[Closed] Cotic Roadrat drop bars ❓

I think the rat came in long or short for drops or flats but now only comes in long for flat bars

That's exactly my dilemma 😕

Any one had the experience with the LONG frame as Cyclocross?
Thanks

Yeah, I ran a long Rat with drop bars for a while. I had to go down to, erm, from memory, either a 70mm or 90mm stem from a 120mm one and it was okay, but obviously that's going to depend on your fit to the bike. It was quite stretched out even with a shorter stem, though obviously you can compensate a little by using an in-line post, moving the saddle forward on the rails etc.

Other things I'd say are that the Roadhog fork is pretty harsh off road even with cross tyres fitted. To be honest, if you want a drop-barred Rat, you're probably better off just getting an >X<. I've ridden one of those and didn't really get on with the steering, ended up buying a Soma Double Cross DC instead, but it's not dissimilar to the Rat.

I guess if you have a very long upper body you could possibly get away with the long Rat and drops and my experience was that the bike was stable enough to still work okay with a short-ish stem and drops, but if you're starting from scratch and want a drop-barred Cotic, just buying an >X< seems like a more logical solution. The Rat's nice with flat, narrow bars though.

If it's mostly the singlespeed aspect that's important, which I guess it is, have a look for outboard eccentric bottom brackets which let you run a HT2-type crank-set in a normal frame with about a link's worth of adjustment. I have a Forward Components one on an old ti hardtail and while it's fiddly to set up, it does work pretty well and gives the rear end a super clean look with no tensioners, sliding drop-outs etc. Takes the Hope/Enduro spec HT2 BB bearings.

Thanks Dog
The SS aspect is the one (and the look is in the second place 😉 ).
I am gonna use the Ragley Luxy drops and 420-400 CX carbon fork.
What about the height of the front (HT length), how important it is?
The Rat S frame is 125 mm' the M is 140mm'.
The X M frame is 148 mm'.
Eyal

Well, it's going to impact on the minimum height of your bars, but that's another variable, it might matter, it might not, depends on your preferences. Have you tried the Luxy bars? They have an enormous flare on the drops and not everyone gets on with them. I ended up with Salsa Cowbells which are a lot more subtle, but work really well, though again that's all about personal choice.

Have you dropped Cy a line at Cotic? He's super helpful and has tried all sorts of variations on his own frames, so may be able to give you some informed answers.

I never tried drops, the nearest is my Ragley Carnegie (on Nimble 9 SSR), and I do like wide bars, Salsa is the next option.

Asking CY... the communication with Cotic wasn't so good (maybe my bad luck).

Well good luck with it. I really liked my Rat. It got run with flats, drops, singlespeed, 2x9, 1x9 with cross tyres, slicks, sort of slim 29er tyres and did a whole load of miles as a sort of flat-barred cross bike, come winter training thing, come sort of, erm, hack. Sold it to a mate when I bought my Soma and it's still going strong.

You did helped me and I am now even more convinced about the Rat.
Thanks

I run my large long rat with a 100mm stem and drops, I am 6ft tho with quite long arms. It felt like a bit of a stretch at first but after doing more longer road rides it got more comfortable. I did run it with flats before and played around with a 70mm stem but that felt a little twitchy to me. Any one found a decent disc only carbon fork to run on the front instead of the roadhog?