for one memorable day, a hospital laundry worker. These days, he’s a dad, husband, guitarist, and writer, also with varying degrees of success. He sometimes takes photographs. Some of them are acceptable. Occasionally he rides bikes to cast the rest of his life into sharp relief. Or just to ride through puddles. Sometimes he writes about them. Bikes, not puddles. He is a writer of rongs, a stealer of souls and a polisher of turds. He isn’t nearly as clever or as funny as he thinks he is.

Comments (3)

rickonrickon May 20, 2016 at 3:34 pm

Those reach figures don’t look right, they don’t appear to change on the Cotic site – I’d expect at lest a 10mm drop in reach for a 20mm increase in travel.

I’d love to buy another BFe, but I’d want another 30mm on reach in a medium with a 140 fork. and 142×12 is a real killer for me. Although if you’re buying 26er, then those things probably count less.

Fingers crossed for a new 275 Bfe!

rickonrickon May 20, 2016 at 3:36 pm

OK, Cy corrected me: “Reach difference at ride height between 20mm fork increments isn’t even 5mm, not that drastic. Also depends on how much sag etc etc. There’s definitely some longer, slacker hardtails out there, but we still like ours a little more lively.”

kelvinkelvin May 20, 2016 at 4:51 pm

Perhaps the “Large” should be renamed the “Long”.
No need to go with a medium, plenty of standover on the bigger size.

Comments Closed